Back in my season preview post, I noted the Titans returned a very large part of their roster from 2013 and therefore seemed likeliest to end up with something like their 2013 record of 7-9. The case for optimism revolved around new head coach and offensive maestro Ken Whisenhunt. After all, he was replacing Mike Munchak, who seemed manifestly unqualified to be a head coach with comments such as “I didn’t know half these things went on during practice. During seven-on-seven I was lost. I had never been down for seven-on-seven,” or his stated belief after the Cardinals game, his 46th regular season contest as head coach, that post-touchdown conversion attempts came from the 3-yard-line. Whisenhunt had to be better than that, right?
Yet, as we all know, the 2014 Tennessee Titans were the worst or one of the couple worst teams in the league. Even if you don’t hold Whisenhunt responsible for the Titans’ defensive struggles, the offense got significantly worse. They scored almost a touchdown less per game. They went from a sustaining offense, averaging eighth in yards per drive, to a non-sustaining one, 32nd in yards per drive. They couldn’t convert third downs, even when they were in favorable situations.
Whisenhunt’s arrival was expected to result in personal improvement from a lot of the supposedly quite talented players on the roster. There may be a couple examples in his defense-Delanie Walker had a nice season, and Chance Warmack improved late in the year. Those are the exceptions, though. Jake Locker played worse under his tutelage. His hand-picked backup quarterback, Charlie Whitehurst, played worse than the backup quarterback he didn’t want, Ryan Fitzpatrick. The offensive line, expected to be a strength, didn’t improve and arguably declined under the tutelage of his offensive line coach. Kendall Wright, the Titans’ most dangerous offensive player in 2013, was a non-factor most of the time. Promising young receiver Justin Hunter didn’t get better. Second-round pick Bishop Sankey was largely ineffectual. Free-agent acquisition Dexter McCluster looked like the gadget back I thought he was, not the versatile chess piece the Titans may have hoped.
It wasn’t just that the Titans were bad on offense, but how they looked bad on offense. Whisenhunt was supposed to be an adaptable coach who used players to their strengths. Whisenhunt the offensive maestro we saw in 2014 was almost the exact opposite. His running back rotation was opaque at best, incoherent and harmful at worst. Wright’s decline in production and efficiency epitomized the way in which players were being asked to win only in the way Ken Whisenhunt wanted them to win.
Those sorts of growing pains weren’t really that surprised. But what struck me and I’d guess most everyone else is (a) they lasted all season, and (b) they didn’t just last all season, in fits and starts, but they were persistent all season. The 2014 Titans were so bad on offense from Week 2 through Week 17 because they never once found anything they could execute consistently and rely upon when they needed, whether it was the first quarter and they were trying to get off to a strong start or the third quarter and they were trying to get back in a competitive game, or it was first-and-10 or third-and-short.
Beyond Whisenhunt the offensive maestro, there was Whisenhunt the head coach. So much of a head coach’s job is opaque to outsiders, but the NFL is a resulted-based business and 2-14 is 2-14. His offense, up to and including Week 17, squandered timeouts due to what seemed to be their lack of direction and inability to get on the same page, limiting the Titans’ strategic options at times. Even his challenge record, a strength of his in his previous few seasons as head coach, was poor (1-for-7).
Coming into the season, I felt like I was down, relative to other Titans observers, on the likely impact of Ken Whisenhunt’s arrival. But even I expected a lot better than what we got. And that makes him an easy choice as the 2014 Tennessee Titans’ biggest disappointment.
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