Tennessee Titans 2024 Preview: Film Breakdown

Tennessee Titans 2024 Preview: Film Breakdown

[Music] in today’s video we’re going to be previewing the 2024 Tennessee Titans looking at pretty much every player on the roster comparing each position group to the rest of the NFL and I’ve given every player in the NFL a rating from 65 to 99 following this rating scale a 65 is a practice squad bottom of the roster type of player 99 is generational player in their Prime and in the right column you can see the distribution across the NFL how many players fall into each tier then I combine all of those ratings into offensive and defensive ratings based on this waiting table so Edge rusher for example makes up 23% of the defensive score and the 1 2 3 and four on the depth chart are 7524 and 1% of that score and I’ve got the Titans as the 24th best team in the NFL not a bottom feeder by any means but a team with some questions and some holes on their roster this tier of teams from 24 to 28 it’s a razor thin margin between them like if I change a player from a 78 to a 79 it’s affecting the rankings but with a new coaching staff a Young quarterback that’s still developing and a lot of new additions in free agency and through the draft I think there’s plenty of upside for this team to be a playoff Contender I don’t see them as a Super Bowl Contender but I definitely feel a lot more confident in them than I did last off season so we’ll briefly look at their 2023 stats to start things off off when we average everything out they had the 26th best offense in the NFL and it’s a really interesting statistical profile because looking at their overall offense you can see the only things that they ranked in the top half of the league in are EPA per play and explosive play percentage and that’s very easy to see when you watch the 2023 Titans of any team in the NFL they had the biggest difference between EPA per play and success rate what that means is that they were able to generate big explosive plays that’s going to drag the EPA per play number up but they were not an efficient or effective offense on a snapto snap basis which speaks to the low success rate they ran the most trick plays of anyone in the NFL they had a quarterback with a big arm that can push the ball down the field but as far as just lining up and playing and trying to move the football they didn’t have good enough players to do that consistently they had the second worst pressure rate and Sack rate in the NFL over 43% of the Titans quarterback’s dropbacks were under pressure and they didn’t really have receiv that could separate on a consistent basis I think both of those should be improved in 2024 the running game was pretty good they had a great running back Duo and for whatever negative things you want to say about the Titans offensive line they didn’t really struggle as run blockers they still had the same split between explosive play rate and success rate so a little bit more boom bust than you would want but the running game was not what held the Titans offense back last year and then defensively again they were really good stopping the run but not a great pass defense and that resulted in a slightly below average defense overall they had the best red zone conversion rate in the NFL but just didn’t have the Personnel especially at corner and at pass rusher when Jeffrey Simmons went down with an injury and they’ve invested a lot in that side of the ball but I still think there’s some holes on the defensive roster that they’ll need to fill over the next couple years getting into the roster breakdown I’ve got them with the 25th best offense in the NFL and I went with a 76 for will Levis which is a slightly above average starter with these young quarterbacks in their first or second year it’s pretty difficult to assign a number rating to them because there’s such a wide range of outcomes so I kind of defaulted to a conservative rating for Levis Anthony Richardson and then all the rookies and there’s some players such as will Levis that I’ve done full film breakdowns on and given very detailed scouting reports of their strengths and weaknesses and I’ll be a little bit more brief on those guys but I would say that I’m cautiously optimistic about will Levis I think he showed a lot of flashes this rookie year with not much help from his surrounding core and as a rookie quarterback just showing flashes of what you can do I think is perfectly acceptable in your first season in the NFL but as you get more and more experience and get deeper into your career the standard is going to gradually increase eventually just showing flashes isn’t enough you need to put it all together into consistently highquality quarterback play Levis has Elite arm talent I think top five in the NFL in terms of arm strength veloc vity release quickness I don’t think the accuracy was great he showed flashes of high-end ball placement but there were a good amount of catchable but inaccurate passes on his tape last year but that’s not really my biggest concern for will Levis going forward I think what he really needs to improve is the decision-making he only threw four interceptions last year but he had 14 turnover worthy plays a lot of plays where he got lucky or there was a dropped interception he should have an easier time this year making clean decisions because he’ll have receivers that can get open more consistently and hopefully a better offensive line but you want to see him tone down the aggressiveness and have better awareness throwing into Zone coverage especially and then the big wild card is can he get back to the playmaking that he showed in his second to last year at Kentucky that was a big part of his game early in college but he had turf toe his last year he was injured in his rookie year at Tennessee and he kind of had to turn into a statue in the pocket there wasn’t a lot of escapability and Crea ity outside of structure that’s the element of his game that I think could