Former Tennessee players were scattered across Thursday’s NFL preseason slate, with Josh Dobbs set to dress for the Detroit Lions and Dont'e Thornton and Jermod McCoy listed with the Las Vegas Raiders. It was a small but telling snapshot of how far the Tennessee Volunteers’ roster tree reaches now, from quarterback depth charts to special-teams and developmental spots.
Dobbs is the name drawing the most attention because he was not just on a preseason roster, he was in a battle to become the No. 2 quarterback on the Detroit Lions depth chart. That gives his appearance a different weight than the usual August window dressing: he is fighting for a role, not simply collecting snaps. Cade Mays, Jabari Small and Tyre West were also with Detroit, though Mays remained injured, which trimmed the group of former Vols who could actually make an on-field impact.
The rest of the board shows the same spread. The Green Bay Packers had Kamal Hadden and McCallan Castles on the roster, with Hadden coming in as a former Vols cornerback expected to be a priority rotational player this season and Castles listed as a former Tennessee tight end. The Las Vegas Raiders had two former Vols in Thornton and McCoy, while the Pittsburgh Steelers had zero former Vols and the Arizona Cardinals had no former Vols at all.
That split matters because this is not just a Tennessee story; it is a preseason roster story built around who has a chance to play when the Thursday whistle blows. The names are spread across several teams, but the real question now is narrower: which of them gets actual game reps, and which ones are only there to fill out an August depth chart?
For fans tracking former Tennessee players, Thursday offered a clean way to follow one college program through the NFL preseason without needing to search far. Dobbs gives the clearest reason to watch because of his quarterback fight, and the Raiders’ pair gives another, but the first test comes the same night for all of them: who is still standing, and who is still on the field, when the preseason slate ends.
