AFC South.

Sep 7

“The South Has Something To Say,” Even If No One wants To Speak of Them.

If The Quote Doesn’t Resonate, That’s Because You’re Not a Hip Fan Or Your Just Too Young. Andre 3000 Delivered That Stunner Of Resonates At The 1995 Source Awards. He and many others fElt That The South and Atlanta Hip-Hop Scene Didn’t Receive The Recognition they deserved. 1995 Would Also Be The Year The NFL Expanded, Welcoming In The Jags to Another Southern Market In Florida. The Origins Of The Quote Reside In Atlanta But The NFC South HAs Ever Harder Team To Buy Into So I Transposed The Ideas To the AFC. “All Thing Work Together.”

The South Has Always Had To Fight For Its Place Of Respect Within The Cultural Zeitgeist, And In Football, It’s No Different. The Youngest Division By Assembly and The Ages Of The Teams In The Division And You Can Get The Sense They Still Have Something To Prove.

The four Team Have Had Clashes With The Cap, Player Intentions, And Contract Negotiations, Of Which Reset The NFL Landscape This Off-season, With Debry Settle One Division, Felts Unspectacularly Quiet, Or Down Right Disappointing In Some Respect. Nobody wants To Talk About Them, And They’ve Fallen Back into the Disenfranchisement That Brough Them Together.

The Colts, Titans, Jaguars, And Texans Of The AFC South Are Tiptoeing Into The Regular Season. “Headline” Grabbing Move, Nothing To See Here. But The Move Made Were Seismic. The Media can Make What They Like Of Matt Ryan’s Move From Atlanta To Indianapolis, But A.J.Browns Exit From Tennessee Could Have The Greatest Barring Of The Division Outcome. The Team Of The AFC south is a Difficult Bunch To Make Sense Of Their Fit In The NFL. Do They Matter? They Haven’t Had A true Contender Since The 2018 Jags. The Titans Won The AFC Number One Seed Last Year, But Everyone Slayed Them as A Push Over. Nobody Expected their playoff Run To Last Long, Even With Home Field and Low And Behold First Round Divisional Round Exit.

I Imagine There’s A Table. There’s Always A Tables Somewhere Right.

You Know All Bottom Dwelling Teams in NFL (I Shouldn’t Mention Each By Name), You Know. They Convene Like the Commission In The Mafia To Discuss Whatever Win-Averse Teams discuss, Like The Possibility Of Not Recording Another Losing Season And How Best To Go About doing Such.

I Guess I Should Name Them Now.” My Conscience Interjects. The Giants, Bears, Jets, Falcons Jags Are The Convening Members. The Seahawks Are Now Just Entering The Land Of The “Irrelevant” After A Decade Of Contention. The Chips Are On The Table, But The Jaguars aren’t As Sullen. If Anything, The Jags Have That Altruistic Resonance/

Force Known As Optimism Going For Them into 2022-23. They Have, Above All Else, A True Quarterback. The Intrigue Surrounding Justin Fields In Chicago, Simple Refer To As The “Dark World” Of Ineptitude A Promising Young Quarterback. I Don’t Think Trevor Lawrence Needed The “Urban Meyer” Pass Last Year; He Looked Good In Moments. No One Would Argue The Former Clemson Star Turned The Quarterback On Its Head, But he Showed Flashes Of Brilliance. Regarding QBR—As General Litmus Test—Lawrence Didn’t Fair Well, 33.5, 28th Overall But 3641 Yards, 214.2 Per Game On 602 Attempt for Rookie, That’s Game. If We Use Josh Allen—The Forth-most Litmus Test for Young Quarterbacks of This Era And Easiest Replicable Installations Of A QB— Lawrence, He’s Head And Shoulders(Literally) Above Expectation And Timeline.