really raise his performance if he can unlock that and then they signed Mason Rudolph in free agency I think he’s a perfectly capable backup he started four games for the Steelers to end the season last year I thought put out the best tape of his career in 2023 not really a starting caliber player but definitely an upgrade to Malik Willis and despite losing Derrick Henry I think running back is still the strength of this roster and it’s the only position group that they rank in the top half of the NFL Tai Spears in my opinion is the most underrated player on this roster I don’t really understand why it’s such a foregone conclusion that Tony Pard is the rb1 I think Spears is such a complete running back that does everything at at least a b to B+ level he’s incredibly Elusive and dynamic and open space when he catches the ball on a screen pass or breaks it out to the alley on an outside run he’s pretty much a guarantee to make the first Defender Miss he has excellent start stop ability really quick and fluid in and out of cuts despite having slightly below average size he actually has really good contact balance he can bounce off a tackle attempts keep his footing on the surface you might say that the Titans lack a power back or a short yardage back and they definitely don’t have anyone at Derrik Henry’s level but Tai Spears is perfectly capable in that role he was actually tied with Derrick Henry for the highest success rate on short yardage attempts at 90% he has good hands out of the back field just two drops last year on 67 targets he’s a Shifty route Runner and an excellent pass protector especially for a rookie he actually had the highest pass blocking grade in the NFL among qualifying running backs last year so I can’t really say enough good things about Tai Spears I think he’s the best offensive player on the Titans roster and he’s someone that can be on the field for all three Downs they signed Tony Pard in free agency which was surprising to me I didn’t expect them to make that kind of investment in the running back position but I didn’t have an issue with the signing at all Tony Pard has been one of my favorite players to watch over the last few years he’s similar to Taj Spears in a lot of ways I think a little bit less power as a runner but he can create explosive plays he’s elusive in the open field gives you some value in the passing game and when you look at his 2023 season you’ve really got to split it into two halves and account for the fact that he was coming off of a serious leg injury at the end of 2022 he fractured his left leg and had a high ankle sprain and statistically you can see that the first half of the Season he was still recovering from that injury weeks 1 through 10 he didn’t rank in the top 24 in any of the major rushing stats but then over the second half of the year he was in the top 15 in everything except yards per attempt and top 10 in broken tackle rate success rate and EPA per attempt I think Spears and Pard is a really good one-two punch and Pard could even end up being better than the 81 rating that I gave him from 2021 to 2022 he was arguably a top five to seven running backs so I could see him returning to form it’s just hard with running backs once you see it drop off you rarely see them bounce back fully and then you could put Julius Chestnut as the third running back but I actually went with Dylan Johnson who is A udfa from the 2023 class out of Washington I see him as a similar archetype of player as someone like Hassan H Haskins but I actually had a higher grade on Dylan Johnson just a solid well-rounded do-it-all type of running back with limited athletic upside but you can trust him to make the correct reads limit the negative plays he pretty much never drops the ball he’s a good pass blocker he’s got good Vision very powerful and tough he played through multiple injuries in the college football playoff if I had to bet I would say that Dylan Johnson makes the roster the rb3 and then wide receiver was significantly upgraded with the additions of Calvin Ridley and Tyler Boyd they still come in at 19th there’s so many good receiver rooms across the NFL but not a group of receivers that’s going to hold them back from being an effective offense they signed Calvin Ridley another player that I did a full breakdown on if you want to check that out he’s still one of the better route runners in the NFL just in terms of how quickly he can get in and out of breaks there’s a reason that back a few years ago especially if you had an NFL receiver on your podcast and ask him to list the top five receivers most of them would have Calvin Ridley in their top five that doesn’t mean that he was actually a top five receiver but from the people that watch his tape and can really appreciate the technical Nuance they all have a lot of respect for how he runs his routes he’s also a very good deep threat he can set separate vertically his comeback routes or teach tape so in terms of short to intermediate route running and speed down the field Calvin Ridley gives the Titans two elements that they didn’t really have with any of their other receivers his ball skills are fairly inconsistent uh career 40% contested catch rate his last three years of playing he’s had around an 8% drop rate each of those Seasons comparing him to someone like Deontay Johnson who’s in a similar archetype of receiver I would say Calvin Ridley is a slightly worse route Runner and has slightly better hands and then he isn’t great against press coverage but I disagree with the narrative that’s become kind of widespread that he can’t beat press I think especially dating back to his Atlanta days he’s always been pretty good against press based on his reception perception data he was around 75 to 79% success rate against press coverage every season his one year in Jacksonville that dropped down to 66.7% which is a decline but it’s still 47th percentile it’s not like he’s someone that can’t get off press coverage I think