A common theme around the media during the early part of the week is power rankings. Whether they are ranking college football teams, baseball teams, basketball teams, or NFL teams it is something that most major outlets do.
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ESPN and NFL.com are no different, and they are the two that I pay the most attention to during the week. They generally use either a composite ranking to get their list, or they have someone assigned to watch every game before they make their list.
With other sites, there is a lot of guess work and assumptions that become pretty clear by around Week 8 and I have no intention of using them in these articles.
So, let’s take a look at how those two sites ranked the Tennessee Titans in their power rankings.
FanSided
NFL.com: 22 (Last Week 26)
“Wondering how many people saw Andre Johnson’s game-winning catch and said to themselves, That guy is still playing? The Titans survived as much as won in Detroit, riding a productive run game, repeated Lions penalties and one seriously clutch fourth-quarter toss from Marcus Mariota to put them ahead with a minute and change to go. Then Titans coordinator Dick LeBeau’s defense shut the door on what had been the hottest offense in the league dating back to last season.
Not-fun fact: Tennessee started five drives inside its own 10-yard line. “
-Elliot Harrison
There are two points that he brings up that I want to touch on. The first is Andre Johnson. He is right, there are a lot of people that probably don’t remember that he didn’t retire in the middle of May. However, that number would be less if he had caught an easy touchdown pass from Marcus Mariota in Week 1.
Johnson may subtly be one of the Titans more productive redzone targets by the end of this year. With a lineup of Delanie Walker, DeMarco Murray, Derrick Henry, and Anthony Fasano out there, Mariota could easily look to the side and see Johnson in a one-on-one situation, give him a quick signal and let the veteran WR use his craftiness and frame to get open for a touchdown.
The other thing is the starting field position. I believe this is less on special teams and more on the defense who did a better job than I gave them credit for at first glance. Still, they allowed too many third down conversions and didn’t start rolling until the second half when they found their groove.
If special teams can get Mariota an average starting position past the 25 this year, he could be REALLY good.
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ESPN: 21 (Last week 26)
“This team is built to run, yet they’ve dropped back to pass at a higher rate this season than last. A 1-1 start isn’t bad, but they’ll need to hit the ground running if they want to keep winning games.”
Mariota’s passing numbers aren’t gaudy like other quarterbacks, but he has dropped back 74 times which is tied for 13th in the NFL.
I think it is also a little bit impressive that despite the way they are built to run, they can still have long drives that mix in passes and runs very well.