Titans safety Kevin Byard declined to say much about his reaction to the team asking him to take a pay cut at the start of the offseason when he spoke to reporters at minicamp, but he’s now shared a bit more about his response.
During an appearance on the Bussin’ With The Boys podcast, Byard said that he was in Cabo on vacation with his family when his agent told him about the request from the team. Byard said that he thought the team was going to discuss a contract extension that would help put him on track to stay with the team for his entire career, so he was surprised to hear that things went a different way with General Manager Ran Carthon.
Byard said he “had to kinda go dark for a little bit” after hearing the request and said that he felt “silence is golden” when explaining why he didn’t make any immediate public comments. Byard said on the podcast that while he understood that requests like that come after changing General Managers, he didn’t like that it hit the media because he didn’t share the request with anyone. He didn’t take part in voluntary work ahead of the minicamp appearance, but said that there’s no “ill feelings” for the team at this point.
“It was very easy to be emotional because I’d be lying if I didn’t say I felt a way about it,” Byard said. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t [react] like ‘What? They asked for what?’ But at the same time, you can’t be emotional in business. If you make an emotional decision within y’all business, more than likely it’s going to be bad business. I had to find a way to compartmentalize everything and keep my emotions out of it when I’m making these different decisions and stuff like that. It happened. I think we’re in a good place right now.”
Byard noted that it is unusual for players to remain on the roster after refusing to take a pay cut, but that’s how it appears things will play out in Tennessee so Byard will likely be extending his streak of consecutive games played to 115 in Week One.
