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
PROGRAMMING NOTE: Game 2 review coming Wednesday.
After quarterback, running back, fullback, wide receiver, tight end, offensive tackle, guard,center, defensive line, outside linebacker, and inside linebacker, the next stop on our position by position as we approach the 2015 regular season is a look at the cornerbacks.
Last preseason, the Titans had major questions at every cornerback spot beyond the first starter and with major depth questions beyond the likely top contributors. It seemed ripe for a waiver wire addition to two, which indeed came in due course, but that didn’t prevent disaster from happening. This preseason, the Titans have close to as many questions at cornerback as they did last season, a situation complicated by some current non-season-ending injuries.
A year ago, I wrote about Jason McCourty as the one relatively sure thing among Titans corners, albeit with role questions in Ray Horton’s new defense. Dick LeBeau will probably not ask nearly as much of him in man coverage, and will not move him around nearly as much (from FOA2015, Titans ranked 29th in CB by sides while the Steelers were 11th). Those should be good for him; his personal style means he matched up well against some of the top receivers he was matched up against (Steve Smith, Andre Johnson), while others gave him fits (Antonio Brown, Odell Beckham). His status as a reliable is now in question, with a lingering groin injury that caused him to miss the first two preseason games and led to surgery this week that may cause him to miss the first couple weeks of the regular season. I’ll say more about those games and what his injury recovery might mean when we have a better idea if he’s playing those weeks.
In the offseason positional analysis, I wasn’t sure if Perrish Cox would be locked in as a starter or if he’d be the slot corner and a competitor for the starting job opposite McCourty. Then the offseason began and we can now be confident that he will be starting Week 1 in Tampa. My reduced schedule this offseason meant I wasn’t able to take a deep dive into his play, so I’ll stick with the basics. Last season with San Francisco was his first seeing extensive playing appearance on defense since his rookie season of 2010. He played very well the first half of the season, and not so well the second half of the season. He’s spoken this offseason about how he will train differently to prepare for the grind of a long year; that’s typically something you hear more from second-year players than 28-year-olds heading into their sixth season (he took 2011 off to handle a pending legal issue).
I speculated Cox might slide into the slot in nickel, whether he played on the outside in base personnel or not. That could still happen, but the current injury issues have mostly kept him on the outside. In Dick LeBeau’s defense, which relies more on zone than the man Ray Horton likes, it probably makes more sense to keep him outside, but we’ll see.
Blidi Wreh-Wilson was better than his lowlights reel suggested last year, but that was a darned ugly lowlights reel. The first offseason after being a starter last year seemed like an important one for him; unfortunately, it’s been mostly wiped out. The shoulder injury that sent him to IR late in the season kept him out of offseason work. He returned for training camp, but is now sidelined by a high ankle sprain. He has missed the first two preseason games, so we don’t really know where he fits in the cornerback pecking order. He could be the one to replace McCourty in the starting lineup if he misses games that matter. He could play slot in sub, since he did practice there in camp before he got hurt. He could play outside in slot, with Cox sliding inside. He could play hardly at all. My guess is the Titans do like him third-most among the outside corners, and he will start if McCourty misses games. He’s not what I think of as a slot corner, but we’ll see what the Titans think.
Coty Sensabaugh has plenty of slot experience, and with McCourty and Wreh-Wilson injured has started the first two preseason games. The Titans are reportedly down on him. As I mentioned in the offseason positional analysis, he’s clearly better than he was as a rookie but I’m not sure how much he’s gotten better since then. Those negative reports are hints it may not have been a productive offseason. After last year’s major depth problems and this year’s injury issues I can’t see the Titans cutting him even heading into the fourth and final season of his rookie deal. But like with Wreh-Wilson, how much he plays is an open question.
I’ve been pessimistic about the chances for all the Titans’ rookie undrafted free agents because of their history there. But it does seem like Cody Riggs has a real chance of earning a roster spot, especially with the announcement of McCourty’s groin surgery. My profile of him in the UDFAs post covered the basics: he’s just 5’9″, which is short for a corner. Some teams, like Green Bay, won’t even look at corners that short, while others, like San Diego, seem more comfortable with the idea (5’9″ Brandon Flowers, 5’10” Jason Verrett). He’s played with the first team in sub package situations, and has turned in a pretty usual rookie mix of some solid play and some plays where he looks like a rookie (I’ll have more on his play against the Rams in that review post). Brandon Harris, on injured reserve because of a torn ACL suffered in the offseason, is only 5’10” and probably qualifies as a roughly similar player, so Horton, at least, wasn’t opposed to keeping a player with those limitations around.
Jemea Thomas has bounced around the fringes of the NFL, and spent the final couple weeks of last year on the roster after Wreh-Wilson went to IR. I’d put his ceiling at a week or three on the roster if McCourty does miss time. Ditto Ri’Shard Anderson, though if they like him he could end up on the practice squad again. Will Brown was signed after Wreh-Wilson got hurt to make sure they had enough players to practice; surprising me, he would actually be the fourth player from Missouri University of Science and Technology to play in the NFL if he made the team, which he will not.
Like Thomas, Marqueston Huff and Khalid Wooten are listed on the roster as defensive backs rather than safety or corner. I will discuss them in the safeties positional analysis, tentatively scheduled for next Tuesday.
Conclusion-Type Things
Well, depth is a little bit better than it was last year, in that the Titans have four corners with some NFL experience and a young player they seem to like. But each of those players has questions about just how we’ll they play. Any scheme changes from man to more zone and with more help from safe pressures (and fundamentally the zone blitz is designed to be a “safe” pressure) should help paper over the issues. But I could still see a waiver wire addition to help, and I don’t see cornerback being a strength for the 2015 Titans.
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