How to Fix the Titans

The NFL offseason is in full swing, with coaching changes, free agency, and the NFL draft reshaping the 2023 fantasy football landscape. With that in mind, the Fantasy Life squad is breaking down every NFL team to determine what went wrong in 2022 and identify paths to improvement. Who knows, maybe an NFL GM will read this and realize those fantasy nerds aren’t so crazy after all – we all want the same thing, more points, and more wins!!!

Team Summary

The Titans were the class of the AFC South from 2019 to 2021, with three playoff births and two division titles. In a league dominated by the passing game, Tennessee found a way to pile up victories despite dropping back to pass a league-low 53.3% of the time. They weren’t dominating, but they found ways to win.

Team average scoring margin:

• 2019: 4.4 (8th)
• 2020: 2.6 (13th)
• 2021: 3.4 (10th)

In 2022, the playoff streak came to a halt with a 7-10 record as a slew of roster-building missteps by general manager Jon Robinson surfaced. While the team rightly moved on from Robinson in December, the fingerprints of his incompetence still cloud the path forward, thanks to multiple recent draft and free agency blunders.

Tennessee Titans quarterback Ryan Tannehill (17) gets into passing position during the first quarter at Nissan Stadium Sunday, Dec. 11, 2022, in Nashville, Tenn. NFL Jacksonville Jaguars At Tennessee Titans

What remains is a team designed to win games based on roster-construction strategies formulated when Jimmy Carter was still in office. The Titans can run the ball and stop the run as well as anyone in the NFL, ranking third and sixth, respectively, per PFF grades. Unfortunately, trench warfare is the way of the past, with the best teams focusing on air superiority, an area where Tennessee lags on both sides of the ball.

• 21st in PFF passing grade (64.7)
• 32nd in pressure rate allowed (38%)
• 25th in passing yards per attempt allowed (7.0)
• 63rd and 69th graded cornerbacks per PFF

New GM Ran Carthon helped build one of the most talented rosters in the NFL in San Francisco. Before that, he helped the Rams construct a roster that made two Super Bowl appearances. In order to turn the cap-strapped Titans around, Carthon will need to hit on late-round picks and find cheap gems off the wire – things he has done well in the past.

While the Titans’ first order of business will be trimming the fat on a roster that is currently 29th in available cap space (-$23M), some encouraging young pieces could help the offense rebound quickly in 2023. However, that plan would involve retaining Ryan Tannehill or adding a viable QB to the roster after a dreadful Year 1 campaign by Malik Willis.

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Salary Cap Clean Up on Aisle Four, Please

To say that Robinson mismanaged the salary cap would be an understatement. The Titans are hemorrhaging almost 25% of their cap to contracts that should have been avoided:

• Robinson made Bud Dupree the seventh-highest-paid outside linebacker in 2021 by buying into his sixth-ranked 22 sacks over the two previous seasons. Robinson missed the memo on valuing the stickiness of pressures over the volatility of sacks – Dupree ranked 75th in pressure rate in 2019 and 2020 at 11%.
• Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me… In 2021, Harold Landry luck-boxed 12 sacks despite the 39th-ranked pressure rate. Landry had only 14.5 sacks in the previous 32 games, much more in line with his pressure performance.
• Robinson thought he was getting a deal on Robert Woods when he traded a sixth-round pick for the 30.5-year-old coming off an ACL tear. Woods posted seven-year lows in YPRR and TPRR in 2022 with Tennessee. He has cap hits of $14.6M, $16.6M, and $18.4M over the next three years.

We could go on and on here about Robinson’s inability to get roster moves right, but I digress. The good news is that Carthon does have some flexibility, and we have four recommended cuts that will help free up cap space in 2023.

