Titans Owner Tommy Smith Needs a Reality Check on Contending Hopes, Roster Plans

There's an intrinsic belief necessary to get involved in professional sports. If you're a player, you need to believe you are the best. (Even if you aren't.) And, if you're a general manager or head coach, you need to believe your plan is the best. (Even if it isn't.) The Magic of Thinking Big is an important psychological aspect necessary to compete at that level. 

And so, from that standpoint, it's not entirely surprising that Titans owner Tommy Smith has strong beliefs about the likelihood of his team turning things around. Smith told local talk shows, as reported by Jim Wyatt of The Tennesseean, that he believes Tennessee can make the playoffs in 2015 and contend for a Super Bowl in 2016. He think this is a "realistic expectation."

It's not.

When the Titans finished tied for the worst record in the NFL last season, it wasn't the result of a few bad breaks steering an otherwise decent team down. The Titans finished second-to-last in the NFL in Football Outsiders' DVOA, 0.2 percent ahead of No. 32 Jacksonville. They finished with 3.3 Pythagorean wins, again second-to-last, 0.2 ahead of the Raiders. (Of course, the Raiders played the hardest schedule in the league. The Titans' ranked 23rd.)

This is a rudderless team with one of the weakest rosters in the league and, well, I'll just let Smith tell you. Smith told a radio station of his team's identity: "That's one of my pet peeves. I don't think we have one. I'll be candid with you."

What struck me most about that line isn't that Smith knocked his team's lack of identity. It's that he knocked it in the present tense. Smith has said he wants to build a "smash-mouth" football team, when that concept is just as outdated as, well, the band Smashmouth. Every NFL team wants to win at the line of scrimmage, just like every car company wants to put a safe car out. This isn't a plan—it's marketing jargon. 

And that's the real issue the Titans have. Smith has been in control of the team for 1.5 years, and there is no real plan. Just a bunch of proclamations about wanting to build through the draft or winning at the lines—statements that sound nice but are already known quantities about owning a football team. "We are going to build through the draft" is a statement akin to "I believe ice cream tastes good." 

But general manager Ruston Webster has had time to make this plan work. We have had three drafts of "building through the draft." The Titans have one of the weakest young cores of any team. 

Team	Record	4-or-Under AV	Best Players by AV
Tampa Bay	2-14	83	Mike Evans, Lavonte David
Tennessee	2-14	65	Jurrell Casey, Chance Warmack
Jacksonville	3-13	93	Jonathan Cyprien, Telvin Smith
Oakland	3-13	85	Khalil Mack, Miles Burris
Washington	4-12	87	Ryan Kerrigan, Keenan Robinson
New York Jets	4-12	92	Demario Davis, Sheldon Richardson
Chicago	5-11	76	Kyle Long, Alshon Jeffrey

I did a more detailed look back at Webster's drafts in-season, too, and came to much the same conclusion as that table above did. Titans coach Ken Whisenhunt wore out his welcome in Arizona and was an abysmal game manager last season. In fact, ESPN.com's Paul Kuharsky raised a great point: Isn't the smashmouth plan running counter to Whisenhunt's downfield passing attack plan? 

I'm not going to say that either man deserves to lose his job, but they're both emblematic of the problem in Tennessee: There's a lot of talk about progress and the plan, but no discernible progress or plan. 

Talent can overcome bland management. But the Titans have done such a poor job of importing it that there's little hope of that happening in the near future. At the positions that matter most in the modern game (quarterback, receiver, pass-rusher, shutdown corner, three-down linebacker), the Titans have no long-term solutions.

And rather than take a chance on whichever of two legitimate first-round quarterbacks (Florida State's Jameis Winston or Oregon's Marcus Mariota) falls to their No. 2 pick, all indications are that they're sticking with Zach Mettenberger as the main guy. Sticking with Mettenberger, who has exactly zero things going for him as an NFL quarterback beyond 10 great deep balls a season, is like sticking with a pager because your friends sometimes have problems with their smart phones.

I'm not saying Smith shouldn't bring a positive message to the fans who had to suffer through this debacle of a team last season, but I'd like to see some humility in the face of such total and overwhelming defeat. Tell us why things will be different. Tell your fans why it's smart to stick with Mettenberger, Whisenhunt and Webster. Why should we expect them to deliver what they didn't last season? 

Will the Titans improve next season? Sure, probably. It's hard not to improve from 2-14. But they are lightyears away from being a contender, and no one player in free agency can jump-start that process. It's going to be a long climb back to respectability. 

Smith needs to know where this team is on the rung. Ross Perot has the same Vegas odds of making the playoffs as the Titans do. To speak otherwise in such an unabashed manner smacks not of belief, but of delusion. 

All DYAR and DVOA numbers cited are courtesy of Football Outsiders. Learn more about DVOA here.

 

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.