you ideally want him at Z but he’s quick enough and precise enough with his footwork that he can be solid against press coverage DeAndre Hopkins is a really solid wide receiver too as he’s gotten older his game has dropped off in very specific areas I’ve talked many times on this channel about his issues getting off of press coverage I think that’s by far the biggest thing holding his game back at this point in his career if you give him soft shoe press where you’re still lined up tied on the line of scrimmage but you’re not jamming him early as long as he has that space to work with he’s a skilled enough route Runner that he can manipulate that open space and still get open but when you’re aggressive getting hands on him at the line of scrimmage he’s not really quick or explosive enough to punish you for overextending and he’s already lacking in speed but making contact with him really slows down his route timing and limits his Effectiveness but he’s still just a masterful Zone coverage route Runner a lot of times people think about route running against Zone coverage as just like like running a dig route into open space or finding a soft spot in the zone and sitting down there’s a lot more Nuance that goes into it he understands how to attack blind spots he knows how to use Direction and stem depth to make a Zone coverage Defender think he’s running one route and then Zone off and create space and he has great hands he doesn’t drop the ball he can make contested catches there’s still a lot of things that DeAndre Hopkins does at a high level but when it comes to winning on a quick slant against press Man On Third and five he just can’t do that at this point in his career and he doesn’t really give you any kind of vertical threat down the sideline unless he can win with a stop Ando double move and then Tyler Boyd is just a very solid slot receiver definitely had the worst year of his career since he kind of hit his Prime in 2018 he isn’t the most dynamic or explosive receiver but just a technically sound route runner for most of his career he’s had some of the most reliable hands in the NFL and he still only had three drops last year but a few of them came in incredibly inopportune times just some backbreaking drops he dropped the go-ahead touchdown against Houston in week 10 but he was actually more productive after the catch in 2023 than he’s ever been he set his career high in four Smith tackles with 11 he’s definitely on the down swing of his career and I don’t think he’s quite the player that he once was but still a starting caliber slot my biggest issue with this top three though is that they still don’t have a true X we’ve talked about Calvin Ridley he can play X but I think best suited at Z DeAndre Hopkins did his best work in the slot he’s not someone that I want playing X and then Tyler Boyd is a pure slot only I’ve got tayin Burks at wide receiver 4 I don’t have a lot of expectations for him he’s a big receiver he has good speed for his size but his speed alone doesn’t make him a super Dynamic deep threat he can win over the top occasionally but watching him last year most Corners had no problem sticking with him down the field he has never at any point in his career showed to Be an Effective intermediate route Runner and you can get by as that type of receiver if you have good hands but he was not very effective in contested catch situations last year just two for seven and he had four drops on 29 targets so at this point he’s like a slower Tyro Williams not someone that’s particularly effective on the field if he can improve his hands then he could be a solid contributor but you can’t really have someone like him on the field with his lack of Route running ability that also can’t catch the football Nick Westbrook Ain still on the roster I expect him to make the team but hopefully not a player that sees the field very often and then Kyle Phillips can get open but he’s had a hard time staying healthy and I think we’ll probably be battling for a roster spot the other player to mention is jquan Jackson who they took in the sixth round he’s fast but doesn’t really add a whole lot else he isn’t great fighting through contact to the catch Point not a refined route Runner very little experience against press coverage he could end up making the roster B based on special teams but I don’t really see him contributing as a receiver this year at least I think the tight end room is pretty solid uh chika cono had a down year statistically but I still view as a really good tight end he had slightly more receiving yards last year but it was on over twice as many snaps as his rookie season his yards per route run was cut in half he was overall way less efficient but I think there are two very clear explanations for why that happened the first one is drops he had six drops last year 10% % drop rate dating back to college he’s never had the most reliable hands but it wasn’t something that significantly held back his game and the drop issues did improve as the year went on he had four drops in the first half of the year two in the second half that’s something he’s got to fix obviously but I think it’s a mental thing and hopefully he can bounce back from that the second and I think primary reason he was less productive last year is that he was listed as a tight end but he was basically the assistant offensive tackle Tennessee had two tight ends in the top 22 in the NFL in pass blocking snaps Trevon Wesco actually ranked first with 108 the next highest was 86 but that doesn’t tell the whole story with chika cono because it doesn’t account for all of the times he was asked to provide chip help if you stay in for a few seconds to chip block and then release on a route PFF charts that as a receiving snap it doesn’t chart it as a pass blocking snap and there isn’t a place that has Chip blocking data publicly available but I haven’t seen a tight end that was asked to do more chip help than chono was and the effect of