Trevor Lawrence

Josh Allen

Yards: 3641

2074

QBR:33.5

49.8

Games: 17

Games: 12

Sure the QBRs Are Squaring Ly Different. It Took Allen Until His Fourth Year To Surpass 600 Plus Attempts In A Season. Lawrence collected 100 More Drop BacksMac Jones. He Didn’t Have A Running Game To Lead The Way For The Offense. Lawrence Took The Game By The Horns, Got Thrashed Some Weeks But Hung On. Even in His Duller Moments, He Showed a Willingness To Overestimate His Abilities. An Attribute Of Lawrence’s Play style That Earned Him High Regards At Clemson But Bit Him Time and Time Again In The Pros. He Put The Ball In Dangerous Places. In The NFL, Too Often Moxie Makes The Difference. The Guys Willing To Use The Arm Strength To Force are The Ones Who Make Them. You Figure With Experience, He’ll Hone The Capacity To Match Decision Making With Physical Ability. Lawrence Finished His Rookie Campaign With 4745 Intended Air Yards—he’s Still Catching Up To The Speed Of The NFL Game, and So Too Are The Jags Talent-Level. The Jags Made It A Point To Take On A Aggressive Model Of Team Building. The Went Out And Spend Big To Upgrade The The Wide Receiver Position. When You Think Of Upgraded Receivers, You Don’t Think Of Christian Kirk Or Zay Jones. Neither Of The Two has recorded A Thousand Yard Season To This Point In Their Career. Kirk emerged as the number one option in Arizona once Deandre Landed On The PUP List. Hopkin's Absence Push Kirk Targets Up, and He Finished With 982 Yards and 16 Total Plays Of Better Than 20 Yards.

Kirk Remains an Unpolished Gem. Caught Behind AJ Green and Deandre Hopkins On The Depth Chart You Have To Wonder If We’ve Seen The Best Of Him In His Short Stint Running Number One Duties. In Question: what Does Christian Kirk look Like In A Scheme Geared Toward His Skill Set? His Name Will Be Under The Microscope Because of That 18 Million Dollar Price Tag. He Finished Ninth In VOA, And 8th In Catch Rate According To Football Outsider; The Jags Are Pushing Against The Cap For A Team That’s Projected To Hit Maybe 5 Win.

Former Raider Zay Jones Stepped Up On Outside After Las Vegas Ran Through Everybody Capable Of Running 9 Route At That Spot. At 6’2, He’ll be Another Angular Body To The Outside With Marvin Jones. Travis Ettiene Wil Make His Rookie Debut After Nerve Wrecking Foot Injury Cancelled Carried On His Part Last Season.

Coming Out Of Clemson, I Had questions about Whether He’d Have The Fortitude To Play Runningback Between The Tackles, On A Down To Down, Basis In The NFL. So Far, He's Look Tremendous Through The Offseason and Into Preseason—New Addition To The Offensive Line, Brandon Scherff, Will Tunnel Holes For Ettienne. Defensively, the Linebackers Are in the Latest Position To Receive The Platoon Treatment. The Jags Have A Plethora Multidimensional Backer From, K’lavon, First Round Pick Devin Lloyd Foyesade Oluokun. Josh Allen And Travon Walker Fill In Lines As LineBackers On The Depth, But They Most Rush The Passer. Regardless, With Zone Taking Over, The League Defenses Countermove With Depth At Run Stuffers. With A Dearth Of Good Quarterbacks Around, Force The Handicap Teams To Win With Their Arms and Fall Into More Interceptions. Think Of Passing Like Typing. The More You Type and The Faster You Go, The More Inclined You Are To make Mistakes. Even Chaisson And Lloyd Ate Unproven They Are Bodies To Send Into The Reach.

Last Year The Texans Sign Journeyman Quarterback Tyrod Taylor As The Teams Lead At The Start of 2021. Only one Year Prior, The Texans Had Question About The Roster, None At Quarterback. The Texans Finished The Year With One Of The League’s Worst Records, 4-12. Star Quarterback Deshaun Watson Lead The League In Passing Yards(4823), second in passer rating (112.4), and third in completion percentage (70.2%). The Texans Lock Up Watson For Four More Years. With Maybe A Year And A Top Ten Pick To Improve The Roster, The Texans Can Return To “Contending-Ish” In The AFC. Instead, Life Turns On A Dime, And Football Turns In Step. Deshaun Watson Demanded A Trade Took Leave... Taylor Stepped In, Ready To Charter The Texans Offense Into irrelevance. Taylor’s Box Offices Claim To Fame: 1)Always Prepared To Learn A New PlayBook, 2) A Doctor Accidentally Punctured His Lung And Justin Herbert Took Over The Chargers And The League Earlier Than Expected.

