Houston Texans
2020 Record: 4-12 (3rd in AFC South)
Head Coach: David Culley (1st season)
Notable Additions: RB Mark Ingram, QB Tyrod Taylor, OLB Shaq Lawson
Notable Departures: DE J.J. Watt, ILB Benardrick McKinney, WR Will Fuller
Biggest Reason for Excitement: Nothing
What reasons do Texans fans have to get excited about this season? The respectable secondary? The fact that Zach Cunningham, Laremy Tunsil and Brandin Cooks all decided to stick around while the Titanic was sinking? The unexpected luxury of actually having a 1st round pick in 2022? This trio of small victories are about the only nice things that can be said about the Texans right now.
Their franchise quarterback Deshaun Watson is now an alleged serial sexual predator who might not ever play another down in the NFL, new head coach David Culley seems to have been hired because he was the only guy they interviewed that was willing to come work for the Texans without forcing a huge shakeup in the front office and the team is still being run by the tyrannical dope Jack Easterby-whose job is seemingly safe as long as Cal McNair is the owner. These are the type of hurdles that just can't be overcome in the short term no matter how hard you try.
Biggest Question Mark: Everything
There's not one position group outside of the aforementioned secondary that can be viewed as even adequate overall and the coaching staff from career faceless assistant Culley to lone remaining Bill O'Brien employee Tim Kelly to a seemingly past his prime Lovie Smith -who is returning to the NFL for the first time since 2015 with his head hung very low after a brutal stint (17-39 in 5 seasons) in the college ranks as the head coach of the University of Illinois-is battling it out with their peers over in Jacksonville for the title of the most uninspiring group in the league. Given their stunningly poor personnel, it'll be a constant battle for this team to avoid going 0-18 and I'm not remotely certain that they'll be successful in their pursuit of not entering the saddest section of the NFL history books.
Key to Reaching to Their Ceiling: Every Other Team in the League Dropping Dead
It's the only way this team of retreads, rejects and otherwise questionable talent can win.
Bottom Line:
They're doomed. Anything above a 2 win season should be considered a monumental accomplishment that puts David Culley in the Coach of the Year conversation.
Indianapolis Colts
2020 Record: 11-5 (2nd in AFC South)
Head Coach: Frank Reich (4th season)
Notable Additions: QB Carson Wentz, T Eric Fisher, K Eddy Pineiro
Notable Departures: T Anthony Costanzo (retired), QB Phillip Rivers (retired), DE Justin Houston
Biggest Reason for Excitement: Widespread Continuity
If not for the retirement of Anthony Costanzo and Phillip Rivers during the offseason, the Colts would be entering 2021 with the rare distinction of having every single one of their starters at least be a member of the team in 2020. Even with their departures, Carson Wentz, Eric Fisher-who will slot in at LT after he finishes rehabbing the torn Achilles he suffered in January's AFC Championship Game and rookie defensive end Kwity Paye are the only new faces that figure to slot into prime roles for the Colts this season. Chris Ballard has been waiting for to establish this type of stable corps on both sides of the ball (Quenton Nelson, DeForest Buckner, Darius Leonard, Kenny Moore, Braden Smith, Ryan Kelly, Jonathan Taylor, Mark Glowinski, Khari Willis, Bobby Okreke) since he took over the GM role in 2016 and to do it mostly through the draft, which subsequently allows them to keep their cap flexibility so they can afford to keep the bulk of these players, is a huge deal for a team that was in a deep hole prior to his arrival (s/o Ryan Grigson's horrible drafting and gift for overpaying in free agency).
Biggest Question Mark: Carson Wentz and the QB Situation Overall
Coming into 2021, there was already a huge dice roll factor surrounding Carson Wentz. He was a jittery disaster for the Eagles in 2020 that eventually got benched for Jalen Hurts and his extensive injury history is well-documented. Those concerns about Wentz were validated very early on during his Colts tenure after he broke a bone in his foot on the 2nd day of training camp and was forced to get surgery that will keep him until at least the regular season opener next month, if not longer.
Even if the best case scenario plays out and Wentz is under center for Week 1, his extended absence from practice is depriving him of the valuable opportunity to further build a rapport with his new WR's and get reacclimated with Frank Reich's offense. If Wentz does end up missing regular season time, the Colts have the nightmare scenario of having to turn to either Jacob Eason, rookie Sam Ehlinger or Brett Hundley to be their starting QB.