that is that your routes are either going to be too slow developing for the quarterback to have time to get to you in their progression being asked to chip block so often it basically made him like the worst receiver in the NFL against press coverage where he just can’t get off the line of scrimmage for the quarterback to even look his way but then on top of that it limits his route depth to pretty much an 8- yard sit route he doesn’t have time for any kind of downfield route to develop and that’s obviously a major aspect of chika kono’s game because he’s so fast there were still some plays that he got the ball on a delayed release as a checkdown but a lot of wasted reps where he had no chance of being targeted if the pass blocking can improve enough that they can get him the ball on more downfield routes this year I still think he’s a really Dynamic weapon he’s a good route Runner he’s tough to bring down with the ball in his hands I don’t think that his dip in production and efficiency last year should have you concerned about his long-term Outlook but he does have some limitations as a run blocker and I think there’s a lot of misconcep ceptions when we talk about tight end run blocking for all intents and purposes there are basically two tight end positions you’ve got the Y which is the bigger tight end that’s going to have his hand in the ground he’s in line blocking defensive ends and then you’ve got the flex HB move tight end which is the chiga cono Kyle pittz types they’re going to be lined up in the slot in the back field or attached to the Y slightly off the line of scrimmage and their primary blocking assignments are going to be linebackers and defensive backs because they’re smaller players so when chika Kono gets matched up with a player of similar size he’s a pretty effective run blocker but he’s not really a player that you want in line blocking someone that weighs 40 lbs more than him and that could be something that keeps him off the field when the Titans Go 11 personnel which was Brian Callahan’s favorite Personnel in Cincinnati when you go 11 personnel you want to be able to have the threat of running or passing and this play against the Colts is a great example of what happens when you try to put chig on the line of scrimmage and have him block a defensive end he gets uprooted blows up the entire play so I think that could open up a lot of opportunities for Josh Wy who is a fifth round pick in 2022 a lot of people have said this but I agree that there’s a good chance Josh Wy actually out snaps chiga cono he has the size and physical profile to hold up in the Run game but he can also I think add some value as a pass catcher he showed some nice flashes as a rookie most of it was kind of just wide open running down the seam but that’s what a lot of tight end routes are it’s hard to be too confident in a player with 94 career receiving yards but I think he has the skill set to be the starting why for this offense and then Nick Vanette is a pure blocking specialist that gives you nothing in the receiving game pretty interchangeable with someone like Jeff swam or Trevon Wesco the offensive line is still the main thing that’s holding back this offense for me I have them with the second worst offensive line in the NFL but amazingly I think they’ve actually improved their offensive line from last season it’s been an incredible run of historically bad offensive line play especially historically bad left tackle play for the Titans going back to 2022 they had Dennis Daly and this graphic has some different plots for different statistics every point is an individual season from a player so one point would be Dennis daily 2022 another one would be Dennis daily 2023 and he was in the first or second percentile in PFF blocking grade PFF pass blocking grade sack rate and he was fourth percentile in pressure rate we all saw that season and said there’s no way it could get any worse than this but then they signed Andre Dillard and somehow it was even worse he was below first percentile in pressure rate he had the second highest sack rate of any offensive tackle since 2006 and we were all like okay finally hit rock bottom this is as bad as it could possibly get but then Jaylen Duncan said hold my beer and he put up arguably the worst offensive tackle season in recorded history he had the highest sack rate and highest pressure rate ever for an offensive tackle he had the lowest PF pass blocking and PFF blocking grade ever and it’s not like he really made up any of that value in the Run game so the Titans invested their first round pick in JC leam out of Alabama a prospect that I really liked I think you still got to be cautious expecting too much from a rookie offensive tackle but I feel very confident that he’ll be a significant upgrade to what they’ve had the last two seasons he’s one of the strongest offensive linemen that I’ve ever evaluated just an impenetrable anchor but he’s also very skilled with his hands he does a a great job of keeping himself out of compromising positions and then when he does get his hands on you he has Elite grip strength to maintain contact he is more of an average athlete in terms of foot speed so I worry some about inside counters when pass rushers cross his face but I love that pick and I think for the long term he’ll be a really quality left tackle and really the whole left side of the offensive line should be pretty solid Peter scony had an up and down rookie season he did a lot of nice stuff in the Run game the refined hand usage that he showed at Northwest translated immediately to the NFL but he needs to get a lot stronger he had issues last year dealing with power rushes and he also struggled at times with his footwork moving from tackle to guard you know there’s different techniques setting against a three Tech or a two ey than there is on the outside I expect him to be an above average starter but he is a player that you’re banking on taking a pretty significant step