What Do You Know? The 6 Foot 180lb Taylor Gets Injured. In Steps Davis Mills, Third Round. Without A First Round Pick, The Texans Had To Make Some Kind Of Move At Quarterback. With Taylor Down, In Stepped The Stanford Grad Davis Mills. Stanford Grads Have A way In The South. Andrew Luck was the Last Stanford Grad To Throw For 300 Yards In The South Division. Mills Had Four 300 Yards, Two More Than Any Of The Quarterbacks Taking Before.

In Mills' final nine starts, he threw for 2,307 yards, 14 touchdowns, and five interceptions with a passer rating of 96. The Yardage Totals Jump To 2664 Yard, 16 Touchdown, and 88.8 Passer In True Game time. He Played Just About As Good As Anyone Could, Given The Texans Transitional Period. The Texans Took Competent Play From Whomever They Could Sift From The Bottom Of The Barrel. In Year Two, Can they Find More Than Competency? Can They Find Potency.?

Critics of Mills Should Realign Theor Focus To His Team Of the Lack there Of Really. The Texans Play Mostly Meaningless Football All Year. Quarterbacks Were Task With Simply Not Embarrassing Themselves. Take What The Defense Gives, And Don’t Turn The Ball Over. Simple In Thought But The World Of Football Things Get Wild But The Texans Finished With A Plus +3 Turnover Differential But Had One Of The Worse Points Per Drive According To Football DVOA.

Whiles Lifted Some Of those, The Texans Roster Lack Talent, and The Coaching Staff Lack Imagination. The Texans Ran The ball In Unfavorable Down/Distances(2nd And Long) As Frequently as The Best Teams Despite their Woeful Rushing Attack. New-Ish OC Pep Hamilton Comes In(He Elevates From Quarterback’s Coach) To Even The The Scale. Hamilton Coached Andrew Luck InDy Through Many Of the Wunderkind’s Best Years. He’s A Installing Passer Friendly Offense. According To Football Outsider, 38.8% of Mills’ completions went for ten or more yards. One of The Lowest Rates in the league. Mills Struggled Or Fell Below At Every Level Of The Passing Except. Despite Not Fashioning A Strong Arm, Millz leads The League With a 123.5 passer rating on throws 20-plus yards downfield, With a 6:1 Touchdown Interception Ratio. Most Quarterbacks Start The Passing Development Like Entering The Waters On The Beach. Start shallow and Make Your Way Deep. I’m From The Bahamas. I Know A Thing Or Two About How Beaches Work. A More Aggressive Play Caller Could Take Advantage Of Millz Aptitude For Deep Marksmanship.

The Texans Feilded The Worse Roster In The League Last Year By Any Qualitative Or Quantitative Ideal. Leading Wide Receiver Brandin cooks Finished With 70 More Targets Than Anyone Else On The Team. The Popular Idiom Goes That From The Bottom, You Can Only Go Up. The Texans, With A Roster Still Ranked At The Bottom According To ESPN, Are Now Just Trying Not To Go Backwards. The Offensive Line, Anchored By Laremi Tunsil, one of the Texan's highest-paid players Who Played Five Games In 2021 Due to Injury. His Return Pushes Tytus Howard Back Inside To The Left Guard Spot, And a first Round Pick Kenyon Green Takes The Right Side. The Texans Offensive Line Only Surrender 27 Sacks(PFF). Together They Should Keep Davis Millz Up Right And Firing Downfield. This Unit should Also Open Holes Down Field For Runners. I Can't Say The Texans Have An Achilles Heel Rushing Game. This Team Hasn’t Excelled At Any Range Of The Game Outside Of Mills and Brandin Cooks. The Rush Game Remains A Point Of Emphasizes. They’ve Finished At The Bottom Of The Well For Two Straight Years. The Rush Game Only Cane Alive To slay The Chargers Playoff Chance and Further Exacerbate How Terrible That Chargers Defense Played The Run. Speaking Of…

