Will Andrew Luck get hurt again?
Chuck Pagano and Ryan Grigson survived the 2015 season. They won’t survive another like it.
For too long, Pagano and Grigson have relied on Andrew Luck to cover their failings. Before last season, the Colts had been to the playoffs every year under their current regime. Last season was the first time they missed out, and it was also the first season in which Luck faltered. Luck never looked healthy. He struggled to throw the ball downfield, despite repeatedly making some of the most difficult throws a quarterback can make to that point of his career. He often made those throws look relatively easy, too. Without Luck, Pagano and Grigson’s Colts still competed in the AFC South, but that was more a reflection on the quality of the division than the quality of their team.
Surviving allowed Pagano and Grigson to focus on the roster’s greatest flaw: its offensive line.
According to Football Outsiders, Luck led the league in knockdowns (hits + sacks) in each of the 2012, 2013 and 2014 seasons. He didn’t play enough to lead the league in 2015 but still ranked in the top six for knockdown percentage. As a testament to his quality, Luck has thrown more touchdown passes than interceptions on those plays. Asking your quarterback to perform under that kind of duress each season not only puts pressure on him to stay healthy, it also makes it extremely difficult to create an efficient passing game. Pagano and Grigson had two options: they could either find better offensive linemen, or alter their philosophy to alleviate the pressure on their current linemen.
Unsurprisingly, the Colts chose the most direct route. The Colts have had some terrible linemen in front of Luck. Gosder Cherilus, Todd Herremans and Samson Satele headline the veteran busts that the team has acquired out of desperation. That desperation has existed because they have repeatedly failed to develop the linemen they draft. Jack Mewhort and Anthony Castonzo have become competent starters but that’s about it. The Colts drafted three offensive linemen that they intended to eventually insert into the line alongside Castonzo and Mewhort. Center Ryan Kelly was a first round pick, tackle Le’Raven Clark was a third-round pick and guard Joe Haeg was a fifth-round pick. Haeg and Clark both look like developmental players who need to sit at this stage.
Pagano showed no confidence in his new offense. Luck was held out of the first pre-season game and the franchise openly acknowledged that Rex Ryan’s pass rush was the reason why. During the third preseason game, Luck was pulled from the game earlier than expected because of the team’s failing pass protection. After that game, the normally upbeat Pagano appeared more defeated than ever before: “When you don’t have a clean pocket, you don’t have time to stand in there and push the ball downfield. We’ve got to be better, obviously. I’m not going to make any excuses, but we’ve got some guys out of there right now that have been in there. You start playing musical chairs again and it’s tough.”
Mewhort’s loss combined with the developmental status of two of the rookies means the Colts offensive line is unlikely to improve. This is where Pagano should earn his money and adapt his offense to fit his personnel. That’s not something he’s ever been willing to do when Luck has been available.
After the 2014 season, Pagano was asked about his team’s philosophy. His response featured all the hallmarks of bad coaching: “We’ll never change [our run-first] mindset. New England rushed 46 times. In all three other [divisional] games, the winner(s) all rushed for 30 times and averaged [144.3] yards. The losing teams averaged 88 yards rushing. So will we ever change? No.”
Pagano doesn’t understand that teams who play with a lead are more likely to run the ball, so winning teams run – but running teams don’t necessarily win. He also used the Patriots as an example to support his philosophy – the same Patriots who had abandoned the run and thrown the ball 50 times the previous week. Being stubborn as a head coach is never a good thing. Pagano is stubborn, so he won’t alter the scheme his offense runs, regardless of who the offensive coordinator is.
Luck will again play in a heavy-set, run-first, power scheme that asks him to hold the ball and take deep dropbacks on every other snap. That will stress the offensive line as much as possible. If Pagano didn’t work under a misguided thought process, he would put Luck in a shotgun-heavy offense that would allow the quarterback to get rid of the ball quickly to short and intermediate routes. That would both protect Luck and ask the offensive line to block for a shorter time. Pagano will blame his offensive linemen or Luck, like he has previously, without realizing he is the biggest problem in Indianapolis.
Because Luck is still the greatest equalizer in the league when healthy, the Colts could still win the AFC South. History shows us that he can drag bad teams to the playoffs even while being buried with burdens few quarterbacks in history could carry. If that happens again, Pagano and Grigson might even survive another season.
Has Bill O’Brien put the right pieces in place in Houston?
Bill O’Brien has an 18-14 record as the Houston Texans head coach. He made the playoffs for the first time last year after his second successive winning season. On the surface, the Texans appear to be an ascending team entering the offseason. Yet the roster had more problems than most entering the offseason.
Despite his success over his first two years in Houston, O’Brien hadn’t tied himself to a quarterback. He hadn’t even made a real effort to find a quarterback, instead swapping out different sets from the sale stand of subpar starters. Ryan Fitzpatrick, Brandon Weeden, Ryan Mallett and Brian Hoyer have all started for the Texans over the past two years. Tom Savage was the only quarterback Rick Smith drafted since O’Brien was hired. Savage only cost a fourth-round pick and has thrown 19 passes in total during his two-year career. That changed this offseason. After Hoyer’s disastrous playoff performance at the end of last season, O’Brien set about overhauling his whole offense.
