Titans' Mariani suffers shoulder injury

Tennessee Titans return man Marc Mariani had risen back to the top of the depth chart in the return game for the preseason opener Thursday night.

That was no small accomplishment, given the gruesome leg injury Mariani suffered in the preseason last year.

Now, Mariani's comeback has hit another less ominious, but still worrysome, snag. He suffered a right shoulder bruise that will keep him out of practice and preseason for a couple of weeks. That means he will miss valuable time as he battles to earn a roster spot for 2013.

“Sometimes you get thrown challenges that kind of test you a little bit. I have a lot of time to think about my leg and really come back from it and to that,” Mariani told TitanInsider. “To work that hard and come back from it, this is definitely gonna be a hurdle for me. But it's one of those things that it happened, but I've got to man up and just keep grinding and do what the docs tell me and see where the cards fall.”

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Terry McCormick covers the Titans for TitanInsider.com