To put it lightly, none of these options are appealing. Eason is just one of many big arm, no polish QB prospects that are currently wasting space on NFL depth charts, Ehlinger is a small (6'1, 228 lbs), inaccurate passer (career completion percentage of just 62.7% against mostly poor Big 12 defenses) whose leadership/wealth of starting experience in a major conference is the only reason somebody decided to take a chance on him with a late round pick and while Hundley has the advantage of being the only fill-in starter candidate here with real NFL game reps (17 game appearances, 9 career starts back in 2017 with the Packers), he just signed with the team in late July and has played pretty terrible in every regular season game he's appeared in (his career stats are 1,902 YDS /9 TD/13 INT/58.9 CMP%).
The sad reality is that unlike last season where they had an old, but still reasonably effective Phillip Rivers leading the way, the Colts aren't going to be able avoid having a huge storm cloud looming over the QB spot at any point this season.
Key to Reaching Their Ceiling: Carson Wentz Returning from Injury and Getting His Mojo Back
Sorry Eason, Ehlinger and Hundley, this team isn't going to peak with any of you guys under center. Ballard decided to take a gamble on Wentz because of how special he was when Reich was still with the Eagles. Nick Foles leading the team to a Super Bowl victory paired with his stunning fall from grace over the past couple of years have managed to erase much of the impact Wentz made in 2017. He played the game like a young Ben Roethlisberger: standing tall in the pocket, taking shots downfield, occasionally catching defenses by surprise by breaking off a long run and being unafraid to take serious licks from the opposing front 7. That combination of grit and making big plays made him the perfect QB for the Eagles as well as the clear frontrunner for MVP until he went down with a torn ACL in a Week 14 victory over the Rams. There's been some highlights here and there for Wentz (a 69.6 CMP% in 2018, a career best 27 TD/7 INT split in 16 games during 2019) since he returned from that injury, but the electric highs of his 2017 campaign just haven't been replicated since.
Expecting Wentz to seamlessly return to his 2017 form upon reuniting with Reich would clearly be an unrealistic and borderline insane expectation. It is however, completely reasonable to expect better things from Wentz that what we saw during his final years in Philly. The longer Doug Pederson was left to his own devices from 2018-20, the more it became clear that Reich was the top offensive mind in that building during their Super Bowl run. Returning to Reich's system could not only restore the confidence he lost in 2020, but make better use of his physical gunslinger skill set than Peterson did. Hell, even if he gets back to the slightly more conservative style he ran in 2019, the Colts should be more or less what they were as a passing offense in 2020 with Rivers -except possibly a little better now that flashy young guys like Michael Pittman Jr., Mo-Allie Cox and maybe even the oft-injured Parris Campbell are in line to get more reps.
Being the signalcaller on a run-driven team with a great offensive line and his old coach is the best potential comeback scenario Wentz could ask for. Now it's up to him to bounce back from this injury setback, seize the opportunity and become the franchise QB for the Colts that he ultimately failed to be for the Eagles.
Bottom Line:
This is a good, well-coached team whose QB situation will dictate whether they return to the playoffs for the 2nd straight year or revert back to their middling 2019 form.
Jacksonville Jaguars
2020 Record: 1-15 (4th in AFC South)
Head Coach: Urban Meyer (1st season)
Notable Additions: CB Shaq Griffin, WR Marvin Jones Jr., DT Roy Robertson-Harris
Notable Departures: WR Keelan Cole, TE Tyler Eifert, DT Al Woods
Biggest Reason for Excitement: Trevor Lawrence
Outside of that brief stretch during the 2019 season where Gardner Minshew captured the hearts and mullets of Duval County, the Jaguars quarterback situation has been very bleak in recent years. Blake Bortles just couldn't quite put it together, Minshew regressed pretty significantly during his injury-hampered sophomore season and the Mike Glennon/Jake Luton timeshare that largely fueled their 15 game losing streak to close out 2020 featured some of the most embarrassingly inept play the league has seen at the quarterback position since the Cardinals trotted out the Ryan Lindley/John Skelton/Brian Hoyer misery platoon for the final 10 games of the 2012 season (Kevin Kolb was never missed more at at any point in his career).
All of the suffering that came from the blatant tank job the Jags pulled last year was for a reason: To land Trevor Lawrence with the 1st pick in the 2021 draft. They officially got to see their not so subtle plan through after clinching the league's worst record last December and Lawrence decided to forgo his final season of college eligibility in early January.
