The NFL is back, and Sportsnet is breaking down everything you need to know about each of the 32 teams—including why you should or shouldn’t be rooting for them this season—in the month leading up to kickoff on Thursday, Sept. 10. Today, the Tennessee Titans.
Last year’s record: 2-14
Head coach: Ken Whisenhunt
Core players: Marcus Mariota (QB), Bishop Sankey (RB), Jason McCourty (CB)
2015 is about… Developing Mariota. Make no mistake about it, the Titans will still stink this season—but at least there will be a clear focus on what they should be doing while they lose games. Though incumbent Zach Mettenberger is no slouch, Mariota will be thrust into the spotlight and given a trial by fire. The Titans must do everything they can to get him up to speed and turn him into the quarterback they think he is. The process will be painful, but hopefully it will make him all the stronger for it.
They lost… Jake Locker (QB). In a strange turn of events, Locker decided to retire at age 27. This turned out to be a bit of a blessing since it made the Mariota pick so easy for Tennessee, but Locker showed flashes of being a good quarterback and having him suddenly bow out like that is odd to say the least.
Yeah, but they got… Brian Orakpo (LB), Harry Douglas (WR), Hakeem Nicks (WR) and Dick LeBeau (defensive coordinator). Although Orakpo is injury-prone he’s an intense locker-room leader and solid veteran run stopper. The additions of Douglas and Nicks give Mariota some nice safety nets when he gets into trouble and the big get of adding LeBeau to Whisenhunt’s coaching staff should begin to unlock some of the defensive potential this Titans’ team has perennially seemed to have lacked for a while.
Growing from within: Although he mostly disappointed in his rookie season, the Titans will still need Sankey to begin to show some of that impressive form he displayed when he was in college. He has the physical tools to become a solid running back—he just needs to take that next step.
Why this team? Because it’s fun to jump onto a team with an exciting rookie quarterback with franchise potential. No one’s saying Mariota is the next Andrew Luck and will instantly turn the Titans’ fortunes around, but given his excellent college track record and all the glowing reports coming out of training camp about him it appears he has franchise potential, so why not jump on the bandwagon now and follow this exciting young quarterback’s progression from the very start?
Why not? While Mariota certainly looks like an exciting prospect, there’s still going to be a ton of growing pains as he develops and as the team slowly attempts to acquire talent and build around him.
Mistakes are par for the course, and there’s going to be a bunch of them. Not everyone has the stomach for that.
Perfect for fans of… The process. As mentioned before, everything about the Titans this season will be to provide Mariota with as good an NFL education as he can get. There’s beauty to be found in seeing a young quarterback take his lumps and learn from the experiences and to see how a team reacts to its new signal caller.
How much hope? 2/10. Point: Mariota could make some things happen and steal some wins for the Titans and the LeBeau hiring should get the Titans’ defence pointing in the right direction. Counterpoint: Both are limited in what they can do by the general lack of elite-level talent on the team on both sides of the ball. Bottom line: If this were a measure of hope for the future, the rating would be much higher—but alas, this is a scale determining the Titans’ hopes of winning this season, and there’s not a lot of that to go around.
Will you be mocked for front-running? No. You might get chirped a bit for latching onto Mariota right now, but for the most part you will be met with much indifference for rooting for the Titans.
A Meme to Remember: Yeah, it’s been a pretty long time…
