Commercial Truck Insurance in Nashville, TN

NASHVILLE – The Titans have some key pieces in place at the wide receiver position.

Now, it's a matter of how they'll use them, starting with DeAndre Hopkins and the recently signed Calvin Ridley.

"Being able to move Calvin around is going to be exciting," Coach Brian Callahan said. "But I think the other guys, being able to move those guys around, too, will be helpful. Moving Hop around, trying to get him some matchups, put his skill set in good position against lesser players. We'll see what Treylon (Burks) can do as we move him around.

"I just think it's a good group that has some flexibility, particularly with Calvin. I think he has played all over the formation, so that part to me is exciting."

Earlier this month, the Titans added the 6-foot-1, 190-pound Ridley, who amassed 76 catches for 1,016 receiving yards and eight touchdowns for the Jaguars in 2023 while playing in all 17 games.

In Tennessee, he'll join forced with Hopkins, who led the team with 75 catches for 1,057 yards and seven touchdowns in 2023.

But the Titans will have more in the mix as well.

Callahan made a point of bringing up Burks, a first round pick of the Titans in the 2022 NFL Draft, during his media session at the NFL Owners Meetings, and he also discussed returning receivers Kyle Philips and Nick Westbrook-Ikhine.

"I'm excited to see what Kyle can do," Callahan said. "Obviously the injury bug has hit him a little bit. I liked him coming out of college. I thought he had a chance to be a good slot style player. So, I'm excited to see what he brings. … And, Nick has earned his way. His journey has been impressive, what he has done and how he has done it. And there's value in guys that can go plug in places like he has. I've always liked his ability to run routes. He's been a productive player. For those types of guys, we can find roles for.

"I think it's a good group. We've made it a pretty robust receiver room that has a lot of opportunities that are going to come their way."

While speaking at the NFL Owners Meetings, Hopkins raved about Ridley, a player he's trained with in the past.

He's looking forward to seeing what they can do together, no matter where they line up.

Hopkins, too, is intrigued by the possibility.

"(Calvin) and I on the field, it's going to be hard to key on one of us," Hopkins said. "I think it is only going to make defenses have to prepare a little harder for us this year. … I think my game is not just being on the outside, or on the inside. I've tried to take pride in that over the past couple of years, focusing on beating guys on the inside. Earlier in my career I was just kind of really on the outside, and I realized that I could have success everywhere on the field. And I think just utilizing me wherever I am needed, if it is blocking, chipping, doing whatever I need. Wherever I can be useful, that's where I'll be.

"I think the sky is the limit (for this offense), especially after getting a guy like Calvin. So I am very excited about this offense."

The Titans, of course, still have other avenues to add to the group, including the NFL Draft. Picking at No.7, they'll have the opportunity to snag an impact player there, too. It's just a matter of what position.

Titans General Manager Ran Carthon said he's considering everything at this point.

It's fun, when he also considers this: Hopkins and Ridley are tone-setters, and leaders.

"I think they'll help each other tremendously," Carthon said. "Two seasoned guys who are good route runners, who catch the ball well. The cool things for those two is they trained together last offseason, so they have seen each other work and they'll push each other."

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The pilot of a single-engine plane that crashed near downtown Nashville told air traffic controllers he could see the runway they were clearing for an emergency landing. But he said he couldn’t reach it.

“I’m going to be landing — I don’t know where!” the pilot said before the plane crashed alongside Interstate 40, killing all five people aboard.

The pilot had another adult and three children on board, National Transportation Safety Board investigator Aaron McCarter said at a Tuesday news conference. He said the five were Canadian citizens and the agency is working with the Canadian government to determine their identities.

He said it is too early to know what caused the crash. Investigators do not yet know the pilot’s qualifications or how many flight hours he had, but his experience is one of the things they will be investigating.

The pilot radioed air traffic controllers at around 7:40 p.m. Monday reporting that his engine had shut down. He said he had overflown John C. Tune airport, just west of downtown, at 2,500 feet and had circled around in an attempt to land, according to a recording of their radio transmissions.

They cleared runway two at the airport, and urged him to glide the plane down. But the plane had already descended to 1,600 feet (488 meters) by then, he said.

“I’m too far away. I’m not going to make it,” he said.

That was the last they heard from the plane, which dropped off radar as it lost altitude.

The plane crashed as Matthew Wiser was driving on the interstate, and he posted a photo of the fiery wreckage on social media.

“I saw an airplane essentially crash out of the sky, fall out of the sky, and hit the ground at around a 45 degree angle,” Wiser said in a phone interview. “When it hit the ground, there was a 30 to 40 foot explosion of fire. And all of the traffic on the interstate stopped and kind of processed what they saw.”

Air traffic controllers then directed a helicopter crew to survey the approach to the airport in search of the plane, while keeping other aircraft out of the emergency area. Within minutes, a flood of emergency vehicles were speeding to the scene, Wiser said.

They discovered that the plane burst into flames in the grass, just off the highway and behind a Costco on the city’s westside, about 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) south of the general aviation airport.

