Time For A Rebound: Titans Offensive Line

Why everyone needs to give the offensive line the benefit of the doubt in 2023.

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Football is BACK! For the most part, I am so happy that training camp is here, and we have semi-real football things to talk about. I say for the most part because when training camp starts up people being to repeat themselves in the media. Whether it is due to being uncreative or confirming their previous pre-training camp bias, it seems the rhetoric kind of gets mundane.

For example, the longest and most tired offseason narrative has always been about the kicking game for the Titans. Every year the same people say the same thing and repeat themselves in an endless cycle of negativity. This isn’t to say that what they’re saying is untrue but when you say it fifteen times in the same offseason it loses its luster and becomes less of an important topic of note and more of an odd and fruitless side quest.

At some point I am going to do some wired/tired training camp narratives but today I am going with something a little different. It will sound like a hot take right up front. You’re going to roll your eyes and probably just not even read the rest of this article. I implore you not to take that path. I beg of you to maybe open your mind to this one possibility: the pass blocking woes of last year are slightly exaggerated and the entire blame shouldn’t be on the personnel that was out there. Large chunks of the blame should be on the pass catchers and offensive scheme/play calling.

Did your eyes roll out your butt? I know this is going to sound crazy but when you take nuance and combine it with data you can find objective pieces of information that maybe paints a different picture than: “This OL sucked and the people they replaced the OL with will suck too.”

Required Reading

·      How the OL is Shaping Up

·      The Data Article 1

·      The Data Article 2

·      The Data Article 3

A Quick Aside

I had a few interactions on X (sorry, people, this is what it is now) where I just weep for the education system. I know it is bad out there because I have a lot of teacher friends in Tennessee. God bless them, most of them are in Memphis and they all deserve medals of valor.

The first interaction comes from an X I made Sunday morning, suggesting that the Titans fan base should want the Colts to pay JT a lot of money because versus the Titans, he stinks. I had people comment:

·      “But what about what he does versus other teams!!”

·      “All it takes is one game!”

·      “But you’re taking away their best weapon!”

The last one is the funniest because people who are saying that are the same people saying running backs don’t matter and shouldn’t get paid. Irony. Here’s the thing, I don’t care about what Taylor does to other teams. The Tennessee Titans are a known commodity at run defense. They’re elite.  I do not care if Taylor goes off on other teams because at the end of the day, I know that they’re statistically likely to drop two games with him in the backfield to the Titans.

I have always been a big believer in: “Worry about your own season, not everyone else’s.” when it comes to the NFL. Meaning the Titans take care of the teams on their schedule everything else will fall in line. Their opponent in the Colts has a running back that can’t run against them effectively. That is a good thing.

You should want the Colts to spend high amounts of money on a running back, guard, and inside linebacker. That is a good thing for the Titans and a bad thing overall for the Colts. You should also want Taylor to sit out and the Colts get nothing in return both from him or other teams. This is a good thing.

The other thing comes from BrickWallBlitz on X. I had him muted and now I was reminded why I did that. I was tagged in X of BrickWallBlitz by loyal consumer of all things in the FWords Universe, TheBoyWhoWrote. TheBoy was wanting Mike’s and mine input on the 2003 McNair season vs the 2020 Tannehill season. I responded with this:

McNair 2003:

·      +0.237 EPA/play

·      50% Success Rate

·      6.0% TD Rate

·      8.5 AY/A

·      28 Total TDs

Tannehill 2020:

·      +0.329 EPA/play

·      55.6% Success Rate

·      6.9% TD Rate

·      8.7 AY/A

·      40 Total TDs

I do not have a master’s degree in mathematics, but Tannehill’s numbers are all better. The BrickWall decides that his counter argument is that because McNair “ranked” higher than Tannehill that McNair’s season was better.

That’s not how it works. If Tannehill’s season was dropped in 2003, he would’ve outranked McNair, and McNair’s ranks would’ve dropped down the list if he had been planted in 2023. Not only that, but We are also talking about an era of QBs in 2003 where it’s Brad Johnson, Chad Pennington, Jake Plummer, Jon Kitna, etc.

Not to discount those QBs, but those numbers of McNair should give him top of the class ranks. Meanwhile Tannehill is only competing with the likes of Patrick Mahomes and Aaron Rodgers in 2020. When comparing two players in the same stat, whoever has the higher number is typically regarded as having the better season.