forward and then they signed Lloyd cushenberry at Center who will be an upgrade to Aaron Brewer at least as a pass blocker I think Brewer still gives you more in the Run game but cushenberry is probably the best pass Blocker on this offensive line he has a solid anchor he’s great with his hands he can slide his feet smart player when it comes to picking up stunts and diagnosing blitzes from Center to left tackle I think it’s realistic for the Titans to not have a weak spot but the right side of the offensive line is where it starts to get really dicey they don’t have set starters at either of these spots I’ve got Dylan Raiden and npf penciled in there right now but I could see a lot of different combinations Dylan Raiden showed to be a placement level offensive lineman last year he had some really nice plays in The Run game that pancake from week two against the Chargers still sticks out to me is his best block of the season and PFF graded him as one of the better run blockers in the NFL I didn’t really think he was that good but still a strength of his game for sure and as a pass blocker I definitely wouldn’t say he’s good especially at offensive tackle but he’s developed to where he isn’t bad enough that he’s going to ruin your offense when he’s playing offensive tackle I still think he’s very inconsistent getting to his set points allows a lot of avoidable pressure around the corner and his punch is just a little bit too late and soft to where he allows power rushers to get into his frame that’s going to be an issue whether he plays tackle or guard he did show a lot of improvement mirroring inside counters I was really impressed with that aspect of his game but I still think a below average pass blocker regardless of which position he plays npf still has a lot of natural talent I think as much upside as anyone that’s competing for these two spots he’s dealt with injuries didn’t really have much tapee last year but when you look at his career just his one-on-one blocking snaps like he’s probably below average to average what really kills mpf is just a lack of awareness and way too many lapses in technique he’s probably the player who I’m most excited to see if he can take a jump under Bill Callahan we mentioned Jaylen Duncan he put out some of the worst offensive line tape that I’ve ever seen last season I know he’s a developmental player but I don’t really view him as an NFL caliber offensive line in he has pretty much no anchor no resemblance of technique with his hands I don’t think he makes the roster and I think you could easily find better options for the practice squad even Daniel brunskill is like the NWI of offensive guards he’s fine if you’ve got to have him on the field there’s going to be some bad losses but he’s an acceptable backup guard they traded a seventh round pick for Leroy Watson I watched his one career start against the Bengals in week 18 and it was fine he seems to have a lot of athletic upside and natural talent definitely an intriguing developmental Prospect uh he had a really nice snatch trap but it’s kind of hard to evaluate the pass blocking snaps they were getting the ball out so quickly the Browns were calling that game like they had two backup tackles in there were a lot of aggressive jump sets that would cause him to get beat around the corner and in the Run game he had a few nice blocks out in space but also a few reps where he fell down and didn’t have great balance and they also signed sadique Charles who was the weak spot on a bad Washington offensive line another player with a lot of athletic upside he’s got some good recovery skills moving laterally but he has a very weak anchor he lost to power consistently and for a fifth-year player I can’t be that confident in them adding play strength as with all of these developmental players you know we’re going to see The Bill Callahan effect I could definitely see one of these guys surprising and taking a big jump based on what they’ve put on tape but I can’t just say like this is a bad player but they signed Bill Callahan so he’s going to automatically be good they’ve also got Geron Christian a career journeyman backup tackle JN auku was a udfa last year he got some snaps a lot of them at inline tight end as a sixth offensive lineman I thought he had a couple nice reps in the Run game had some issues in pass Pro but a very small sample size and Andrew rupic another udfa at guard actually really impressed me with some of his run blocking reps I couldn’t fit him on the graphic but I was pleasantly surprised with what he showed and he could be a Darkhorse candidate to make the roster moving on to the defense which is going to rank 23rd in the NFL The Edge rushers are also going to rank 23rd and I think the top two are solid passable Edge rushers Harold Landry started off last season very slow clearly still recovering from the injury but about mid year you could really see an uptick in his production and level of play overall he returned to form the first six weeks before the bye-week he had six pressures total and then the final 11 games after the bye he had 41 pressures so night and day difference I still think he’s kind of a limited player as your number one pass rusher he has a pretty solid ghost move where you’re flashing the hand trying to get the tackle to overextend and then you dip around the outside shoulder and he’s got the explosiveness and the bend to win with that one to two times a week he had a really nice ghost move sack against Austin Jackson for the Dolphins and then you see him right here beating Abraham Lucas around the corner he got a sack against Houston’s backup tackle with the ghost rip so it’s a solid move for him but he still never developed any kind of bull rush his speed to power just doesn’t go anywhere so he’s not really a player that’s going to apply consistent pressure on a snapto snap basis it’s going to be a lot of empty snaps and then one or two big plays every game that’s fine as a complimentary