There were no injuries to drivers on the interstate, Nashville Fire Department spokesperson Kendra Loney said. Authorities said no vehicles or buildings on the ground were damaged.

The plane referred to in the radio recordings was a Piper PA-32R, made in 1978 and based in Ontario, according to Canada’s civil aircraft registry.

The flight originated in Ontario and made stops along the way that were likely to gas up, including in Erie, Pennsylvania, and Mount Sterling, Kentucky, McCarter said. Before the pilot radioed in the emergency, the plane had been on a normal flight track with no mechanical irregularities reported while it flew in from the Kentucky airport, McCarter added.

The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating. McCarter said they packed up the wreckage for transport to a facility in Springfield, Tennessee, where the plane will be reassembled.

Investigators do not know why the pilot decided to circle the airport before the crash, he said. He mentioned that the plane’s approach was perpendicular to the interstate when it hit the ground.

The NTSB will have a preliminary report out in about 10 days. The full report will take about nine months.

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Associated Press contributors include Sarah Brumfield in Silver Spring, Maryland, and Julie Walker in New York.

A new barbecue restaurant from a James Beard Award-winning pitmaster is slated to open in Nashville next month. Rodney Scott’s Whole Hog BBQ will open in downtown Nashville inside Chief’s at 200 Broadway starting Friday, April 5.

Rodney Scott’s Whole Hog BBQ — which has four locations around the southeast — capitalizes on Scott’s upbringing in South Carolina with Carolina-influenced cooking techniques and dishes. On the menu: pork skin nachos topped with pulled pork, white sauce, and serrano peppers; smoked chicken wings; catfish served with hushpuppies; and a Carolina whole hog mopped with Scott’s vinegar pepper sauce. Desserts include banana pudding, apple hand pie, and chocolate hand pie.

Behind the restaurant is the Pihakis Restaurant Group (Hero Doughnuts, Tasty Town, and Little Donkey) and Scott himself, who grew up around his family’s lauded whole-hog barbecue restaurant in Hemingway, South Carolina. Scott’s Bar-B-Q — which recently closed — was widely recognized for its slow-cooking method using hot coals.

The techniques Scott learned from his family’s business have carried over into his other ventures, where his pit-cooked meats serve as the staple protein on various menus. In 2018, Scott was named Best Chef Southeast by the James Beard Foundation, making him the second pitmaster in the award’s history to win.

Scott’s newest restaurant will overlook Broadway from the top two floors of Chief’s, country singer Eric Church’s new six-story live music venue in Nashville. The historic downtown building, which will also include the “Hell of a Q” rooftop restaurant from Scott, was designed with Church at the helm and features 4,000 posters from the singer’s career. Church and Scott are both Carolina natives.

The new venue will also welcome a first for Broadway: a walk-up window on the ground floor serving Scott’s fare from breakfast to lunch and dinner at night.

Rodney Scott’s Whole Hog BBQ will be open from 10:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. seven days a week, and then from 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. for Saturday and Sunday brunch. A special late-night menu will be available from 11 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. on the rooftop only. Guests can also pick up breakfast, lunch, and dinner items from the walk-up window starting at 8 a.m.

Take a first look at the menu below.

As a kid, Austin Knight listened to EDM and house music with his mom, Allison Knight, whose love of music grew from making her own mixtapes on her boom box and listening to DJs Bad Boy Bill and Julian Jumpin Perez. Her favorite artists include Royal House, S'express and Inner City.

Years later, Austin Knight, along with his parents Jim and Allison Knight, is opening a club in Nashville dedicated to the genre — somewhere to feel and see the music as well as listen to DJs from across the globe.

The nightclub scene in Nashville is, in a word, lacking. But Knight anticipates that changing very soon. His club, Night We Met, opens to the public Thursday, March 28. It's located at 114 12th Ave. N in The Gulch.

It's been more than a year in the making.

Knight works on the music booking and curation side of the business, through music promotion company Full Circle Presents. His partners include Full Circle Presents founder Blake Atchison, who co-founded the Nashville-based EDM festival Deep Tropics with his brother, Joel Atchison, and John Hanna, a DJ, producer and co-owner of Full Circle Presents.

The team envisions Night We Met and Deep Tropics working together to foster a growing EDM scene in Nashville, a city that has historically skewed more strongly toward live country and rock music.

Night We Met aims to be a dedicated space for EDM

Knight said there's no place like Night We Met in Nashville.

There are bars and clubs with bottle service and VIP experiences. There are nightclubs that play house music, but not every single night. Knight believes creating a dedicated space with top-notch service where electronic music is built into the club from day one is the best way to grow Nashville's music scene.

At entertainment destinations — think New York, Los Angeles, Miami and Las Vegas — dynamic clubs with high quality sound systems and performances from DJs with global fan bases are commonplace.

In Nashville? The concept is relatively novel.

"Nashville is changing culturally as a city," Knight said. "It's growing at an accelerated pace, on top of house music being bigger than ever in the U.S. More people are being exposed to this type of music."

