Finally done.
After concluding the defense with a look at the safeties, the final stop on our trip position by position around the Tennessee Titans is a look at special teams.
As I now mention every time I do this positional analysis, special teams consists of five separate and distinct elements, albeit with overlapping skills. These are: (1) place kicking on field goals and extra points; (2) kickoffs, including kickoff coverage; (3) punts, including punt coverage; (4) kickoff returns; and (5) punt returns. The kicker or punter is normally the kickoff guy, the same players tend to play on multiple units, the kick returner and the punt returner are sometimes but not always the same guy, and a single guy (special teams coach Nate Kaczor) is in charge of the whole mess. That does not make it not a mess, though, just a lumping of “not offense or defense.”
My preferred metric for evaluating special teams play, and not just because I write for them, remains Football Outsiders’ numbers. The variegated and small sample size nature of “special teams play” makes it even harder for me to judge than offense and defense, and I rarely watch special teams play when I do my detailed review of games. I frankly don’t know the first thing about kicking or punting mechanics, so it makes sense to me to judge special teams play on purely an outcome-focused basis. That is what the FO numbers do, and makes the most sense for me. The Titans on the whole came out a bit below average by FO numbers, ranking 20th overall. That was up a bit from 26th last season.
The biggest change from the Titans special teams units from 2013 to 2014 was probably at kicker, where Rob Bironas (RIP) was replaced by Ryan Succop. Like Bironas, Succop handled both kickoffs and field goals. On field goals and extra points, he came out right at average by FO numbers. He went 19-22 on field goals, with all three misses coming from 40-49 yards, and hit all his extra points.
Kickoffs were the Titans’ worst specific special teams unit, as they came out 30th by FO numbers. It would be easy to blame Succop for that, but FO numbers show that Succop actually came out around average-14th among the 32 NFL teams-in kickoff distance. It was the Titans’ dismal coverage units, second-worst only to Miami, that produced that third-from-last place ranking. I don’t chart kickoffs the way a real NFL team does, so I can’t say with any confidence that Succop’s returned kicks were more easily returnable. Moreover, the Titans’ overall roster talent issues suggest to me that maybe the coverage units, which suffered some upheaval when there were injuries to roster players, probably continued to that. One of the things I’ve stressed before is that only a couple breakdowns that produce long returns can make a major difference in special teams numbers. You may hear it’s a third of the game, but it’s really more like a seventh or an eighth, and that’s all of special teams put together. That’s an area Kaczor should be examining this offseason.
You’d think if one coverage unit is bad, the other coverage unit would be too. That wasn’t quite the case for the Titans this year. Punting and punt coverage was tied for their strongest unit by FO rank, coming out 11th. By return value allowed, they came out a bit below average, 21st, but with a modest ordinal ranking. The man I started referring to as Directional Punter Brett Kern came out the seventh-best punter in the league by FO numbers, and yes that accounts for the Titans having worse than average field position when they punted. Perhaps he actually had an even greater season than I thought, extending his distance and covering up for a bad coverage team. Or not.
Had I written this back in February, I would have written about how the Titans should probably re-sign both Succop and Kern, given that both performed at reasonably high levels. Since then, they have in fact done that, as well as retained long snapper Beau Brinkley, whose restricted free agent status made him much more likely to return.
Dexter McCluster should return punts again. I noted in the preseason positional analysis he was superb on punt returns for Kansas City in 2013 and thought his skill set was a good fit for the job. That did not seem to be the case in 2014. He did a bit too much dancing around for 15 yards only to gain 4 yards. By FO numbers, he came out a bit below average. Granted, that was still an upgrade over what the Titans did for much of 2013, but it was still a disappointment. Like the coverage units, this is an area where upgraded roster talent and more stability overall should help. I still think the reasons McCluster was a highly productive punt returner in 2013 remain valid, so he could be one again if the situation around him improves.
Kick returns are a more open question. The unit as a whole ranked 11th by FO stats, but with a score pretty close to league average. Leon Washington got the majority of the work and was pretty blah (below average by FO numbers). He is currently unsigned and does not seem likely to return. Among returning players, Bishop Sankey had the most returns, with 7, and ranked the best per FO (one 42-yard return will do that with that kind of sample size). Antonio Andrews got to return five kicks, because sure why not and it’s not like he’s a running back and could get the ball any other way or something. Jackie Battle and Karl Klug each had a pair of returns as well, not that either would be the deep man (or Battle will be on the team). I frankly do not know who the return man will be, and am not sure I see an attractive candidate for the job on the roster. If they draft a receiver like Philip Dorsett (one of their visitors) who has kick return experience, I might immediately make him the favorite for the job.
Conclusion-Type Things
Overall roster improvements and continuity elsewhere will probably have the biggest impact on just how good the Titans’ special teams units are in 2015. The Titans should be okay or better on field goals, kickoffs, punts, and punt returns, but kick returner is still an open question and better work in coverage and blocking for the returners would be a great help. And if you want another similarly deep insight, buy low and sell high.
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