Titans Gambling on Brian Orakpo Headlines Attempt to Rebuild Broken Defense

After an ugly first year under defensive coordinator Ray Horton, the Tennessee Titans have spent the bulk of the offseason retooling the unit. In came "mutually parted" Pittsburgh Steelers castoff coach Dick LeBeau to oversee the unit in theory if not in title. And, as the opening salvo of free agency came to a halt, the Titans brought back outside linebacker Derrick Morgan and imported outside linebacker Brian Orakpo as well as defensive backs Perrish Cox and Da'Norris Searcy. 

Tennessee's defense finished 29th in Football Outsiders' DVOA metric last season. The Titans were one of only three teams to rank 25th or worse against both the run and the pass. Simply put: It's hard to be critical of any move Tennessee made here.

The talent deficiency was so glaring and the cap space so ample that it would be hard not to improve on what the Titans had last season. Assuming the No. 2 overall pick falls like most expect it to and USC defensive lineman Leonard Williams joins the fray as a 3-technique end, this should be a much-improved unit. 

In evaluating these moves, we mostly need to just evaluate the opportunity cost of each player. What money have the Titans given this player, what were the other options and could the Titans have done better?

Orakpo at the buzzer

As Friday neared, there was reason for panic in Nashville. With the Titans seemingly unwilling to overlook the troubled off-field past of former Carolina Panthers edge-rusher Greg Hardy, Brian Orakpo was the lone rusher on the board with enough talent to change the tenor about Tennessee's defense. 

In a vacuum, I think signing Orakpo to a reported four-year, $27 million deal with $13 million in guarantees is a serious gamble. Orakpo played only 401 snaps last season as well as just 87 in 2012. I know that a torn pectoral muscle isn't the sort of thing NFL players have problems bouncing back from, but that's a lot of money to risk on a guy who hasn't played much over the last three seasons. 

But a gamble also means that there is some upside in the move, and Orakpo was excellent in 2013 before his down 2014 season. If the Titans can get a bounce-back season from him, this contract will look like a massive bargain next offseason. 

Year	Snaps	Sacks	PFF Hurries	PFF Pass Rush Rating
2012	87	1	4	+5.0
2013	827	10	29	+10.9
2014	401	0.5	12	+0.5

More importantly, at the time he signed, Tennessee was looking at "slim" and "none" on the edge if it hadn't managed to seal the deal. According to The Tennessean's Jim Wyatt, the Titans had been interested in Jason Worilds, who retired. They'd been linked to Brandon Graham, per ESPN's Paul Kuharsky, who wanted no part of them. Bringing back Akeem Ayers would involve admitting they screwed up in the first place, which no NFL team will ever willingly do. 

I don't think that I'd want to risk my reputation on Orakpo finding the fountain of healthiness. At 29 (in July), I think he's more likely to be a bridge player than the foundation piece of the next great Titans team. But they don't hand out awards for best non-use of cap space. Certainly on talent alone, I think this is a worthy proposition by a team that could stand to add a little variance to the projections. 

Saving Derrick Morgan

Early in the offseason, I wrote that Morgan was the key question mark about the 2015 Titans. I was a little surprised to see Tennessee actually follow through and reward him with a reported four-year, $27 million contract with $10 million in guarantees. Given how Morgan had wound his way around the free-agent circuit with little reported interest from the Titans and how they seemed down on him as a stand-up outside linebacker, I figured he was a goner. 

Year	Sacks	Hurries (PFF)	Hurries (FO)	QB Hits
2011	2.5	19	10.5	6
2012	6.5	42	28.5	21
2013	6	37	19	14
2014	6.5	37	n/a	8

As you can see from the table above, which I yanked from that earlier piece, the issue with Morgan is not that he's a bad pass-rusher—it's that he doesn't often finish the disruption plays he often causes. 

I think this is an excellent keep for the Titans if you look through the tuxedo blue-colored lenses and think Orakpo stays healthy all season. Morgan is not the kind of pass-rusher any team wants as its first banana, but the further down the depth chart he goes, the more his production starts to look better. With Jurrell Casey around, Morgan should be no better than the third-best pass-rusher on the team. That's basically the optimal role for him. 

I am not a fan of Morgan as an outside linebacker, but he's not going to hold the Titans back from having a good rush defense all on his own. It's just an area where they'll have to accept a bit of weakness on base defense downs. 

Morgan was, at the time he signed, clearly the best pass-rusher available not named Orakpo. That the Titans were able to bring them both back means they won't have to bother with incumbent linebacker Kamerion Wimbley next season barring injury, and that's a humongous win for them. It should also provide a boost to their solid 12th-place Adjusted Sack Rate that came mostly as a result of blitz pressure. 

Secondary choices

When it became clear early on that the Titans would not spend the money to attract Devin McCourty to play with his twin brother, Jason, in Nashville, Tennessee quickly moved on to replace stopgap Bernard Pollard with another box safety: the Buffalo Bills' Da'Norris Searcy. 

I am less enthralled with this move. Searcy had been an adequate-to-average player in Buffalo before a good season in 2014, and signing him reeks of a projection that the 2014 Searcy is here to stay.

The terms of the contract are not particularly onerous, but I think the Titans could have found similar production for a lower price if they'd waited out the market a few days. If they were going to drastically overpay for a safety, I'd rather they'd done it with the other McCourty twin. 

Year	Snaps	PFF Coverage Grade	PFF Run Stop Grade
2011-2013	1,264	+0.8	+4.2
2014	666	+2.7	+5.6

Searcy is by no means a bad player, and the need is clear. I just don't think he lives up to the projection the Titans have placed on him.

In ponying up for Perrish Cox, Tennessee became the first team to sign him to a contract longer than a year. Cox was a vagabond of the NFC West, flipping between the 49ers" target="_blank">San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks for a few seasons. After getting his personal life in order following a draft slide that belied his actual talent, he's played well for both teams. 

When you compare Cox's contract to the others that cornerbacks have been handed this offseason, there's a fair case to be made that his market was affected by his off-field transgressions. I certainly don't see him as an inferior option to players like Brandon Browner, Cary Williams and Chris Culliver, some of which signed for more than Cox got.

Player	Snaps	PFF Coverage Rating	QB Rating Allowed	TD allowed
Cox	965	-0.6	78.0	3
Wreh-Wilson	682	-15.3	110.8	6

More importantly, Cox will enable the Titans to not rush Blidi Wreh-Wilson onto the field again next season. Wreh-Wilson was abysmal in 2014 upon being handed a job he hadn't earned. Maybe Wreh-Wilson comes back this upcoming season and kills it, but there's certainly no reason the Titans should bank on it happening.

Now they have an actual plan at the position rather than "hope." If you followed the Titans at all last season, you know that particular plan didn't have a high success rate. 

I'm encouraged for Tennessee's defense as a whole. I think it's important that the Titans realized they couldn't roll with known problems again in 2015. I do think there's the potential that two years down the line we look back and see the Orakpo and Searcy contracts as busts. The only real star player of the class, Orakpo, has a shaky health history I think concerned plenty of other teams.

But ultimately, given the talent level of the team and the cap space available for the Titans, these moves were risks worth taking. When even a failed gamble is a better investment than sticking with what you had, that tells you all you need to know about how low the bar for entry was on improving this defense.

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

Rivers McCown is an NFL Analyst 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.