In Music City, country music is king, and honky-tonks are the first genre that comes to mind upon mention of live music in downtown Nashville. Standout venues, such as the Ryman Auditorium, enjoy cult-like followings.

But Knight and his business partners want to plant their flag. Nashville can be a destination city for EDM, they believe.

"It comes down to how you want people to experience the music," Knight said. "We got to the point where we wanted a space that was curated for this sound and the kind of culture we want to build here."

A dedication to sustainability was also paramount for the founders. Following in the footsteps of the Deep Tropics music festival, there will be no single-use plastic in use at the club, and the bar will use composting to reduce waste.

Nightclub to host DJs with global platforms

The unassuming, low-to-the-ground exterior of Night We Met doesn't hint much at the party going on inside. Upon entry, guests see strips of LED lights lining the walls, illuminating the lounge space complete with cozy booths, high-top bar tables and a DJ booth tucked in the corner.

The lounge is named for a metal torso that watches over the bar -- a sculpture that nightclub owners dubbed "Vera." Allison Knight picked out the art piece, made by a UK-based artist named James Lomax.

Down the hall, behind a hidden sliding door, is the club space, equipped with an elevated stage and Void sound system. The bar, which serves house-made cocktail recipes on draft, is accessible from the club side through a literal hole in the wall. The atmosphere is modern enough to match the music, but it doesn't give the impression of trying too hard.

In the club room, a large wrought-iron face peers out of the wall from behind the DJ stage. That sculpture, also sourced by Allison Knight, was created by Nimrod Messeg, an artist based in Marbella, Spain.

The lounge space is open to anyone Thursday through Sunday from 5 to 8 p.m., no cover charge. On Fridays and Saturdays, tickets are required to enter the club space, where a schedule of DJs and musicians from around the world are set to perform.

The opening weekend roster includes South African producer and DJ Kyle Watson on Friday. Knight's duo with Billy Cave, called Lux Velour, will perform Saturday.

Canadian DJ Demuir will play Friday, April 5 and UK-based DJ Ocula will take the stage Saturday, April 6.

Tickets for all performances are available on Dice.fm, the club's booking partner. Current ticket prices range from $25 to $37, and are subject to change based on the performer scheduled for any given night.

Now that a year of construction, planning and promotion is done, Knight and his partners are excited for Nashvillians to come in and experience the club.

"I think in the South, we can be a destination for electronic dance music," he said.

NASHVILLE – The Titans have kept quarterback Will Levis on speed dial this offseason.

In return, Levis has served as the unofficial chairman of the team's welcoming committee when it comes to the team's new additions.

"The cool thing for him as he grows into this leadership role on this football team," Titans General Manager Ran Carthon said of Levis, "is he asked that every player that we sign, could he get their phone number so he could reach out to them. We love to see that."

Earlier this month, when the Titans agreed to terms with former Jaguars receiver Calvin Ridley, things went down like this during the excitement:

"We talked to Calvin, then we talked to Miss Amy," Carthon said. "And then, literally, Will was our next call. We're keeping him in the loop. And Will was super excited about it. He was happy to have him. He's excited about what we're doing."

The Titans are certainly happy with what they've done in free agency so far, adding Ridley, running back Tony Pollard and center Lloyd Cushenberry on offense, not to mention some key additions on the defensive side of the ball as well.

In all, the Titans have signed eight new free agents, while also reportedly adding another prized piece in the secondary via trade.

This at a time when the Titans are excited about Levis, the team's second-round pick in 2023 who will become new head coach Brian Callahan's biggest priority when the offseason program starts on April 8.

Speaking from the NFL owners meetings, Callahan said he's liked what he's seen from Levis in film study, and thinks he has the potential to be really good.

"I think you see a really competitive, tough, intense personality," Callahan said, "and, I think he really wants to be good. That's a starting point – you have a guy like who is eager and willing to do what it takes to be a good player is a really good thing to have to start. On top of that I think he has really good physical, talent. He is strong, he is put together, he can really throw the ball. He has great feet. He is a good runner. All of those things lead me to be excited about what's to come for him. He played just enough (in his rookie season) to learn some lessons, and I think what's ahead for him is exciting."

In 2023, after being inactive the first six games of the season, Levis ended up starting nine games in 2023, and he completed 149-of-255 passes (58.4%) for 1,808 yards with eight touchdowns and four interceptions, with a passer rating of 84.2.

Heading into his second season, the Titans will work to make sure he gets better.

Levis and the Titans have high hopes.

"We've surrounded (Will) with more playmakers, which I think every quarterback desires," Callahan said. "So, we've had a chance to build some explosiveness I think. … We're trying to give him a chance to have success, and I think as a young quarterback that is all you can ask for, a team investing in the talent around you that gives you a chance to go out and perform.

"Will is really excited. I think it makes him want to work harder. He is an intense personality as it is. It inspires him to go work, which he doesn't have any problem doing. Just the excitement of, man, we're being aggressive, we're trying to add good players. We aren't sitting back, and (we're) being aggressive in our offseason approach. I think he is appreciates it and I think he is excited about it."