AFC South positional power rankings: Where do the Tennessee Titans stand
By Will Lomas
Offensive Line
1. Indianapolis Colts
-The Colts have the potential to have a very good offensive line. While I thought he would struggle a little bit with the speed of the NFL, Quenton Nelson has done everything in the world to prove me wrong. Ryan Kelly is sometimes a really good center, but he just doesn’t quite look like the guy we saw coming out of Alabama. The rest of the OL is fine, but nothing special.
2. Tennessee Titans
-Based off of Jack Conklin‘s entire career when he wasn’t injured, he is (at worst) a top-10 RT in the NFL with flashes of being top-5. Rodger Saffold has been great at guard year in and year out, especially in the scheme the Titans are running now so let’s assume he is going to be good for the Titans.
Aside from those two, Ben Jones has looked solid and has always benefited from having a play action heavy offense and good guard play beside him. Dennis Kelly is part of the reason the Titans aren’t the top line on this list, not because he isn’t good but because he isn’t Taylor Lewan (who should be great this season when he comes back).
The big question mark is right guard. How much does it matter to have a guard starting whose ceiling is being about average? Until Nate Davis can start there really isn’t a big opportunity for the RG position to be anything better than average however if you are looking at Week 5 and you have three players playing at a Pro Bowl level (Lewan, Conklin, Saffold) and then two average starters (Jones, Davis/Pamphile) then you have one a top-5 OL in the NFL.
3. Jacksonville Jaguars
–Andrew Norwell looked good with the Panthers so maybe he can be that guy someday for the Jaguars, but if the Jaguars start Cam Robinson (after an ACL injury last year) and Cedric Ogbuehi then there is a chance that Nick Foles gets sacked 20 times in the first four weeks of the season.
4. Houston Texans
-Congratulations Texans! After acquiring Laremy Tunsil you now only have 80% of the worst offensive line in the NFL. Doing the quick math, let’s say that Tunsil is amazing and that he allows 0 sacks and the offensive line doesn’t play any worse than they did last year. If Tunsil leads the Houston OL to that improvement, then Watson is going to get sacked 50 times (80% of his 2018 total of 62). That number still would have been 4th worst in the NFL last year.