Tennessee Titans president, and CEO spoke out on Tuesday, (as reported by ESPN Tennessee Titans reporter, Paul Kaharsky)and says he want’s a more physical football team, and is sticking with his earlier goals in wanting to make the playoffs in 2015, with a Super Bowl in 2016.
I think his goals are a bit lofty, and feel like an 8-8 season in 2015, and a playoff run in 2016 would be a reasonable body-of-of work for Head Coach, Ken Whisenhunt, and his staff.
There are just too many holes on this team, to expect anyone to fill in one year. A formidable improvement in the offense is crucial in 2015, but with the hiring of long-time Pittsburgh Steelers Defensive Coordinator, Dick LeBeau shows me they see the defense as a priority.
It’s obvious with Smith’s statements, he has concern with the teams offensive performance in 2015.
"“I think you’re going to see a run game this year,” Smith said. “We didn’t have much of that last year. We lost two of our three tight ends early, we lost O-linemen and so forth. But if you’re going to go down the field you also have to have a run game to compliment it. We have a lot of work to do on that.”“Until we protect a quarterback, we can talk about going into the draft or to a free agent or whatever but at the end of the year, we’ve got to keep the man upright for goodness sakes. It’s unfortunate [Zach Mettenberger] got injured.”"
Although Whisenhunt, and General Manager, Ruston Webster have expressed confidence with their quarterback situation, Smith trumpeted the need to provide Zach Mettenberger with some competition during training camp.
Unless they pick up one of the two marquee QB’s in the draft ie… Jameis Winston, or Marcus Mariota, they will need to address that position during free agency.
Smith expressed his wish to build his team mainly through the draft, but did say, they needed to be active during free agency.
"“We’re going to be very active in free agency,” Smith said. “We need to be.”"
Duh!
While I do think the Super Bowl in 2016 is a bit out there, Tennessee Titans fans deserve better than what they have. The product that has been on the field just isn’t worthy of the loyal fan base that follow this team.
If fans see a couple of big names heading to Nashville during the free agency period, and the Titans can hit a home-run with their position in the draft, I think an 8-8 season in 2015 would be a huge success.
Anything else is going to look a whole lot like more of the S.O.S.!
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