second Edge rusher but it really limits him from being a true number one he is a very underrated run Defender and on stunts and cleanup sacks and pressures he’s athletic he’s got a good motor so he can rack up a lot of production there and then ardan key is a different player but has kind of similar outcomes in terms of his pass rushing production he isn’t a consistent impact player as a pass rusher but he’ll have some dominant flashes I would say even more dominant than Harold Landry he started out week one with eight pressures in two sacks but it turns out that Trevor pinning is just bad but then he had some incredible reps against the Panthers just worked iki aanu around the corner he got a strip sack and then wins with a double swipe and crushes Bryce young and then the Seahawks game was another dominant performance a ghost move sack against Charles cross really nice play here to Dent this lead block push him back into Kenneth Walker but he just doesn’t have a great power profile and kind of gets blanked in a lot of matchups so again he’s more of a secondary pass rusher so the top two is fine the real problem is that they have pretty much no depth Rashad Weaver is a very ineffective pass rusher he’s kind of a limited athlete and coming out of Pittsburgh he was really technically sound had a lot of different moves but he’s just too stiff not precise enough with his hands to win with those at the NFL level and he finished with seven pressures on30 pass rushing snaps last season and then Caleb Murphy and Jaylen herrell have proven nothing can’t really expect them to contribute much I did like Jaylen herrell as a swing in the seventh round but definitely more of a developmental player it is a very good interior defensive line led by Jeffrey Simmons one of the best three techniques in the NFL the one thing that we still need to see from Jeffrey Simmons is the ability to stay healthy and put together a full season of elite play the last two years he’s started off the first half of the Season looking like a top four to five defensive tackle but then he’s gotten injured and either missed time or been on the field but playing at like 70% strength I really don’t have many criticisms of his game I think he’s a complete player good power rusher very skilled with his hands he’s the caliber of defensive tackle that can be your number one guy as a pass rusher but for the last couple years by week eight or nine you can’t really count on him to provide that and then tandre sweat I’ve spoken a lot about the draft pick not a pick that I would have made based on all the publicly available information it just seemed like uh too much of a risk in the top 40 for me at least but having never met him I’m not you know married to that take willing to let him prove me wrong hopefully that happens on the field I think he should be a solid starting caliber nose tackle he can hold the point in the a gap with sweat and Simmons that’s a really good Duo that I think is the strongest position group on this roster but then I also like some of the depth I think Sebastian Joseph day is a really solid rotational player he’s very skilled with his hands in the Run game he’s able to Slit blocks club and knife through gaps he reads the play quickly does a good job of anticipating and deconstructing blocks and he can make some plays in the back field he doesn’t have a great anchor he will get moved out of his Gap occasionally so definitely a player that needs to be moving forward and getting ahead of things and then I thought his pass rushing tape would is pretty underwhelming he’ll get some Pursuit and cleanup sacks but doesn’t really have much of a bull rush and doesn’t have the athleticism to really threaten The Edge but still you could do a lot worse than him as your third defensive lineman and then Marlon Davidson and Keandre Coburn got some playing time late in the season I thought they both showed flashes Davidson’s kind of similar to Sebastian Joseph day he’s a little bit under sized doesn’t have a very good anchor I think he has probably a worse anchor but is more athletic and gives you more as a pass rusher so I feel really good about the interior defensive line third best in the NFL but the Titans biggest weakness defensively is linebacker they’ve got a lot of options but none of them that I feel very confident in they signed Kenneth Murray in free agency really the one free agent signing that I did not agree with and I finished watching every snap of his 2023 season for this video and my opinion didn’t really change I think he’s one of the worst starting linebackers in the NFL he has really good size and he is very fat fast so when he’s going downhill on a run blitz or something he can make some plays in the back field he’s actually a pretty consistent tackler and at his size he can stack and shed blocks as long as he sees them coming I think if you get him in a specialized just fully downhill role where he’s in attack mode he can give you some solid play but his processing issues in both phases really prevent him from playing fast in the Run game he’s slow to diagnose so that puts him a step behind the block development there’s way too much indecisiveness and false steps and he ends too many plays stuck behind blocks even when he Triggers on the Run he doesn’t do a good job of anticipating blocks so he gets blindsided a lot and doesn’t have his hands ready to engage there’s a lot of plays where it kind of looks like he’s passive but I don’t think it’s a lack of aggressiveness or physicality it’s just that he doesn’t see the block coming he has poor Gap Integrity he’ll overp pursue give up cut back Lanes On The Backs side and he didn’t have too many issues staying on his feet there were a couple knockdowns in the Vikings game but he has really good play strength so he’s usually just stuck to the block but at least he’s upright and then the coverage was even worse I mean he’s as bad of a cover linebacker as I’ve watched he’ll make