Lawrence has been touted as the next generational NFL QB prospect since he won the National Championship during his true freshman season at Clemson back in 2018 and at the bare minimum, he should give the Jags the 1st reliable starting quarterback they've had since David Garrard. Lawrence is kind of an interesting hybrid between an old school pocket passer and the new wave of rushing QB's as he has displayed an ability to accurately throw darts downfield as well pick up huge gains with his legs when called upon. That refined skill set along with the amount of big game experience he picked up at Clemson separated him from the rest of this year's extremely high upside QB class and immediately gives Jags fans something to look forward to-even in a 2021 season that is not likely to feature a lot of winning as they launch yet another rebuilding effort.
Biggest Question Mark: Urban Meyer
Before the questionable ethics and logic behind the hiring of Urban Meyer are explored, it needs to be pointed out that the man hasn't been on a sideline in 3 years after he resigned from Ohio State due to "health reasons".
Obviously Meyer's word can't be trusted since he's been involved in no shortage of scandals during his career including initially hiring the embattled Chris Doyle-who was ousted from Iowa ahead of the 2020 season after dozens of ex-players spoke out against the racism and bullying they endured from him during their time there-to be the Jags strength and conditioning coach (Doyle "stepped down" a couple days after Meyer publicly defended his hiring), but let's entertain the possibility that he's telling the truth for once.
Coaching is an exceptionally strenuous gig and a few years away from the daily grind isn't going to magically change that. What if Meyer makes into October or November then decides to resign because of fatigue? Or god forbid has a Gary Kubiak-type situation pop up where something awful happens him to medically during a game or practice? Leaving a young Jaguars team to learn another new system in short order because their coach downplayed his health problems in pursuit of another huge payday and ownership was desperate to make a splashy hiring after Doug Marrone would be a pretty big stain on the otherwise pretty good track record of Shad Khan.
Then there's the absolutely hilarious moral quandaries of bringing in a dirtbag like Meyer to run a team in the first place. This is a guy who routinely recruited guys with domestic violence, sexual assault, and other violent/predatory crime charges on their records during his time in the college ranks and gladly looked the other way during a spousal abuse investigation surrounding his wide receivers coach Zach Smith at Ohio State in 2018. The Doyle situation only further proved that this guy cares more about protecting his friends and giving an opportunity to any piece of garbage that can play football well over building a real locker room culture. That bullshit can work in college where the roster significantly changes on a year-to-year basis, but the NFL doesn't have that kind of turnover and cultivating a toxic environment from the very top is a recipe for creating a ticking time bomb that is bound to explode all over the place sooner or later.
However, the biggest mystery surrounding Meyer is his NFL pedigree. The 57-year old never stood on a professional sideline until Saturday night's preseason game. To provide some context to how rare this is, Kliff Kingsbury and Chip Kelly are the only other former college HC's since 2002 (Steve Spurrier) that got their gigs without any prior NFL coaching experience.
As much as Meyer's ego has been stroked after winning so much in college, he has to deal with some harsh new realities now that he's heading into the pros for the 1st time. This is a man who hasn't really had to coach since he left the University of Utah in 2004. His reputation allowed some of the nation's best players to come to him during the recruiting process every single year he was at Florida and Ohio State and when you have a steady pipeline of blue chip talent pouring into your program, winning is bound to follow. This practice of at least 75% of the best recruits going to the top handful of programs (right now that would be Alabama, Ohio State, LSU, Oklahoma and Clemson) is why college football is such a fucking sham and almost none of the head coaches that leave the friendly confines of the minor leagues achieve any meaningful degree of success in the NFL.
Being successful at the NFL level requires good scheming, roster-building and being able to overcome adversity more often than not when it shows up. Steve Spurrier failed to do this. Dennis Erickson failed to do this. Nick F'n Saban failed to do this. It's going to be a little bit before we learn if Meyer is going join this group of great college coaches that faceplanted in the pros or become the next Pete Carroll or Jim Harbaugh that won at both levels, but based on his largely entitlement-driven run in college football, time away from the game and the parade of maligned individuals he hired to be on his staff (Brian Schottenheimer, Darrell Bevell, Charlie Strong, Bob Sutton), I'm strongly leaning towards it being the former.
Key to Reaching Their Ceiling: Trevor Lawrence Putting The Team on His Back in Year 1
Combing over the 2021 Jaguars on paper doesn't evoke a lot of optimism about their 2021 fate. Their longtime center Brandon Linder is easily their most talented player, looking at the defensive depth chart outside of starting inside linebacker duo Myles Jack and Joe Schobert and new top corner Shaq Griffin is likely to inspire a whole lot of audible confusion from anyone outside of the most tapped in football diehards and as I just outlined, Meyer has never coached in the NFL before.
