Tennessee Titans

Media power rankings: Week 4

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: 28 (26)

“The Titans hung tough against the presumed premier team in the AFC South, until the special teams ultimately let them down. Don’t you worry, though — Marcus Mariota didn’t play well again (13 of 29 passing for 202 yards and one interception). With the running game continuing to perform admirably (124 yards on 32 carries), Tennessee should be producing more downfield, but it’s just not happening frequently enough. Drives stalled. These guys were still in position to pull off the road win. Why didn’t they graduate from in position to actually doing it? Hello, 11 penalties.”

-Elliot Harrison

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I would argue that Tennessee shouldn’t be producing more downfield, because that is exactly where Marcus Mariota has struggled. Despite all the exotic formations and the presnap motion, the Titans refuse to let Mariota go hurry up and call things at the line.

The offensive line is outstanding and the running game is effective, but until the Titans learn to let Marcus Mariota call the plays at the line occasionally, and let Terry Robiskie watch and evaluate then this offense with sputter.

ESPN: 27 (26)

“32.9: Marcus Mariota was selected second overall in the 2015 draft and while the team he plays for doesn’t help, it might be time to start questioning his play. Mariota has a 32.9 Total QBR this season, second worst in the NFL.”

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Mariota is not playing well to start, but honestly none of the young quarterbacks are. Andrew Luck, Blake Bortles, Marcus Mariota, and Jameis Winston are all struggling. Ist is a weird phenomenon that no one saw coming and that no one is really talking about, unless you are the quarterback of the Tennessee Titans.

Still, the Titans are gong to continue to lose games and fall down these rankings unless they start evaluating what the coaches are doing wrong and focus on using the players strengths.

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