Tennessee Titans

Media power rankings: Week 1

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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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.

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.

NFL.com This week: 26 (Last week 22)

What they said

“Why are the Titans, who lost, suddenly lower than the Colts, who also lost? Because Andrew Luck, Chuck Pagano and Indy have a track record of pulling out difficult games. While Tennessee’s talent level might be higher than that of its AFC South adversary in Indy, the Titans consistently have invented ways of losing games: You know, like botched handoffs that lead to defensive scores — facepalm football stuff. Remarkably, Tennessee has gone 1-7 at home in each of the past two seasons. Playing against Shaun Hill, the Titans should have equaled that win total for 2016 on Sunday. “

-Elliot Harrison

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Titan Sized 3wProjecting the Titans 53-man final roster

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What I think

I have to agree with everything he says. On paper, I would rank our defensive line, linebackers, offensive line, special teams, tight ends, and running backs better than Indy’s. However, the Titans just have this ugly knack for losing.

The silver lining is that this team is built to win, and should have won Sunday and proved it. The bad thing is, until they actually win games they will never get the benefit of the doubt.

ESPN This week: 26 (Last week: 30)

What they said

“The Titans scored 16 points in Week 1, didn’t allow an offensive touchdown, and still lost by nine. The Titans have now lost five straight, and are 2-14 with a minus-161 point differential in their past 16 games.”

More from Titan Sized

What I think

It is weird to see a team go up four spots after fumbling away a win like that. However, I get it. This team stuck with one of the best defenses in the league and they shut down one of the best running backs in football, so there were clearly positives.

However, failing to turn the ball over or get sacks killed them after they had some turnovers of their own. A team like that is going to be near the bottom of the power rankings until they either play perfect football, or start forcing turnovers.

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