Field position and the Titans offense in 2014

It’s time for my annual look at how field position affected how the Titans performed on both offense and defense in the season just concluded. I will cover the offense in this post and the defense in a subsequent post which should go up on Tuesday.

Given the 2014 season was mostly a factor of sadness for the Tennessee Titans, most of the content in these posts will probably not be very positive. Nevertheless, given Ken Whisenhunt and Ray Horton will be returning to direct the offense and the defense, I think field position and what it meant is worth examining. Keep in mind, though, that most of these sample sizes are small enough that the numbers themselves are not of great importance. Rather, the broad trends and comparative results are what is most likely to be meaningful.

Methodology is the same I’ve used in the past. Touchdowns are with 7 points. Made field goals are worth 3 points. Missed field goals are worth 2 points. All other drives are worth 0 points. Drives that finish the half where scoring is not the point (e.g., Steelers taking up the final 6:58 in Week 11) are excluded, as are desperation drives that don’t have a realistic chance at scoring.

Here are your final numbers for 2014, with a comparison to 2013:

Okay, so the news was not quite all bad. The Titans started fewer drives inside their own 20 than they did the previous season. The Titans were also somewhat better at converting drives that started in plus territory into points.

One of the things I look at in this series is the effect of special teams. First up, field position after kickoffs. Chart time:

Those numbers actually look okay, and like a slight improvement. The same is reflected in the overall average starting field position. In 2013, the Titans started on average at the 22.3 after a kickoff. In 2014, it was the 22.6. That was the average starting field position they had after kickoffs in the four years I’ve been tracking this, and it was not the result of a single long return.

For the curious, Football Outsiders numbers give the Titans -0.1 points of kickoff return value last year, after -1.2 points in 2013 and 2.3 in 2012. That is a more comprehensive measure of value, taking into account things like muffed kickoffs and fumbles, which my analysis includes either indirectly or not at all.

On the whole, kickoff returns did not create issues for the Titans in 2014, though it was also not a particular strength.

The next stop in my analysis, field position after punts. Time for another chart.

I mentioned in last year’s analysis starting field position after punts was a big issue in 2012 and slightly better but a continuing issue in 2013. Well, the Titans started on average at the 23.6 after an opposing punt in 2014. That was worse than 2013’s 24.3 but better than 2012’s 23.3. That’s not so good.

Looking at Football Outsiders’ numbers, the Titans had -3.3 point of punt return value in 2013. 0.0 is negative, so you can easily see that’s below average (20th in the league, as a matter of fact). As I said, that’s a more comprehensive measure of value.

Another thing I’ve noted in past years is the effect of where the opponent punted on starting field position after punts. It was the 36.7 in 2012, the 36.0 in 2013, and the 34.5 last year. The Titans did not face particularly good punts by the opponents-I haven’t focused on this in my past analysis, since Football Outsiders research has shown that teams generally do not have any control over the length of opponents’ punts. Excluding all fumbles and muffs, the Titans came out almost exactly the same on returns relative to average as they did in 2013, though the vagaries of the rankings meant they came out 19th instead of 22nd. So, yeah, Dexter McCluster, not the impact player on special teams I thought he’d be.

Another thing that came up in last year’s analysis: when I started looking at field position, it was an attempt to see how the Titans fared differently under different quarterbacks. Well, for the fourth time in five seasons, the Titans had multiple quarterbacks see extensive action in the regular season. So, chart on field position for each quarterback.

Okay, a lot to unpack there. A couple additional notes: the Titans’ average starting field position on Jake Locker drives was the 25.6, on Zach Mettenberger drives the 25.0, and on Charlie Whitehurst drives the 26.9. A difference of a yard or two is not particularly meaningful-the drive stats pages at Football Outsiders shows the difference between the best starting field position for an offense and the worst was 7.0 yards-but at the same time I wouldn’t completely ignore it. As I try to do, I’ll spend some time in the defensive post trying to tie the loose ends together.

Given the even smaller number of drives for a particular quarterback (48 for Locker, 64 each for Mettenberger and Whitehurst), I think it’s worth noting on drives starting at or inside the 20 (backed up, roughly speaking), Locker averaged 1.44 adjusted points per possession, Mettenberger 1.08 points per possession, and Whitehurst 1.06. On drives starting on the Tennessee side of the 50, Locker averaged 1.60 adjusted points per possession, Mettenberger 1.17, and Whitehurst 1.00. For whoever Jake Locker’s next team is, feel free to cite his improved performance on drives starting at or inside the 20 as “this year’s reason Jake Locker is going to be a completely different and much improved quarterback from the guy we’ve been watching since 2007.”

I don’t have much to say at this time about the other numbers aside from once again noting the 2014 Tennessee Titans were an across the board factory of sadness, outside of Charlie Whitehurst’s extraordinarily small sample size positive performance when starting in plus territory. And, no, that Jake Locker appears by this measure the most productive Tennessee Titans quarterback in 2014 does not mean I believe he will or should be their starting quarterback in 2015 or on the team with a chance to compete for that position.