Despite Suffering From Hamstrung Talent, The Texans Weren’t The Worst Defense In The League. The Secondary Defended the Pass More Effectively As The Bengals And Chiefs. They Collected 14 Picks Along The Way To Holding Air Attacks To 242.2 Yards Per Game. The Addition Of Third Overall Pick Derek Stingely Jr To The Outside Should Raise The Bar. He’ll Lock Up With The Number Threat Across The Board. That Should Assuage Pressure On The Safeties Including New Comer Safety Jalen Pitre. The Pass Rush Also Pushed 161 Pressure And 33 Sacks(PFF). Betting On The Texans To Go From Worse To First In This Division Wouldn’t Land You In A Straight Jacket Out Right. If The Defense Takes Another Step, In Step With Run Game. These Texans Can Make A wild Card… In The AFC, That’s Unlikely But Competitive Football, Not Too Far Out Of The Question.

In Mills' final nine starts, he threw for 2,307 yards, 14 touchdowns, and five interceptions with a passer rating of 96. The Yardage Totals Jump To 2664 Yard, 16 Touchdown, and 88.8 Passer In True Game time. He Played Just About As Good As Anyone Could, Given The Texans Transitional Period. The Texans Took Competent Play From Whomever. In Year Two, Can they Find More Than Competency? Can They Find Potency?

Critics Should refocus Their Complaints Of Millz And Portion Those Spiels Over To The Texans’ Roster. The Texans Play Mostly Meaningless Football All Year. Quarterbacks Were Task With Simply Not Embarrassing Themselves. Take What The Defense Gives, And Don’t Turn The Ball Over. Simple In Thought But The World Of Football Things Get Wild But The Texans Finished With A Plus +3 Turnover Differential But Had One Of The Worse Points Per Drive According To Football DVOA.

Whiles Lifted Some Of those, The Texans Roster Lack Talent, and The Coaching Staff Lack Imagination. The Texans Ran The ball In Unfavorable Down/Distances(2nd And Long) As Frequently as The Best Teams Despite their Woeful Rushing Attack. New-Ish OC Pep Hamilton Comes In(He Elevates From Quarterback’s Coach) To Even The The Scale. Hamilton Coached Andrew Luck InDy Through Many Of the Wunderkind’s Best Years. He’s A Installing Passer Friendly Offense. According To Football Outsider, 38.8% of Mills’ completions went for ten or more yards. One of The Lowest Rates in the league. Mills Struggled Or Fell Below At Every Level Of The Passing Except. Despite Not Fashioning A Strong Arm, Millz led The League With a 123.5 passer rating on throws 20-plus yards downfield, With a 6:1 Touchdown Interception Ratio. Most Quarterbacks Start The Passing Development Like Entering The Waters On The Beach. Start shallow and Make Your Way Deep. I’m From The Bahamas. I Know A Thing Or Two About How Beaches Work. A More Aggressive Play Caller Could Take Advantage Of Millz Aptitude For Deep Marksmanship.

