2011 Season Preview: Tennessee Titans

2010 Record: 6-10

2010 Rankings:

Total Offense - 27

Passing Offense - 25

Rushing Offense - 17

Scoring Offense - 17

Total Defense - 26

Pass Defense - 29

Rush Defense - 20

Scoring Defense - 15

Offense

The Titans brought in Matt Hasselbeck to be the interim quarterback to bridge the gap until Jake Locker is ready to go. This was a good move, and with Chris Johnson in the backfield, whoever the QB is should have a fairly easy time of being able to hand off to CJ2K. They don't have a lot as far as receiving targets go, but Kenny Britt is the clear #1, as long as he can stay out of trouble with the law. Justin Gage is still hanging around and will probably score some touchdown right before halftime against the Steelers. Nate Washington is here too, and they're paying him a buttload of money to be their #3 receiver.

Defense

Tell me if you've heard this one before: the Titans groom a great defensive lineman, then he leaves in free agency. The Titans have lost most of what was one of the top defenses in the league to free agency, and are now trying to pick up the pieces with what is left. They still have a decent secondary, but their excellent pass defense was always predicated on their front 4 getting pressure so that they could drop 7 into coverage.

Intangibles

Lifer Mike Munchak takes over for long-time coach Jeff Fischer. Munchak played at Penn State before playing his entire professional career with the Houston Oilers then coaching for the Oilers and Titans before being named head coach. That's a pretty cool story, but he takes over a shaky situation. The team invested a TON in Chris Johnson, so it will be hard to add and keep pieces around him while they pay out his monster contract.

If the Titans were a Beer, they would be:

Hoegaarden

This is a beer you see advertised a lot via signage in bars, but it's really just a mediocre beer. As a brewery, they are pretty one-dimensional and pretty much have all their eggs in the "belgian wheat beer" basket. Similarly, you hear a lot about the Titans because of what Chris Johnson does, but besides him, there really isn't much going on here.