STORY BY RICK WOODALL
Photography Provided by the Tennessee Titans
Editor’s Note: This story was finalized for print during the NFL preseason. Though he wasn’t named to the Tennessee Titans’ active roster coming out of training camp, Mason Kinsey has been signed to the team’s practice squad, allowing him to continue pursuit of additional regular-season playing time as he enters year six of his professional football career.
Anyone familiar with The Little Engine That Could can appreciate the journey traveled by Mason Kinsey (21C).
Not unlike the aforementioned blue locomotive chugging “I think I can! I think I can!” while straining to pull a heavy train over a mountaintop, Kinsey has spent much of his life striving toward the seemingly insurmountable goal of a career in the National Football League.
From roots in rural Northeast Georgia to NCAA Division III stardom at Berry to five on-again, off-again years mostly with the Tennessee Titans, he has clawed for every inch of attention and respect due his desire, work-ethic and pass-catching prowess.
There have been several “I thought I could! I thought I could!” moments along the way, perhaps none more impressive than last December when Kinsey reached the threshold necessary for “vested” status as an NFL player. In that instant, he felt a “significant weight” lifted from his shoulders, knowing he had gained access to financial benefits extending beyond his playing days, including a pension.
“Trying to be the head of a household and wanting to be able to take care of the people you love is a big thing,” he explained. “To be able to walk away from this game with something that gives me some security and benefits for my family was really important to me.”
Embracing the climb
Kinsey has been toting a football since he learned to walk, yet the game he plays is no longer that of a child. Foremost, it’s a job offering opportunities but no guarantees.
The glamour many associate with professional sports is largely absent the life of those on the periphery of an NFL roster. During the season, it’s a daily 8-to-5 grind of meetings, practice and more meetings, all with the goal of being listed among the 50-some-odd players named to the active roster for that week’s game. Each team carries additional players on its practice squad, all working toward the same breakthrough.
Kinsey does everything he can to maximize his chances, from showing up early to stepping into whatever position is needed to help the Titans prepare for gameday. Through five years he’s never missed a practice, participating even with a stitched-up ankle and a broken hand.
“I tell people all the time that practice squad is not for the weak,” he related. “You’ve got to be able to run all day, every day, no questions asked.”
Every season begins in the heat of summer with Kinsey laser-focused on making the opening-day roster and playing in every game. While his pursuit of those goals continued in the 2025 preseason, the 5-foot-11 receiver takes pride in his 15 career regular-season appearances, each attesting to his ability to keep himself in the conversation for a greater role on the team.
“I want it to be hard for them to keep me out,” he declared. “My mindset every single year, every single camp, is I want there to be a discussion. I want someone to be able to say, ‘You’ve got to keep him.’”
Building up steam
Kinsey’s dream of an NFL career dates to childhood, but his evolution into a professional football player kicked into high gear at Berry. He arrived accomplished but not polished, carrying a chip on his shoulder after being denied the NCAA D-I football scholarship he felt he’d earned as a two-time All-Region performer at Habersham Central High School.
Berry proved to be the perfect destination, affording him the opportunity to be part of an ascending football program that was just beginning its current run of 10 consecutive winning seasons. Whereas Kinsey’s high school experience was defined by upheaval and inconsistency (three head coaches and a 3-37 record over four years), the Vikings boasted an up-and-coming staff whose exacting standards challenged him to work harder than ever before.
“Within two practices, I had three times as many ‘loafs’ as anyone else,” he recounted, echoing the criticism leveled by then-position coach Ossie Buchannon (now an assistant at Kennesaw State University). “I didn’t really know how to practice. I didn’t know what the good habits were. He helped me tremendously.
“That’s one of the main reasons that I’ve stuck around in the NFL so long,” Kinsey added. “Now I know how to practice, go full throttle, take care of my teammates and do things the right way. Everybody doesn’t play and practice that way.”
Other Berry influences included then-Offensive Coordinator Rich Duncan (now head coach at Rhodes College) and head coach Tony Kunczewski, who became a “father figure” to the aspiring pro.
Kinsey also benefitted from direction provided by Derek Taylor (FFS), his work supervisor in the Cage Center. Assisting with scheduling and other operational duties eventually inspired a shift in major from sports communication to sports administration (now sport leadership and strategy) for the Gate of Opportunity Scholar, but one goal dwarfed all others.
“The two things that stuck out to me about Mason were his work ethic and unwavering belief that he was going to make it as a professional football player,” Taylor shared. “When he first told me he wanted to play in the NFL, I probably said something to the effect of ‘that’s awesome, keep chasing it,’ but in the back of my mind I’m thinking he better have a backup plan. I’m not sure he ever really did. He was that focused on achieving his dream.”
