Tennessee Titans: Alterraun Verner Becoming Captain on Mediocre Defense

We've come to find out that this isn't the same Tennessee Titans defense that we've come to know over the past few seasons.

The defense needed to step up more than ever against the Texans, with rookie Rusty Smith getting his first NFL start, but they failed to rise to the challenge. They allowed the Texans to go 9 for 18 on third down conversions and gain 188 yards rushing.

The total defense ranks 24th, while the pass defense ranks 26th in the NFL. Not rankings we're use to seeing.

It's easy to get fooled and think this Titans defense is good, and that's because they cause so many turnovers. Forcing turnovers are all well and good, but giving up all these yards to opposing teams is nullifying the forced turnovers.

There's still a rising star on this defense that is quickly taking over as the leader, and that's Alterraun Verner. He's quietly having an impressive rookie campaign, with two interceptions, 57 tackles and ten pass deflections.

You could easily argue that Verner is having a better season than Cortland Finnegan, who going into this season was the hands-down leader of the defense. Finnegan may still be the leader of the defense, but Verner is holding his own on the other side.

Verner had another solid game against the Texans as he recorded eight total tackles and did a great job at keeping wide receivers not named Andre Johnson from having a big game.

Both Jacoby Jones and Kevin Walter were held under 20 yards receiving, thanks in large part to Verner.

Meanwhile, Finnegan was too busy stirring up trouble on the other side of the field, which eventually ended up in a brawl with Andre Johnson.

I've become very confident in Verner taking care of the opponent's number-two wide receiver. If you go back and look at the game where the Titans' secondary got torched, it's normally thanks to either the number-one wide receiver or the tight end.

In the case of the Texans game, it was by way of the running back position. Arian Foster finished with 75 yards receiving to go along with his 143 yards on the ground.

Hopefully Finnegan will get his act together soon and show what he's capable of at cornerback. It's been a less-than-stellar season for a guy that has such high expectations from everyone.

On the other hand, it's good to know that the Titans have a solid cornerback to build around in Verner. As of now it looks like the Titans made another solid draft pick for a defense that needs a lot of fine-tuning.