Tennessee Titans 2016 Season Grades: Special Teams
Next up in the grading system for the 2016 season is the special teams unit.
Tennessee Titans and good special teams haven’t been analogous for quite some time. While kicking and punting has been good for some time, everything else that special teams consists of hasn’t gone smoothly. We’ll start with the good.
Ryan Succop
The final draft pick of the 2009 draft, “Mr. Irrelevant” has carved out a great career since coming into the league. Since signing in Tennessee in 2014, Succop has hiked up his percentage of field goals made in each of the last three seasons. He did miss two extra points this year, but those are forgiven because he was great on field goals, missing just two all year — both from over 50 yards. Succop also provided Titans fans with arguably the best moment of the 2016 season (one of the best Titans moments in general, if you ask me), nailing a last second, game-winning 53 yard field goal in the freezing cold against his former team, the Kansas City Chiefs. All hail King Succop.
Grade: A+
Brett Kern
While Kern didn’t have quite the stellar season that he had the past two years, he was still one of the best punters in the league once again. On 11 less punts, he pinned the opponent within their 20 yard line on 41.6% of his kicks. His 32 punts inside the 20 ranked seventh in the league. He gave up a good amount of yardage on his punts, but much of that can be attributed to poor special teams coverage that was ranked seventh in yards per punt return given up.
Grade: A-
Marc Mariani
I’ve already talked about the Titans’ need to add a new kick returner. Mariani is far removed from the 2010 Pro Bowl version of himself that provided a special teams spark that we’ve longed for since. Mariani is stiff and slow in his movements, and it shows up in his statistics if you don’t trust your eyes. The Titans didn’t return a kick or punt for a touchdown and averaged just 7.9 yards per punt return and 19.1 per kick return, good for 20th and 26th in the league, respectively. Their longest returns of 37 (kick) and 18 yards (punt) ranked 27th and dead-last, respectively. Mariani didn’t fumble once, and for that I commend him, but it’s time to move on.
Grade: C
Special Teams Coverage/Tackling
I stated above that the Titans punt coverage unit ranked gave up the seventh most yards per punt return. They also coughed up two punt return touchdowns. They also ranked middle of the pack in yards per kickoff return, but were spared by only having to cover on 21 of those throughout the year. Tennessee’s two return touchdowns given up were tied for the most in the league with the Houston Texans. It was a different year, but the same story. The Titans need to figure out a remedy to their special teams defense woes. It’s costing them games.