SELF-PUBLICITY NOTE: Football Outsiders Almanac 2015, the annual tome previewing all 32 NFL teams, plus the college football season put out by Football Outsiders, is now available. I was a contributor for the sixth consecutive season, writing the Chicago Bears, Green Bay Packers, and, yes, once again, Tennessee Titans chapters. The PDF is currently available from the Football Outsiders website, while the dead tree version is now on Amazon. Buy it, buy it, buy it! /end plug
After quarterback, running back, fullback, wide receiver, tight end, offensive tackle, guard, and then center concluding the offensive half of our trip around the Tennessee Titans position by position as we approach the start of the 2015 regular season, we begin the defensive part of our journey with a look at the defensive line.
Defensive line is the deepest, most stable position on the defense and perhaps the entire team. Unless the Titans go with some unusual roster shaping, they will be cutting at least one player who was either a mid-round pick in this year’s draft or spent the entire season on the 53-man roster last year. Therefore, the Titans have an awesome defensive line that will power a reconstructed defense and help cover a back eight with depth and quality questions!
Okay, maybe that last sentence is not absolutely implied by the first two sentences. I will not rehash here just how good or not the defensive line was in 2014, since I covered that in some detail in the offseason positional analysis. But fundamentally that is kind of the key question. The Titans are bringing back all their major and minor contributors, so even more than most years we should expect the defensive line to be about as good as it was the year before. If, as I thought, the defensive line wasn’t as good as I thought it needed to be last year, then once again it probably won’t be as good as I want it and think the Titans need it to be. But I’m not sure I have anything too useful to say about the line beyond that, so let’s look at the individual pieces.
Jurrell Casey is the Titans’ best defensive lineman. He’s better as a penetrator than as a pure run stuffer, but Dick LeBeau has already said he’ll continue to ask him to do what he does best, because Dick LeBeau is a sensible human being. The fall in his sack total was not indicative of him getting less pass pressure; he went from a combined 24.5 sacks+hurries in 2013 to a combined 23.5 last year (numbers in FOA2015 for this year, so scroll up and click if you want to see more like that!). He’s really good and, barring injury, will be really good again.
Like I keep doing, I once again considered breaking out the nose tackles separately from the defensive ends before once again deciding (a) I’m lazy and don’t want to write a separate post, and (b) some of the players who play nose tackle also line up at defensive end, and probably (c) there’s no such distinction in sub package which is such a prominent part of the game, so you’re again getting them all thrown together here. Had I written a separate nose tackles post, it would have led off with Sammie Lee Hill. Just how good is Hill? Ray Horton praised him to the skies last year. He definitely had some nice days against some of the weaker interior lines the Titans faced (the AFC South’s line play was part of its overall awesomeness in 2014), but at the same time I didn’t see him have that sort of impact consistently. Since he began camp on PUP and was activated off it just a week ago Monday, we haven’t see him yet as he continues to work his way into shape. Once he does, I don’t have any questions about him or that he will start at nose tackle (where he’s listed on the depth chart) and provide solid run support and minimal pass rush.
The big depth chart change is the elevation of DaQuan Jones from rarely active seventh lineman to starter at defensive end opposite Casey. I covered the 2014 fourth-round pick in some detail before his rookie season. He didn’t play much last year, seeing extensive action only in the season finale against the Colts. He had a decent game then, though of course see the note in the prior paragraph re AFC South awesomeness. He had a couple solid plays in run defense in the first preseason game, both more with quickness than power, and did not play in sub package situations. In the offseason positional analysis, I gave his role and level of performance the biggest range of uncertainty of any player in the position group. That the Titans see him a lot more than I do and apparently are counting on him for a much larger role than he had last year says a lot. My baseline expectation is for his performance to be along the same line as Hill’s-better against weak foes, not an impact player against better ones, and minimal pass rushing chops. But we’ll see.