a couple nice plays crashing downhill on screen passes and stuff out in the flat but when it comes to downfield coverage you cannot trust him at all in zone coverage he just spot drops to a patch of grass stands still and stares at the quarterback this play against the Packers you can see when he gets into his hook drop he barely moves at all for like 5 Seconds as Jordan loves breaking out of the pocket Davian Wix is just having a picnic behind him Murray has no idea what’s going on he gets manipulated by the quarterback’s eyes it’s very easy to just sneak a dig route behind him and it’ll go completely uncovered he doesn’t have the recognition of Route Concepts or the natural sense for routes developing behind him he doesn’t do a good job of squeezing adjacent routes in zone coverage there were a lot of third and short third and mediums where he’s dropping into the hook he’s got a Sit rout developing right at the sticks that should be in his field of vision but he’s so late to break on it and then he’s fast in a straight line but he really struggles to turn and run with routes down the seam I think part of that also comes down to Route recognition you see this play he’s late to take his eyes off of the quarterback TJ Hawkinson outruns him down the middle right here Tony Pard gets a couple steps of Separation on this wheel route but it’s overthrown linebacker is a position where you know you can get away with not having great linebackers but if you’ve got a bottom three linebacker room like I think the Titans have it can really hold your defense back and we do see with these athletic former first round linebackers you know the first three seasons of their career they’re not good and then all of a sudden they put things together and have a breakout season that could happen with Kenneth Murray but I’ll believe it when I see it and then Jack Gibbons is kind of the polar opposite as a player he’s consistently in the right spot he reads the play quickly doesn’t get fooled by misdirection very often on 90 to 95% of snaps you’re either not going to notice him or he’ll actually be a good player but then there’s a couple High leverage moments where he’s got to beat someone to the corner win a Pursuit angle or he’s got to carry a fast receiver down the seam and you really see his lack of speed show up I think you can live with Gibbons as your second best linebacker but there’s just a real cap on the level of play that he can give you I really like Cedric gray as a prospect I’ll put his scouting report on the screen it would surprise me if he was a major contributor in year 1 but could be a quality starter down the line you want him to add some play strength but he has a really good blend of coverage ability athleticism and play recognition and then Otis Reese is a player that could surprise and actually win a starting role he played in three games towards the end of last season and I thought he put out some really good tape he’s a converted safety I believe uh listed at 214 lbs he is undersized for sure but just watching him on tape he looks a lot bigger than 214 he’s really athletic plays with a very high motor and seems to be a capable coverage player but small sample size we’ll see if he can make the roster and carve out some sort of role I’ve got cornerback as the second best positional group on this roster sixth best in the NFL they completely remade this cornerback room in the off season they trade for lerus Sneed who’s a top 10 outside corner probably the best pure press Corner in the NFL just looking at what he does within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage there’s nobody that’s as physical and as dominant with his press Jam as lerus Sneed everybody’s seen that rep against Tyreek Hill but he had equally impressive reps against DJ Moore Garrett Wilson I think he’s good not great in terms of downfield man coverage Kansas City scheme kind of protected him because they ran a lot of twom man or cover five so he could just get into Trail technique and not worry about getting beat vertically he’s a player that will give up some plays he’ll gamble Miss with his Jam at the line of scrimmage and get beat over the top but overall it’s going to equal out to just really good cornerback Play Because pretty much every other rep he’s going to erase A team’s number one Roger mccre was probably the only young player on the Titans roster that improved last season moving to the slot he was incredibly sticky in man coverage he didn’t get a lot of ball production like interceptions and pass breakups but just really consistent snap after snap you still see some plays where his lack of length will show up at the catch point and he’ll have some close misses on the ball but he’s a very underrated player and could take another step forward this year he also gives you a lot of value in the Run game and then their cornerback too is chidobe aier who they signed from Cincinnati he’s been one of my favorite Corners to watch over the last few years but his 2023 tape took a major step back he tore his ACL in 2022 so it’s completely understandable that he would have a drop off and play the next season and you do see a lot of times the second year after a major injury they kind of return to form so hopefully that’s what happens but it is kind of a gamble that his drop off in play was solely based on the injury and not age regression just looking at his 2023 tape I mean there were times he was a liability for the Bengal secondary he got beat down the field constantly struggled to recover really seemed to have lost a step I think a lot of people are just assuming that he’s going to be what he was a couple years ago and that could be the case but it’s a pretty major question mark in my opinion Jarvis brownley is like a mini lerus Sneed probably the most physical and aggressive Corner in the 2023 class every snap he’s just trying to end the receiver in front of him at the line of scrimmage the downfield coverage I think needs