Gaining traction
Though competing in relative anonymity compared to those at high-profile D-I institutions, Kinsey eventually caught the attention of the Buffalo Bills and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who invited him to a showcase event at the University of West Georgia in March 2019.
That fall, a steady stream of NFL scouts turned up at Berry games to watch the third-team All-American help the Vikings win their fourth consecutive Southern Athletic Association championship and make a third straight appearance in the D-III national playoffs.
He ended his career as Berry’s all-time leading receiver, ultimately tallying nearly 4,000 all-purpose yards (3,343 receiving) and 53 touchdowns (50 receiving). But while his playing days on Williams Field at Valhalla were done, Kunczewski soon called with news that one more college game awaited.
“He said, ‘We got something in the mail for you. You might want to come open it NOW,’” Kinsey recalled. “When I got there, the envelope said East-West Shrine Bowl. I was like, ‘There’s no way I got invited to this game.’
“I got to line up with guys who played at Alabama, Florida, LSU and every other school in between,” he added of his participation in the annual all-star game. “That was a lot of fun.”
Kinsey didn’t just compete; he proved he belonged, prompting profootballnetwork.com to conclude that he “may have helped himself the most of any player in attendance.”
Straining for success
Growing up in tiny Demorest, Georgia, Kinsey started playing receiver at the behest of Tavarres King, a hometown hero who competed for the University of Georgia and later in the NFL. That switch was a necessity for the then-middle schooler as “people started outgrowing me.”
Signed by the Tennessee Titans as an undrafted free agent in the COVID spring of 2020, Kinsey found himself facing giants once again. Similar to his early days at Berry, the learning curve proved steep.
“You know all they need is one reason to cut you, and you feel like all the weight is on your back,” he expressed. “To go out there and perform your best while trying to learn how to be a pro is a hard thing.”
Kinsey wound up being cut by both the Titans and the New England Patriots during his rookie year without appearing on an active roster or playing in a game.
“By the time Thanksgiving came around, I’m back in Habersham,” he lamented. “I had left Berry a semester early, so I didn’t have a degree, and no one’s calling.”
The new year brought renewed hope in the form of that Berry degree – completed while Kinsey served as a volunteer assistant for the Vikings during their abbreviated spring season – and an invitation to rejoin the Titans.
In August 2021, he finally got to don his helmet and pads and run out of the tunnel to cheers from family and friends for a preseason game played fittingly in Atlanta. Kinsey made the most of the experience, leading both teams in receptions (4) and yards (51).
“That was just a great sense of relief for me,” he stated. “I felt like I had done enough in my first-ever time stepping on the field that even if it didn’t work out I was going to be OK.”
A week later, he scored his only NFL touchdown to date during another preseason game in Tampa, immediately delivering the ball to his mother in the stands.
Kinsey didn’t make the Titans’ season-opening roster but was signed to their practice squad. In late October of that year, he was elevated to active status for a home game versus Kansas City, seeing action as a punt returner and receiver in his NFL debut.
“I wasn’t nervous, just excited. It’s just ball at the end of the day,” Kinsey said in an article written by the late Jim O’Hara (FFS) for Berry’s athletics website. “I’ve dreamed about this for a long time, and now I got to go out and do it for real.”
Kinsey, left, with Titans quarterback Cam Ward and head coach Brian Callahan during minicamp. Ward was the No. 1 pick in last spring’s NFL Draft.
Still chugging
After appearing in one regular-season game in 2021, Kinsey doubled that number the following year, notching his first career catch against the Indianapolis Colts.
“At that point, I’d been on the practice squad for three years,” he described. “I’d been up and down and up and down and up and down, but it was really only returning punts. I’ve never concentrated more on a 3-yard out route in my entire life. I was like, ‘Just catch it!’”
Kinsey has appeared in 12 additional regular-season games (six each in 2023 and ’24) since that time, adding three more receptions to his total to go along with 19 career punt returns for 138 yards. Given the grueling nature of the sport and the uncertainty of never quite knowing whether his best will be good enough, he could have walked away at any point, content in the knowledge that he’d chased his dream further than most would have dared.
Instead, he’s continued to grind forward, embodying Proverbs 14:23, the scripture reference tattooed on his chest: “All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.”
Kunczewski, for one, isn’t surprised.
“Mason is such a great representation of our school and program,” the longtime coach praised. “He’s a competitor. He will not quit when things get tough. He works even harder.”
That’s how mountains are conquered.
