Jason Wolf

jwolf@tennessean.com

The story of the 2016 Tennessee Titans revolves around a first-year general manager, a head coach’s third chance, a 53-man roster and to a lesser extent, one dead stuffed beaver.

The furry animal has been an often inconspicuous but regular presence at the NFL team’s practice facility since training camp. Its name is Steve. It’s wearing a hat. And it belongs to left tackle Taylor Lewan.

“It’s Taylor’s beaver,” center Ben Jones said. “All we know is it’s his. It sits over there in his locker.”

And by the defensive backs. And wide receivers. And on the sinks by the showers, its sharp claws and painted-red tongue jutting toward its rigid webbed feet.

None of the players ask questions.

And nobody will touch it.

“He just put it over here and sat it here and just walked away,” Curtis Riley said.

“I don’t know its name, or what’s going on with it,” Jason McCourty said.

“It’s pretty creepy,” LeShaun Sims said.

“I don’t know nothing about that beaver. I don’t want to talk about that damn beaver. Taylor better not bring that damn beaver back over here,” Daimion Stafford said.

Lewan, a man who appreciates impractical gifts, received the critter in July from his fiancée, Taylin Gallacher. It was his birthday. They were at a restaurant.

But it wasn’t the first time he and Steve had crossed paths.

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“So there’s this place called hatWRKS downtown on Eighth Avenue,” Lewan explained, “and I went in there one time and (they) had a beaver with a hat on it, and I thought it was so funny, so I told Taylin, my fiancée. I was like kind of talking about a beaver for the longest time, and then she threw me a surprise party for my birthday, and she had the beaver there. But it had like a cigarette in its mouth and a pair of Vans on with glasses. So it’s a pretty sweet deal. It’s pretty cool.

“I brought it during training camp just to have, just a little comedic relief from the hell that is training camp. And Steve stayed.”

The defensive backs agreed it’s the weirdest thing they’ve ever seen in a locker room.

Tight end Delanie Walker does not think it's weird.

He has a stuffed yak head on a wall at home, brought by an interior decorator. It’s also wearing a hat.

“I put a hat on my yak,” Walker said. “It just felt naked and needed a hat, so I put a hat on him.”

Former Titans quarterback Jake Locker was known to have a garage full of taxidermy animals, Walker said.

“And they’ve got this taxidermy shop out here in Nashville,” he said. “They’ve got a (expletive) monkey. A monkey!”

“I’ve got ‘death rooms’ in my house,” said tight end Phillip Supernaw, who hunts ducks, geese and deer and takes pride in his stuffed badger. “It ain’t that expensive. That’s what I call them.”

Lewan doesn’t believe Steve is of particularly high quality.

“It’s like the worst taxidermy beaver ever,” he said. “If you feel its stomach, it feels like it’s like paper mache or something like that in there. It’s weird. But I love this thing. It’s awesome.

“I’m not big into taxidermy. It’s, like, not my thing. But I guess this beaver’s my thing.”

Some other Titans take the beaver’s presence in stride.

“He has an amazing attitude. Never complains," wide receiver Harry Douglas laughed.

“I have no idea what’s the deal with Taylor,” right tackle Jack Conklin said.

“It’s Taylor,” offensive lineman Dennis Kelly said, then shrugged. “He’s eccentric.”

Reach Jason Wolf at jwolf@tennessean.comand follow him on Twitter at@JasonWolfand on Instagram and Snapchat at TitansBeat.

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