With the retirement of right guard Benji Olson this offseason, Hentrich is the last player on the roster who once was a Tennessee Oiler. Right tackle Jon Runyan of Philadelphia is the NFL's last remaining player who played for the former Houston Oilers and Tennessee Oilers after the team relocated from Texas.

"It does feel weird," Hentrich said as he sat on the edge of a locker. "I played with Benji every year since I've been here. To not see him here is definitely odd. It's just the way this game is. Ninety-nine percent turnover in 10 years, that's about the way this league is working now."

But good punters and kickers can enjoy long careers, and that is why the 37-year-old Hentrich now is preparing for his 15th season in the NFL and his 11th with this franchise. He is Tennessee's all-time leading punter, and he ranks 14th with 1,054 punts and second among active punters to only Jeff Feagles.

Since 1976, only Mike Scifres has placed more punts (43.1 percent) inside the 20-yard line than Hentrich (35 percent). His 223 games played ranks him 11th among punters, and his 36.8-yard net punt average ranks eighth in the NFL since 1976.

"He tells you about players he used to play with, guys we read about or watched on NFL classic films or something," All-Pro placekicker Rob Bironas said of his teammate. "He brings a whole story to the game, our game. He's a trouper. He's a warrior. He's out there every day doing his thing just like it's 15 years ago."

Hentrich, who played at Notre Dame, came into the NFL as an eighth-round draft pick of the New York Jets in 1993. But he wound up in Green Bay, where he won a Super Bowl, and Tennessee made him the NFL's highest-paid punter by signing him in 1998.

The punter found himself with a nomadic team that had been rejected in Houston and ignored the season before in Memphis. The then-Oilers met in trailers and had only one field for practice - when the weather cooperated. They spent the 1998 season playing at Vanderbilt University in a stadium that didn't come close to meeting Southeastern Conference standards, let alone the NFL's.

He survived that season and has watched this franchise reach the 2000 Super Bowl in a stretch of four playoff berths in five seasons. That was followed by a salary cap purge and rebuilding back into a playoff team. Now players come to a plush building with the latest equipment and three full-length practice fields with lights for a night practice.

Hentrich says it's a different game, with players coming in now spoiled by what they find.

"It's obviously good I made it through. I have deep respect for this organization and the chance they've given me here. It's been a ball to see everything the way it's panned out. We had a couple down years, no one lost faith. You rebuild, you build back up, and to see those ups and downs, it's kind of like life," Hentrich said.

Hentrich snapped a streak of 210 straight games last Sept. 24 when a back injury kept him from playing at New Orleans. The Titans used Josh Miller as a substitute, and brought the 38-year-old punter in this offseason to help ease the workload on Hentrich, who had surgery in February.

For Miller, it's a chance to audition for another team a year after New England cut him so late in the preseason he couldn't catch on for the season.

"This is Craig's team. There's no real competition there. He's a great punter. He's been in the league forever. I've watched him forever. I'm looking to audition for other teams. If something happens that I'm here, I'm here," Miller said.

Hentrich is heading into the final year of his contract, but coach Jeff Fisher said Hentrich is welcome as long as he wants to play. Fisher values Hentrich because he can handle field goals (8-of-15), and the high school quarterback adds unpredictability to special teams. He is 7-for-16 for 91 yards as a passer, while his knuckleball punt, which features no rotation and is difficult to catch, has resulted in lots of turnovers.

The punter doesn't want to think about the future while in training camp. That's something for the end of the season.

"He's going to keep going until his body tells him not to do it anymore," Bironas said. "He loves being here, and there's no better place to be playing than Tennessee right now."

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