a lot of work he is very reliant on winning with his press Jam he has average speed he’s kind of inconsistent mirroring and sticking to Route breaks but he’s a smart player had a great Senior Bowl I think really good developmental pick on day three they’ve got Trey Avery as cornerback five he’s shown some flashes throughout his career especially against weaker competition but the Shin’s kind of worn off the penny for him his matchup against the Seahawks receivers in week 16 was a massacre he isn’t very decisive or confident with his technique and off coverage I don’t think he has the physical traits to really succeed in press man and when you get into the Red Zone I mean a jump ball against Trey Avery is pretty much automatic he might make the roster but not a player that you really want on the field and then Caleb Farley just a very unfortunate career so far don’t even have really any comments on him as a football player but it would surprise me if he made the roster I think Eric garrer is probably a more likely bet some athletic limitations but there were some flashes of nice tape last year so the depth isn’t great but I think the top three is really good as long as azier doesn’t drop off a cliff and if he gets back to the level he was playing at in 2022 this could be a dominant starting three corners and then safety is solid I’ve got them 22nd in the NFL it’s a similar position to linebacker where you just can’t be one of the worst two or three teams I don’t think hooker and molden are going to be huge strengths of this defense but probably not going to be liabilities either ammani hooker I do think is one of the more underrated players on this defense uh even by Titans fans pretty much all of his bad reps over the last few years really have been man coverage against a receiver if you remove those plays and you just look at his deep Zone coverage you know actually playing the safety position you look at his run defense he’s a highquality starting safety just like Kevin byard was in his prime if you give him just average outside corners he can make plays on the ball but he does so much that doesn’t show up in the stat sheet simply by not busting coverages until you actually watch the tape it doesn’t really register but it’s just snap after snap he’s in the right position he’s picking up the correct route passing things off now that they actually have players that can play Man coverage on wide receivers and Amman hooker can play his natural position I think he’s going to be really good this year Elijah molden is still not really a safety to me but that’s going to be the position position that he plays I like him as a run defender in the Box despite his size he’s really quick to trigger to the football doesn’t lack physicality in any way he’s a solid tackler doesn’t get out of position so love him as a run Defender and then he can give you some nice things in man coverage especially covering intermediate routes sticking to Route breaks within you know 20 yards but he doesn’t have very good speed and he has a hard time turning his hips gearing up to recover down the field and on top of that I don’t think he has good eyes in deep Zone coverage playing the safety position he gave up this touchdown to the Colts that PFF actually didn’t credit him for but Mike Fel confirmed uh the Monday after that it was his fault just a simple quarters coverage bust and then he should have given up a touchdown to Calvin Ridley on a similar sort of play where he just lets a deep post over the top in quarters coverage I think more experience playing safety and better play recognition can help him limit this sort of thing to a certain extent but he’s still a player that I have concerns with getting beat over the top and when you look at it from an opposing offensive coordinator’s perspective when they look at this secondary he’s the clear weak link that they’re going to attack Mike Brown got some snaps last year I actually thought he was pretty solid on again very limited sample size I would have him as the third safety right now and purely based on what he’s shown he seems like a pretty solid backup and then shahim Carter has played 24 career snaps so really no idea what he can do there’s a lot of talk about potentially adding Justin Simmons and I do think that would be a no-brain signing but I don’t think his 2023 tape was very good and I believe there’s a reason that it’s mid July and he still is unsigned again there’s no reason not to bring him in they have no proven safety depth and he could even be a better option than Elijah molden but I don’t think he’s what he was a couple years ago so that’s going to do it for the Titans preview got them as the 24th best team in the NFL it’s such a boring copout thing to say but it really does all come down to will Levis if he takes a big jump and is a consistent highquality top half of the league quarterback the Titans could be a lot better than the 24th best team in the NFL and if the Bill Callahan effect is transformative and they end up having the 16th best offensive line you know that would obviously have a Major Impact as well but at this point I view right tackle and the linebackers as my biggest concern heading into next year [Music] [Music]

In this video, I go through a full team breakdown of the 2024 Tennessee Titans, starting with a look back at 2023, before diving into each position, one by one, and giving my outlook for a totally revamped Titans team.

*Tennessee Titans 2024 Preview: Film Breakdown*

Full team rankings here: jfosterfilm.shinyapps.io/NFLTEAM/

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00:00 – Intro
01:26 – 2023 Stats
03:19 – Quarterback
05:50 – Running Back
09:10 – Wide Receiver
15:02 – Tight End
19:11 – Offensive Line
25:56 – Edge Rusher
28:46 – Defensive Line
30:59 – Linebacker
35:31 – Cornerback
39:13 – Safety

*All film used is courtesy of NFL+ and the All-22 broadcasts associated with that service and subscription. No copyright is intended.*