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,center, defensive line, and outside linebacker, the next stop on our tour around the Tennessee Titans position by position as we approach the start of the 2015 regular season is a look at the inside linebackers.
In his training camp-opening press conference (video link), Ken Whisenhunt was asked which positions concerned him. He turned the question around, instead listing which positions he was not worried about. Tight end was one, as was defensive line, for pretty obvious reasons discussed in those positional analyses. Inside linebacker was the other he listed, declaring it to be a “position we’ve seen a lot of good things and expect good play.” As far as endorsements go, that’s not quite the we “feel good” he issued about both D-line and tight end. Personally, I think Whisenhunt is right, both in terms of his overall confidence level in the position, especially relative to other positions, and in the somewhat more equivocal nature of the endorsement.
I named Avery Williamson the Titans’ rookie of the year and biggest surprise from his quick transition from fifth-round pick whom last preseason I expected to play only special teams (barring injury, a caveat that ended up being important) to situational player to every-down mainstay and defensive signal-caller by midseason. I mentioned in the offseason positional analysis I wanted to do a deeper dive into his play, but my schedule still meant I didn’t get a chance to formally do that. Thus, my general evaluation remains that he had a very nice season as a downhill run player, but needs some work in the pass game. The small sample size of the first preseason game told us a similar sort of story; okay but not super in the run game, but some work in the pass game that’s aggravating, not just the repeated biting on play-action but the bad illegal contact penalty on third-and-long that got overshadowed by Coty Sensabaugh’s DPI on the same play. Still, one preseason game. He’ll start and play a lot, and I hope to see further growth in his game rather than a Colin McCarthy-esque stagnation.
The man whose injury created the opening for Williamson was Zach Brown, who ripped up his shoulder 4 snaps into last year’s season opener in Kansas City. We last saw him extensively in 2013, where if you recall I described my thoughts on their handling of Brown and his competition as either “spitballing” or “throwing stuff at a wall to see if anything sticks.” Brown needs to be a much more consistent in his execution and physicality if he wants to remain the starter next to Williamson, like he was against the Falcons. I thought he was okay against Atlanta, but just that. If you don’t like him, you saw him bite on fakes as much as Williamson did and check out 1Q 10:19 for an example of using athleticism to completely avoid contact (I’ll try to get a video of this later). I said in the offseason I don’t think he’s locked in as a starter unless he’s more consistent and more assignment-sound. The Titans have been confident about him publicly, and I’m sure they want him to start, but he needs to keep up quality play.
If Brown is too exasperating again, Wesley Woodyard will step in for him. I think many people were disappointed he didn’t have more of an impact after joining the Titans in free agency last year. As I said, though, I thought Woodyard was close to the player I expected to see and the expectation of more came from the contract dollars rather than an assessment of who Woodyard was. I suppose it’s theoretically possible Williamson’s emergence and Brown’s newfound reliability would mean a player like Woodyard making starter money for a backup job would be expendable. But that we’ve seen only a season of Williamson and Brown’s lack of track record and his ability to play both spots means Woodyard will be a valuable reserve even if he does play almost exclusively special teams.
I saw Woodyard will back up both spots. But it’s actually Zaviar Gooden listed as Williamson’s backup. A brief synopsis of Gooden’s Titans career: Ruston Webster chose him in the third round back in 2013 because Brown had a shoulder injury and the Titans didn’t have a backup weakside linebacker. He’s played rarely and not clearly well on defense in his first two seasons. Webster has said publicly you need to give high draft picks three years to show what they can do. I don’t think his roster spot is too vulnerable; in addition to Webster’s comment, Gooden is just the fourth linebacker, and how good you do you expect your fourth player at a position to be? The complicating factor is the hamstring injury he picked up on special teams against the Falcons; we don’t know how bad it is, just that he hasn’t practiced yet.
I had five inside linebackers on my roster prediction at the start of training camp, with Justin Staples as the fifth player. My look at past LeBeau rosters makes me think nine linebackers is a real possibility, but not a lock. There will be a competition between the seventh defensive lineman, the ninth linebacker, and the ninth or tenth defensive back for a roster spot, and given the weaknesses at outside linebacker and maybe cornerback, it wouldn’t surprise me to see some shuffling between the cut to 53 and Week 1 in Tampa. But if there is a fifth inside ‘backer, I expect it to be Staples, who spent the final six weeks of the season playing mostly special teams and who played next to Woodyard with the second team (after Gooden was already out).
Yawin Smallwood played with Staples in the third team; nice college player at UConn, not somebody I’ve seen stand out in the NFL. I listed Nate Askew with the outside linebackers in the offseason positional analysis. That was probably a mistake as he played inside against Atlanta, where he’s also listed on the depth chart. The just-signed Andy Studebaker was discussed in yesterday’s OLB analysis.
Conclusion-Type Things
A vote of mixed confidence seems like the right look for the inside linebackers, with a couple young starters who may be pretty good and who may struggle. Thankfully, unlike outside linebacker, there’s some solid depth from a veteran who knows how to play and a higher grade of flotsam and jetsam behind him should either or both of them falter. And, yes, better defensive line play would help, and we’ll have to see about that.
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