March cuts for cap compliance by 3/15 and free agency flexibility:

• Cut the underperforming Woods and save ~$12M
• Cut underperforming off-ball linebacker Zach Cunningham and save ~$10M
• Cut soon-to-be 32-year-old tackle Taylor Lewan and save ~$15M

June cut to provide flexibility for rookie signings:

• Cut Dupree and save ~$16M

Tannehill is also a cut option. He will be 35 in the 2023 season, but is still a starting-caliber signal caller when healthy. From a fantasy perspective, he can support one to two options in the passing game. However, if the Titans make a move for a QB in the draft, they can save another ~$27M by cutting Tannehill after June 1st.

Draft an Offensive Lineman or Cornerback in Round 1

There is a chance one of the top QBs will fall to the Titans at pick 11 or they will make a trade to move up. With Tannehill entering his age-35 season, this would make a lot of sense, but in this scenario, we will assume the top options are gone based on the latest consensus big boards.

Offensive tackle Peter Skoronski out of Northwestern is the most mocked player to the Titans, and he would make a ton of sense for an offensive line that allowed the highest pressure rate in the NFL. Tennessee’s unit used to be one of the best in the NFL, but with Taylor Lewan aging on an overpriced contract and the Titans missing on 2020 first-rounder Isaiah Wynn – who is now out of the league –  the team needs a tackle. Skoronski is held in high regard by the scouting community.

Cornerbacks Devon Witherspoon out of Illinois and Joey Porter Jr. from Penn State are both consensus top-10 options that have a chance to make it to the Titans based on recent mocks. However, those two prospects don’t rank as highly as Skoronski with most scouts and there are quality options in Round 2.

Using the PFF Mock Draft Simulator, I landed Skoronski in the first round and cornerback Emmanuel Forbes in the second round. Forbes is Jeremiah’s No. 21 prospect overall and lands at No. 34 on Brugler’s big board. This combination would be a great start, with two values that also match positions of need.

Maximize Treylon Burks and Chigoziem Okonkwo

Before the 2022 draft, Robinson shipped top-five WR A.J. Brown to the Eagles for the 18th and 101st picks in the NFL draft, another curious move considering Brown’s age and the fact that older WRs Tyreek Hill and Davante Adams netted more in earlier deals.

The team used the 18th pick from the trade to acquire Burks, who got off to a rough start in camp due to conditioning. The rookie also battled the injury bug, missing five games due to a foot injury and another two thanks to a concussion. However, when Burks was on the field, he flashed with a 73.9 PFF receiving grade, 21% targets per route run (TPRR), and 1.75 yards per route run (YPRR).

Based on data since 2011, those are WR3-worthy data points – very encouraging for a rookie. We saw CeeDee Lamb deliver a similar profile in his first year, with a 72.6 PFF receiving grade, 21% TPRR, and 1.81 YPRR. Burks could have a bright future as a run-after-the-catch monster in a heavy play-action scheme. Out of receivers with an aDOT of 10-plus yards, Burks ranked No. 7 in yards after the catch (YAC) at 5.4 yards per catch.

Burks wasn’t the only rookie offensive skill player to flash for the Titans in 2022. Okonkwo also hinted at immense upside with high-end efficiency, albeit on only 171 routes. The fourth-round TE out of Maryland’s 84.6 PFF receiving grade, 26% TPRR, and 2.61 YPRR all point toward a potential high-end TE1 option based on historical data.

These numbers align very closely with the profiles that have eclipsed 16 fantasy points per game since 2011.

Forecasting with small samples isn’t an exact science. Albert Okwuegbunam checked similar boxes after two years in the league but was buried by Nathaniel Hackett last year in Denver. However, that doesn’t mean Okonkwo will share the same fate. The fact that he has demonstrated these traits is positive; we just shouldn’t be overly confident.

Okonkwo was only in a route on 32% of the Titans' pass plays last year. He is electric with the ball in his hands, averaging a sizzling 7.8 yards after the catch. The coaching staff must find a way to get his route participation up towards 80%, which might not be too hard with Austin Hooper set to depart in free agency.