The Texans Fielded The Worse Roster In The League Last Year By Any Qualitative Or Quantitative Ideal. Leading Wide Receiver Brandin cooks Finished With 70 More Targets Than Anyone Else On The Team. The Popular Idiom Goes That From The Bottom, You Can Only Go Up. The Texans, With A Roster Still Ranked At The Bottom According To ESPN, Are Now Just Trying Not To Go Backwards. The Offensive Line, Anchored By Laremi Tunsil, One The The Texans Highest Paid Players, Who Played Just Five Games In 2021 Due to Injury. His Return Pushes Tytus Howard Back Inside To The Left Guard Spot, And a first Round Pick Kenyon Green Takes The Right Side. The Texans Offensive Line Only Surrender 27 Sacks(PFF). Together They Should Keep Davis Millz Up Right And Firing Downfield. This Unit should Also Open Holes Down Field For Runners. I Can't Say The Texans Have An Achilles Heel Rushing Game. This Team Hasn’t Excelled At Any Range Of The Game Outside Of Mills and Brandin Cooks. The Rush Game Remains A Point Of Emphasizes. They’ve Finished At The Bottom Of The Well For Two Straight Years. The Rush Game Only Cane Alive To slay The Chargers Playoff Chance and Further Exacerbate How Terrible That Chargers Defense Played The Run. Speaking Of…

I Had To Cringe A Bit; I’m Penning My Own Eulogy Here. American Culture Loves A Great Underdog Story. I’m Not American Pee Se But “Western” All The Same.

So, We Valorize The Ones Who Take The “establishment” To Court.

Wrestling The Beast Until One Or The Other Submits. We Brandish Them Champions And Shower Them Adoration. Former Rams Quarterback Kurt Warner, The American underdog, Has a Story That Could Inspire “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named” To Reform Or At Least Show ID. Outliers Exude a Special Resonance. The General Public Views Their Course Of Action As “Difficult.” And That Indisputable Those courses Of Actions Are Difficult And What’s More Un-conventionalist Have A Predilection Towards Taking The Road Less Traveled. The Roads Are Often Without Recourse. As A Former Writing Student, Write My Ledger With The Legends. Eyes Set On Writing His way Into A Writing Gig; I Know Lunacy. So I Know A Thing Or Two About Trying To Buck the System.

The Titans Are Going Against The Grain And While That’s Nothing New For Mike Vabrel Team— The Titan He’s A Little Outlier. The Titans Are Coming Off Of Their Best Since Their Super Bowl Appearance. In A Year When Everyone Picked The Chiefs, Bills, Or Ravens To Finish With The Best Record, The Outlier Titan Emerge Number One. The 6-2 In Games Decided By One Or Less And 12-5. Three Of Losses: The Result Of Close Bouts With The Giants And Steelers All Won Score Games. The Titans Had The 6th Hardest Schedule, And That Showed Up In The Team Losing The Turnover Battle Game As They Finished With A Minus Two Differential To End The Season. Which Coincides with why advanced Metrics Like DVOA have been Frowned On The AFC’s Top Record. They Overcame Multiple Critical Injuries Season. For Every Tale About Subverting “The Way Things Work,” There Are Many Untold Stories of Kickback. In His 2011 Time Traveling Epic 11/22/63, School Teacher Jake Epping Learns a Timeless. Noble Endeavor To Change The Course Of History As An Ever Present Adversary; History.

“In the book, the past’s pre-set course has a raw, natural power…it’s simply an unmovable force.”

Suppose We Think Of Time As The Status Quo—Which, In Truth, That’s What Time—They Fight Back. Once The Universe Establish The Way “Things” Will Work, It’s a Sleeping Giant; best Not To wake It. The Titans are Taking On Their Fourth Or Maybe Fifth Round. Derrick Henry Puts The Notion, “Size is a talent,” Into Frames. He’s A Slab of Carbonate Strap Worth Jet Packs To His Ankles. Where Running The Ball In The NFL Went Out Of Vogue Decades Big Hulking Back Eschew is The Modern Standard Of Running-backs Even More. The Average Back Stands Just Under Six Feet(5’11), And They Come In Droves. Shorter Player Are Explosives. Because The shorter Length Enables Synaptic Energy To Travel Across The Muscles Faster. What's More, The Best Running Team Use A Stable Of Backs. Some 3-4 Deep.

The Titans believe they can achieve the highest levels through their raw, Natural Force.

