Mercurial Titans Wideout Justin Hunter Continues to Disappoint

Tennessee Titans wide receiver Justin Hunter has caught 42 percent of passes intended for him this season. Last year, in a limited role, he caught 43 percent of passes intended for him. This statistic can't tell us every problem Hunter has, but it does encapsulate why he has been a failure for a Titans team that has given him every opportunity to make the leap this season. 

Hunter is the kind of player that has the potential to get his coach fired. It's very easy to dream on his skill set and tools. When Hunter actually completes the process of catching a football, he looks as physically dominant as Randy Moss did in his prime. 

But that doesn't happen very often. Hunter has issues with the subtle traits of being an NFL wide receiver: keeping his balance, foot transfer, running the correct routes and getting off jams. His hands are an adventure. He doesn't always attack the football. Other than that, Mr. Webster, how was the play? 

Hunter is facing a critical stretch of his NFL career for evaluation purposes. You see, NFL wide receivers need to catch footballs. Coaches tend to play NFL wide receivers who do this, and they tend to not play receivers that don't do this. Hunter, as a player who is not doing this, is going to see his playing time threatened if he doesn't correct this issue. 

Last year, seven different NFL wide receivers had enough balls thrown their way to qualify as starters in Football Outsiders' rankings and still managed to catch less than 46 percent of their passes. Hunter is, as of this moment, the only qualifying receiver below this mark for the 2014 season. Here's a look at how many snaps they had then, and how many snaps they have seen this season:

Player	Team	DVOA	Catch Rate	Snaps (2013)	Snaps (2014)
Santonio Holmes	NYJ	-6.7%	39%	515	257
Kris Durham	DET	-18.5%	45%	970	0
T.J. Graham	BUF	-24.3%	40%	835	91
Darrius Heyward-Bey	IND	-24.5%	45%	615	111
Chris Givens	STL	-22.8%	41%	607	151
Stephen Hill	NYJ	-28.8%	41%	607	0
Greg Little	CLE	-34.7%	41%	907	114
AVERAGE				759.2	103.4

So, as you can see, the NFL has come to a market conclusion: "We like to play wide receivers who can catch footballs." Not rocket science. While I'm not sure how feasible it is for the Titans to sign a wideout in the offseason that can directly push Hunter to the fringes of the offensive game plan, I do think he'll see his playing time and expectations drastically reduced if he can't fix the issues that have continued to plague his game over his first two seasons.

It was easy to make excuses for Hunter. "He just needs a quarterback with a better deep ball." "His quarterbacks are inaccurate too!" Well, yes, but Hunter hasn't been an acceptable wide receiver with any of his quarterbacks this season, even the cannon-armed Zach Mettenberger. 

Quarterback	DVOA	DYAR	Catch Rate
Jake Locker	5.2%	37	42%
Charlie Whitehurst	-16.4%	-4	42%
Zach Mettenberger	-26.6%	-28	42%

Here's the truth of the matter: If where you win in the NFL is as a field-stretching deep receiver, you can't afford to miss some of the balls that Hunter has missed this season. And if you're already not catching contested balls, you certainly can't afford more sloppy play on top of that. 

An example of Hunter's problems as a receiver came in the fourth quarter of last week's game against the Philadelphia Eagles. Hunter uses a stop-start move to create separation, gets past cornerback Bradley Fletcher to the outside, and while the ball isn't perfectly thrown, it's thrown in a position where Hunter still should have made the catch.

Source: NFL Game Rewind

Here's how it looked at the point of the catch. Fletcher was in no position to put a hurting on Hunter, or to do any more than flail wildly, yet Hunter still dropped the ball. 

Then we come to Mettenberger's pick-six against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Monday Night Football. Hunter was the intended receiver on this play. Let's see how he fared: 

I won't sugarcoat it: This was another poor throw by Mettenberger. But this is a ball that Hunter should have been able to at least play defensive back on and try to tip. Instead, Hunter stumbled out of his break and wasn't even able to do that as the ball sailed behind him. 

Source: NFL Game Rewind

Hunter's still capable of big plays, still capable of big production and still capable of being a superstar receiving option in the league. I think that highly of his natural talent. 

But until he puts all the techniques he needs to integrate together on a consistent basis, he's not even worth throwing on the field as a non-situational player. Hunter drops too many balls he should catch. The biggest demerit I can give him is that he actually makes the wide receiver position look harder than it is on every snap. 

The Titans will keep going to this well, because, well, their NFL Films highlight video will be titled "The Tennessee Titans: We Didn't Have Anybody Else." But barring a major resurgence down the stretch, Tennessee should not be suckered into relying on Hunter when 2015 rolls around. 

Rivers McCown is the AFC South lead writer for Bleacher Report and the co-host of the Three-Cone Drill podcast. His work has also appeared on Football Outsiders and ESPN.com. Follow him on Twitter at @riversmccown.