Benching Jake Locker for Zach Mettenberger Is Smart Move for Titans' Future

Jake Locker's future was decided on April 30, 2014, when the Tennessee Titans declined to pick up the fifth-year option on his contract.

That fifth-year option—a crowning achievement for ownership in lockout negotiations—essentially gives teams a cheap way to keep any player it feels is effective. Locker couldn't even meet that standard.

The Titans gave Locker one last shot anyway, mostly because they had no other options, and Locker did what he always does: throw with poor accuracy, hit incredible throws that made you wonder why he wasn't better and get hurt. 

With Tennessee's chances of playoff competition all but over—Football Outsiders gives it just a 1.4 percent chance of making the playoffs—it is time to begin thinking about next season. As Locker isn't the quarterback of the future, he has been pushed aside for rookie sixth-rounder Zach Mettenberger.

In a move first reported by Paul Gallant of Houston Sports Radio 610, the Titans decided that Mettenberger will start Sunday against the Houston Texans.

Mettenberger fits head coach Ken Whisenhunt's preferred starter traits to a T. He's tall (6'5") and has a cannon for an arm.

But the recent history of rookie sixth-round quarterbacks who played in the NFL should serve as a bit of a cautionary tale. Since 1978, Ryan Lindley, Keith Null, Bruce Gradkowski, Rodney Peete and Scott Brunner are the only rookie sixth-round quarterbacks to throw more than 100 passes in their first seasons, per Tom Gower of Total Titans.  

If Ryan Lindley sounds familiar, it's because his disastrous rookie season was part of the reason Whisenhunt was fired by the Arizona Cardinals in 2012. Yet, here Whisenhunt is, going right back to the well. 

Player	Team	DYAR	DVOA
Ryan Lindley	2012 ARI	-482	-55.8%
Keith Null	2009 STL	-439	-63.7%
Bruce Gradkowski	2006 TB	-452	-31.5%
Rodney Peete	1989 DET	-60	-15.4%

Now, there are subjective reasons to believe that Mettenberger is better than the average sixth-round pick.

For one thing, his draft stock was negatively impacted due to off-field issues: Mettenberger pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual battery in 2010 and failed a drug test at the NFL combine. He also tore his ACL in a December game against Arkansas, which kept him from fully showing off his skills in predraft workouts.

Those may make him more of a perceived risk to an NFL team from an investment standpoint, but they don't necessarily impact his stock as a football player.

Bleacher Report's Matt Miller, looking purely at the tape and tools, rated Mettenberger as the 46th-best prospect on his big board before the draft. Matt Waldman of the Rookie Scouting Portfolio had Mettenberger as the seventh-best quarterback in the draft, noting that he's the "classic pocket passer who will stand and deliver." 

Mettenberger's college weaknesses, per Waldman, were reading underneath defenders and lapses with technique in the pocket. I saw both of these things show up on the tape when I looked at Mettenberger's preseason work. He may have progressed since then—we simply don't know, as we aren't privy to what the Titans see in practices—but from a developmental perspective, you'd like to see more improvement. 

	Comp-Attempts	Yards	TD-INT	YPA	Sacks Taken
Preseason	47-68	659	2-2	9.7	7
Regular Season	2-5	17	0-1	3.4	0

In the abstract, jumping to Mettenberger is a smart move for the Titans because it's made with an eye focused toward their future.

With Locker on the way out and Charlie Whitehurst a backup at best, the Titans need to get a good picture of what they have with Mettenberger before the 2014 season ends. This way, Tennessee can determine if they need to spend a first-round pick on a Marcus Mariota, Jameis Winston or Connor Cook. 

In the present, I don't expect the Titans to see much, if any, improvement from what they were getting from Whitehurst. Mettenberger has much of the same skill set. The intermediate passing game could pick up a bit if Mettenberger is able to get into a rhythm, but I expect the results to be worse when the pocket gets muddy. And with Michael Oher still starting, the pocket will get muddy at times.

But, ultimately, it's a high-variance move. We don't know what Mettenberger will bring to the table yet because he hasn't played in non-garbage time in an NFL game. My suspicion is that he fell to the sixth round for a reason beyond his off-field foibles, but I'm willing to have an open mind on it. 

And for a Titans team that desperately needs to figure out the road map back to contention, it's a positive sign that it is also willing to have an open mind—even if the Mettenberger experiment ends poorly.

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.