“Derrick's a volume guy," Titans general manager Jon Robinson said. The Titans Push Derrick Henry Dow Teams Throat At Historic Rate. At Nearly 28 Touches A Game, The Football World Bend Or Break Under The Shoulders Of Derrick Henry. Even With The Injury, The Titan “Seem”—Speculatively—To Have No Interest In Stop The Flow. Most Deft Rushing-Central Team Use. Multiple Backs. Those Backs Steady Yardage And Positive Plays, But Teams Built Around The Run Haven’t Won Anything.

If A RUNNINGBACK exists and Can Lead A Team To Victory, Derrick Henry Has Earned That Repute.

His Stiff Arm Drills Have A Following Of Their Own. “History Becomes legend, and legend becomes myth.” Will king Henry Return To His World Shattering Ways and Means, Or Will he Fade Away? Fri Dec Slowly To Dust By The Pounding “Logs” On His Body.

If Henry Can't, Quarterback Ryan Tannehill Must Take His Game Up Another Level. What That Next Looks Like, Hopefully, Greater Than 6.9 Yards Per Attempt. In His first Without Play caller, Arthur Smith Tannehill Finished With His Worse Season In Tennessee Since Coming Over From Miami. When Injuries Began To Pile Up, The pressure For Tannehill To Carry More Of The Offense Rose, And He Couldn’t Look Beyond His Comfort Zone. He Faltered In Situations That Demanded Him To Stretch His Game Beyond His Comfort Zone.

When He He Turned The Aggressiveness Meter Up Two Cranks, The Train flew Of The Tracks. Tannehill And The Offense Came out on a Tortuous Pace, Throwing Interception And Stalling Out. The Defense Kept The Titans In The Game, Only For The Bengals To Squeeze One Head-thudding Interception Out of Tannehill. The Titans Missed Arthur Smith Calling Plays Behind Tannehill. Even Before The Henry Exit, The Titans Ranked 15th In Offensive DVOA Through Eight Weeks Compared To Ranking Fourth The Year Prior. The Full Gamut Of The Offense Played Sparingly Together. Good Play Callers And Play Designer Script And Formulate Easier Structures, Reads, And Combinations For Quarterbacks. Because For Some Quarterbacks, Fewer Conundrums Mean More Completions.

To Measure Tannehill’s Or Any Quarterback Success By The Lousy Of His Weights Of His Co-Star Feels Redundant. No Plays Consistently Better Without Their Supporting Cast.

From Everything I've Read, The Football World Want To Press Pause on The Titans. A Column Compose By A Group Of Writers The Athletic Pick The Titans To Finished Behind The Cook. Draft Kings And Vegas Oddsmakers General Corroborate The Prevailing Attitude. I Have To Go Against The Grain Here. The Titans Are Still The King Of The South. They Have Several Immeasurable Factor On Their Side—continuity For One. Not Too Many Of the Team Franchise pillars Are Changing, Especially At The Top In The Command Center With Tannehill In The Second Year In The new Offense And Head Coach Mike Vrabel. Vrabel, He’s An Outlier. He’s One (If Not The Only) Belichick Pupil Who’s An Abject Success. He’s Following His Second year Of Digit Wins In Nashville. The Titans Also Have New Outside Weapons. Most Of Whom Haven’t Played A ton Of Football Lately—Treylon Burks And Robert Woods—The team won't Have Much Of A Scouting Report On How The Titans Will Use Either.

A Possession Short Area Receiver Like Robert Woods Fits Perfectly With The Team. The Titans also have A Strong Coverage Unit. The Titans Ranked Number 11 In Pass Defense According To DVOA. The Depth Thinned Behind Starrer Kristian Fulton And Star Saftey Kevin Byard. If Caleb Farley, First around Pick A Year Ago-- Returns Full Healthy. The AFC Will Have The Another Top Ten Secondary To Face Come January.

The Titans take The South And Lay In Wait For an Unsuspecting Victim At The Top Of The AFC hierarchy. The Titans Hit The Ground Running, Overcome The Weight Of Heavy Boxes, Beat Out A. Favorable Schedule, And Take Off To The Playoffs...

Jason Strachan

AFC South.

NFC South.

AFC East.