All the way back in 2012 up in Indianapolis there was a similar widespread casting of doubt upon a football team with a rookie quarterback and 1st year head coach. That Colts team went onto to overcome their general lack of talent (especially on the defensive side of the ball) to make the playoffs behind Andrew Luck's strong play and the emotional boost provided by Chuck Pagano's in-season cancer diagnosis and eventual remission. Things didn't go well at all once they got there as the eventual Super Bowl Champion Ravens kicked their teeth in and in recent years, analytics people have often cited their 11-5 finish as an anomaly that should've never happened, but they still greatly overachieved and nobody can take that away from him.
In order for the Jags to expedite their rebuild, Lawrence is going to have to do something similar this year. Now, Lawrence is already at a huge disadvantage because he isn't fortunate enough to have an offensive wizard in Bruce Arians serving as his offensive coordinator like Luck did. In fact, he has the exact opposite as he's stuck with the Darrell Bevell/Brian Schottenheimer duo that is so poor at their jobs that they've even managed to limit the effectiveness of the great Russell Wilson at times.
What Lawrence does have going for him is a decent group of skill position players to work with. James Robinson was the lone standout on the Jags offense (1,414 scrimmage YDS and 10 total TD's on 289 touches) last season, the receiving corps is full of guys (D.J. Chark, Marvin Jones Jr., Laviska Shenault Jr.) that can go up and grab the ball in redzone/contested catch situations as well as make plays with the ball in their hands and the built-in familiarity of having his college teammate Travis Etienne should provide Lawrence with the ultimate safety valve as he attempts to acclimate to the pro game. Add an offensive line (Linder, Cam Robinson, A.J. Cann, Andrew Norwell, Jawaan Taylor) that's far from a strength, but not bad enough to complete impede on the ability to make plays and there's some real potential for this offense to do some damage.
Ultimately, the success or failure of this lofty goal is going to come down to how quickly Lawrence picks up the pro game. His 1st preseason appearance was the kind of up-and-down experience most rookies put together with a big time downfield throw to Jones Jr. showing off his potential as a passer while his tendency to hold onto the ball for too long and a couple of errant throws/boneheaded decisions that almost led to turnovers demonstrated that he's still a young player that has big holes in his game. Watching how he adjusts in the next 2 games before teams start to really scheme against him during the regular season could serve as an early indicator of the type of mental acuity and work ethic Lawrence really has, which will naturally go a long way in setting realistic expectations for what he'll be able to accomplish in 2021. The expectations for Lawrence are justifiably high and if he can deliver positive results sooner than later, the hype train surrounding him is going to get a whole lot bigger.
Bottom Line:
This is a rebuilding team with a 1st NFL time head coach. The bar is low and even if they clear it, they'll still more than likely be saddled with a high draft pick in 2022.
Tennessee Titans
2020 Record: 11-5 (2nd in AFC South)
Head Coach: Mike Vrabel (4th season)
Notable Additions: WR Julio Jones, OLB Bud Dupree, CB Janoris Jenkins
Notable Departures: CB Malcolm Butler, DE Jadeveon Clowney, TE Jonnu Smith
Biggest Reason for Excitement: Adding Julio Jones
When Julio Jones officially hit the trade block in late May, the Titans never felt like a real contender to land him. While they had a vacant starting spot following the departure of Corey Davis in free agency, bringing in another top receiver to pair with their rising star #1 wideout A.J. Brown didn't feel like the type of move a team with the most run-dominant offense in the league would make. Alas, early June comes around and the list of teams interested in Jones shrinks due to his huge salary hit ($15.3 mil this season) and the Titans end up making a deal with the Falcons in short order.
Obviously acquiring Jones comes with some huge risks. He's 32 years old, has battled his injuries throughout his career (including at this very moment, as he's been sidelined from practice since August 2nd after suffering an undisclosed lower body injury) and only appeared in 9 games last season due to a lingering hamstring injury. Even with all those concerns and the very real possibility that his best days are behind him after seemingly cheating the regression train for so long by constantly producing big numbers while battling through nagging foot/ankle/knee ailments, adding Julio Jones is a big deal. This is a game-breaking, future Hall of Famer that catches passes and racks up big yardage with stunning consistency. Putting that type of explosive player next to Brown gives the Titans a chance to really beef up their vertical attack and add some much need dynamism and unpredictability to their offense in the process.