My rough depth chart order style suggests I now discuss the Titans’ most important reserve after mentioning the three starters. But deciding who that is is kind of tricky. There’s the player Jones displaced for his starting spot, who’s probably closest to taking a starting job based on performance, plus a rotational base lineman whose forte is run stuffing, or the rotational sub package penetrator. I suppose I’ll go the last first, since Karl Klug came in Friday’s first preseason game on the first sub package play. The depth chart has him as Casey’s backup, which makes a lot of sense because they’re the two players who fit more of that mold. By now Klug is a familiar face, a pure penetrator with good hand use who is undersized and therefore sometimes involuntarily ends up about 9 yards downfield on run plays (2Q 12:22, if you’re curious). He’ll probably doing the same thing he’s done, maybe 20-25 snaps a game and maybe 20 snaps all year as a fullback in jumbo packages (he had 14 last year). For the curious, FOA2015 has him with 3.0 hurries in addition to the 2.0 sacks.
Since Hill was out, Al Woods got the start at nose tackle. He’s reunited with LeBeau, since he began his career in Pittsburgh before the Titans added him in free agency. He’s okay as a rotational base lineman, and his experience playing both on the nose and defensive end likely makes him another lineup stalwart. But he’s not the kind of player who gets me excited.
Ropati Pitoitua was the man Jones displaced for his starting spot. It was clearly last season the Titans were somewhat dissatisfied with his play after signing him to an extension, or at least being a healthy inactive strongly hints at that (unless there was an undisclosed punishment involved). He’s played some sub package, but he’s not very proficient there, and I see him as just a base end. The three-year extension the Titans gave him after he did fine in that role in 2013 makes me think they like him; that they’re putting Jones ahead of him makes me start to question that a bit. At 6’8″, he’s not a nose tackle and at 30 (in April) he’s also the greybeard of the group. The big question I have about him is, if he’s not a starter, and he’s not a pass rusher, and he’s only an end, and the Titans have a numbers crunch on the defensive line, how likely is it he makes it to opening day? I had him on my initial 53-man roster prediction, but his spot seems vulnerable.
Like Jones last year, I hardly noticed Angelo Blackson‘s existence before the Titans took him in the fourth round. Reading about him, he seems to be another player scouts were split on. The body impressed plenty of people; he’s 6’4″/320 and can move. But the split came because he wasn’t as productive as you’d expect, plays too tall, and wasn’t explosive (Lance Zierlein’s write-up for NFL.com). His most notable stat at Auburn was he did block four kicks. People I read seem lower on him than they were on Jones, though obviously the Titans liked him more than most. My expectations from him in 2015 are very modest, like Jones a healthy inactive most weeks who ends up playing less than 150 snaps while developing behind the scenes, and I would have said that even before he played with the third team against Atlanta.
Mike Martin was a very fine college player at Michigan, but heading into his fourth NFL season after the Titans took him in the third round it feels like he’s still searching for his niche. He was a rotational end and sub package player for the Titans last year, and did not particularly impress me in either job. Given LeBeau has generally kept six or seven linemen and Martin has six players plus Pitoitua ahead of him, plus the lack of niche, plus he’s had three years already and we’re still searching for what he is at this level, I have a hard time seeing him around to start the regular season.
If there’s a spot for somebody in the “flotsam and jetsam” category to make the Titans, I really doubt it’s at defensive line. But there might or should be at least one practice squad spot. I mentioned it in my postgame review, but I was really impressed with what Toby Johnson did. I covered him in the UDFAs post, highly-rated juco recruit who underwhelmed at Georgia. He could be a guy who just dominates understrength offensive linemen and thus a AA-AAAA player who would struggle on Sundays, or real find who finally converts his physical gifts to production. Played mostly nose tackle against Atlanta, some end, and did not play sub. Derrick Lott got more pub, mostly by dominating at UT-Chattanooga. He played end against Atlanta, some sub very late, and already 25 is not a player I’d be looking at as a practice squadder. But see tight ends and past practice squad usage for a sign of how the Titans and I are not on the same page there. Isaako Aaitui was signed early in camp as a practice player when Hill went on PUP. He’ll be gone in a couple weeks.
Conclusion-Type Things
There’s depth on the defensive line, but if you didn’t think the top end was good enough last year the continuity of personnel probably makes you think the same thing this year. It would be very helpful if a second player emerged as an effective pass rusher to complement Jurrell Casey for those sub package plays, and yes I’ve seen every snap of Karl Klug’s NFL career (well, okay, maybe a preseason broadcast completely missed a play where he was in).
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