One of the best parts about the football season drawing near is the fact that we finally get to let the teams do the talking for themselves on the field.
Being a Tennessee Titans fan, in particular, is rough during the offseason because no matter what the team does, it’s almost always overlooked.
Even in years when the Titans were a Super Bowl contender, people still talked about them as if they were barely the second-best team in their own division.
Let’s not forget that people spent all of the 2021 offseason claiming the Colts were the inevitable kings of the AFC South, only for them to miss the playoffs while the Titans went on to be the AFC’s No. 1 seed.
And don’t get me started on how every major acquisition is automatically deemed a bust just because the Titans’ logo is supposedly so cursed that it automatically depletes a player of their talent the second he signs.
Let’s add Jarrett Bailey of Touchdown Wire to the long list of skeptics who aren’t giving the Titans much of a chance in 2023. Bailey has the Titans ranked No. 27 in his preseason power rankings, stating the following:
Quite frankly, I couldn’t care less that DeAndre Hopkins signed with the Titans. They’re not a team who is a receiver away from being good. Their offensive line will have three new starters, their pass defense was near the bottom of the league in DVOA, and it looks like they’ll be starting Will Levis at some point, who is best described as what would happen if Carson Wentz got hit in the head and thought he was Josh Allen. Tennessee’s front seven is nasty, and Mike Vrabel raises their floor, but they are still far too reliant on Derrick Henry offensively for me to take them seriously.
“Quite frankly”, why wouldn’t the Titans want to run their offense around one of the greatest running backs who ever lived?
That’s not exactly hyperbole, either. Henry’s career average of 96.8 rushing yards per game is third-most in NFL history (minimum of 60 starts), according to NFL Network.
stacking the box vs. Derrick Henry…
not the best strategy 👑 (via @NextGenStats) pic.twitter.com/o3JTvQ4fWd
— NFL Network (@nflnetwork) August 8, 2023
In fact, if you just want go over the last four years, the only running backs who have averaged more over a four-year span than Henry’s 109.9 yards per game are O.J. Simpson, Eric Dickerson, and Jim Brown.
Enjoy the rest of your Sunday pic.twitter.com/WUmMdf4bdp
— DHOPenheimer (@TitansCoach69) August 6, 2023
However, if you want go solely off his last 64 games played (essentially four seasons), Henry is averaging a whopping 112.1 rushing yards per game, which would put him third only to Simpson (1973-1976) and Dickerson (1983-1986).
Ever since #Titans RB Derrick Henry’s legendary breakout game against the Jags (Week 14, 2018), Henry has produced UNBELIEVABLE numbers over his last 64 games played:
👑: 7,175 Rushing Yards
👑: 925 Receiving Yards
👑: 8,100 Total Yards
👑: 66 Rushing TDs
👑: 71 Total TDs pic.twitter.com/vkMQKjzMYi— Shaun Calderon (@ShaunMichaels31) June 21, 2023
So, again, why would the Titans not want that guy to be heavily featured in the offense?
As for the defensive concerns, no one is denying that the pass defense struggled last year. However, not even mentioning how the team suffered countless injuries throughout the year is a little disingenuous.
Key players such as Denico Autry, Harold Landry, Bud Dupree, David Long, Zach Cunningham, Kristian Fulton, and Amani Hooker all missed at least five games last season.
Meanwhile, Jeffery Simmons was forced to play on one leg over the second half of the season due to a nagging ankle injury that would’ve put most people on the shelf.
Spoiler alert: when you have that many injuries, your production is likely to drop just a bit (and that’s putting it lightly).
But prior to the defense’s health falling apart, the unit was legitimately performing well on the back end, finishing sixth in EPA and Dropback Success Rate from Weeks 3-10, per RBSDM.
The one fair point that Bailey made was his skepticism surrounding the Titans’ offensive line, but to project Tennessee as a bottom-six team because of that is a bit ridiculous.
And I’m glad he already knows what Will Levis’ career is going to turn into considering one of the guys he sarcastically compared him to (Josh Allen) also had similar concerns with his consistency entering the league.
Needless to say, having patience with Allen’s development turned out pretty well for the Bills.
Personally, I’m going give a Mike Vrabel-led team the benefit of the doubt until it gives us a reason not to. If you’d rather give the benefit of the doubt to the Bailey’s and Warren Sharp’s of the world, by all means, be my guest.
At the end of the day, we’re just a few weeks away from getting definitive answers for ourselves. And if history has taught us anything, it’s that Vrabel’s guys are going be the ones who have the last laugh (barring injuries).