Biggest Question Mark: What The Offense Will Look Like Without Arthur Smith as OC
Mike Vrabel deserves plenty of credit for turning this Titans operation around. He's been a much better X and O's coaches than anticipated and the mental toughness he's instilled in this team has given them a special kind of edge that makes them really difficult to beat. Equally important, but not nearly as praised for his work in turning the Titans from perennial middler to a legit AFC powerhouse has been Arthur Smith.
Smith's system unleashed Derrick Henry as a full blown workhorse back after he was mostly used as a change-of-pace option during Matt LaFluer and (especially) Terry Robisike's tenures as OC and was able to unlock the long untapped potential of Ryan Tannehill by running a play action and bootleg-driven system that showcased his strengths as a passer. For his impressive efforts, Smith was unsurprisingly plucked from his post to become the new HC for the Falcons after overseeing the 4th ranked scoring offense in the league last year and allowing Henry to become only the 8th 2,000 YD rusher in NFL history.
The next man up at OC for the Titans is Todd Downing, who ironically also replaced Smith as tight ends coach after he got promoted to OC following LaFluer's departure to Green Bay in 2019. Downing only has 1 previous season of OC experience under his belt and since it was with the 2017 Raiders who went 6-10, it didn't exactly go great, as that group finished 23rd in scoring offense, 16th in passing YDS and 25th in rushing YDS.
What should be of greater interest to Titans fans though is the playcalling Downing utilized. That Raiders team had the 3rd fewest rushing attempts in the league while they ranked 15th in passing attempts. While having a 31-year old, freshly unretired Marshawn Lynch as the lead back certainly contributed to Downing's reluctance to run the ball, it's not out of the realm of possibility that Downing takes the Titans away from being a run-dominant team. Henry is going to be 28 in January and is entering year 2 of a big money 4 year deal, so it's very possible that the team will start to rely on him a little bit less moving forward in order to maximize their return on investment. It would also make sense that the additions of Jones and ex-Rams #3/#4 option Josh Reynolds alongside Brown would give the team the confidence they needed to air it out more. Clearly the Titans aren't going to want to shake things up too much considering Tannehill's history of being inconsistent outside of the play action bootleg game, but it's going to be interesting to see if Downing puts his own spin on things or simply copies what Smith did.
Key to Reaching Their Ceiling: Establishing a Pass Rush
The Titans inability to generate a pass rush over the past few years has really killed any chance their defenses had to become great. This was particularly problematic last season as they generated horrendous metrics (19 sacks, 119 total pressures and a total sack percentage of 2.9%, which ranked 30th, 28th and 32nd in the league respectively) that also managed to further exploit their problems on the back end-as they allowed the 4th most passing YDS (4439 or 277.4 per game) and 2nd most passing TD's (36) in the league.
Jon Robinson responded to these deeply crippling problems by throwing every possible asset they could into getting edge rushers this offseason. Headlining the Titans new wave of pass rushers is Bud Dupree. Dupree has been terrific over the past couple of seasons with the Steelers (19.5 sacks in 27 games played), but admittedly is a huge risk given that he just tore his ACL last November and has failed to make a ton of noise without an elite talent like T.J. Watt playing alongside him (he only posted 20 sacks in his 1st 4 NFL seasons). Unless Harold Landry, who logged a team-high 5.5 sacks last season, makes a substantial leap in year 4, that's not a luxury he'll have in Nashville.
Reinforcing Dupree as part of the new rotation of secondary pass rushers will be journeyman vets Denico Autry and John Simon and rookie Rashad Weaver. Autry and Simon both struggle with consistency (Autry has logged 30.5 sacks over 7 NFL seasons, Simon has 20 over 8), but can make enough plays to carve out regular spots in a rotation while Weaver flashed a lot of power, some hand fighting prowess and pretty good technique during his final year at Pitt, and could prove to be a terrific value as a 4th round selection. Regardless of where it comes from, this group is going to need to generate pressure in order to unburden their secondary-which is going to need all the help they can get as they look to integrate 4 new full time starters into the fold (Janoris Jenkins, Kristian Fulton, Amani Hooker, rookie Caleb Farley-who was a 2020 opt-out that also happens to be recovering from back surgery) and significantly bolster their odds of breaking out of the AFC.
Bottom Line:
Unless Carson Wentz or whoever ends up playing QB for the Colts plays extremely well, the Titans' huge advantage in the overall talent department should be enough to guide them to their 2nd straight division title.
Projected Standings:
1.Tennessee Titans (12-5)
2.Indianapolis Colts (7-10)
3.Jacksonville Jaguars (3-14)
1.Houston Texans (1-16)