First, he found his quarterback. Brock Osweiler was signed to a $72m deal in free agency. The former Denver Broncos second-round pick only has eight career starts, and had never even spoken with O’Brien before the Texans tied themselves to him. Osweiler is tall and has a strong arm, but he didn’t stand out as superior to the old, broken-down version of Peyton Manning that was on the field in 2015. That’s why he was benched for the playoffs. The Texans aren’t expecting Osweiler to be Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady. They’ve built a supporting cast around him that should allow him to be more of a game manager than gamebreaker.
Lamar Miller will join DeAndre Hopkins as a foundational piece of the offense. Miller is one of the most talented backs in the NFL but was criminally underused by Joe Philbin and his staff in Miami over recent years. Philbin’s usage of Miller was a big reason for his firing. O’Brien has proven over the past two years that he will feed his running backs, especially the more talented ones. Hopkins is less of a receiver and more of a planet. He has a gravitational pull that sucks the ball into his grasp whenever it is thrown in his general direction. With Miller breaking off big runs and Hopkins turning heaves into easy catches, Osweiler has two crutches to lean on.
The Texans spent their first four picks in the 2016 draft on offensive pieces to complement Osweiler, Miller and Hopkins.
Will Fuller was picked to add speed outside. The Notre Dame receiver was a polarizing prospect in the draft because he combined big plays with big drops. Fuller will hope to take advantage of any extra attention that is pushed Hopkins’ way. In the third round, the Texans added Braxton Miller, a converted quarterback who will play in the slot. Miller is a great athlete who needs to develop his route running. He should be valuable to Osweiler because of his YAC ability on short throws and/or screens. Nick Martin, the team’s second round pick and projected starting center, was lost for the season during training camp.
Even with JJ Watt’s back injury lingering over the start of the season, the Texans should have a very good defense. This means their season will be defined by how the offense comes together.
Can the Jaguars’ new-look defense match their offense?
If the Jaguars line up as expected in week one, they will have five new defensive starters. When you add in players who are likely to rotate on and off the field regularly, that number will jump to seven or eight. The Jaguars defense gave up 375 yards per game last year, ninth most in the NFL, and conceded 28 points per game, the second most in the NFL. While the offense has to take some of the responsibility for the amount of points the defense gave up because Blake Bortles threw 18 interceptions, the defense on its own was disastrous. Football Outsiders’ DVOA, an advanced metric that measures efficiency on a snap-by-snap basis, ranked the Jaguars defense as the seventh-worst unit in the league. They ranked 31st against the pass and 17th against the run.
Getting better against the pass was a focal point for head coach Gus Bradley and general manager David Caldwell during the offseason.
Malik Jackson was an integral piece of the Denver Broncos defense that dragged Peyton Manning to the Super Bowl last year. As a defensive tackle, Jackson isn’t a big sack-getter, but the disruption he consistently provides from the interior is just as valuable. Jackson and Sen’Derrick Marks, whose past two seasons have been disrupted by an ACL tear he suffered during the 2014 season, could create one of the best defensive tackle pairings in the NFL. Marks is unlikely to play every down, though, so the combination will likely be limited to more obvious passing downs. With Jackson and Marks pushing the pocket from the inside, the pressure will be on Dante Fowler to produce off the edge.
Fowler was a top-five pick in the 2015 draft but tore his ACL during his first professional practice. His absence contributed to the Jaguars finishing 20th in the league in sacks. Early reports on Fowler in training camp were overwhelmingly positive, but the Jaguars are concerned about him mentally ahead of what is essentially his first season. Bradley said ahead of the third preseason game: “It’s been challenging as far as the film study and every day practice and things like that. He’s really spent extra time with [defensive coordinator Todd Wash] watching film.”
Fowler and Yannick Ngakoue are expected to be the Jaguars’ primary edge rushers. The rookie Ngakoue won’t start ahead of Jared Odrick, but his flexibility and athleticism should be more useful on passing downs.
Improving the pass rush alone isn’t enough for the Jaguars. When you rank 31st against the pass by DVOA, it usually means you’re failing to get to the passer and you’re failing to cover his receivers every week.
Prince Amukamara and Tashaun Gipson were excellent value signings for the Jaguars in free agency. Gipson in particular will be a key starter in an area – free safety – where the Jaguars have struggled massively for as long as Bradley has been the head coach. Neither Amukamara or Gipson offered the star power that came from the draft though. The Jaguars picked Jalen Ramsey fifth overall. Since 1970, only 18 defensive backs have been selected in the top five of the draft.
Ramsey is only the sixth defensive back to go that high since 2000. He was a combine superstar who repeatedly shut down receivers at the college level while playing for FSU. He is so talented that the debate over where Ramsey would play in the NFL – safety or cornerback – didn’t argue between success and failure: it argued between All-Pro and Hall of Fame. The Jaguars decided that Ramsey would play cornerback. He has drawn early comparisons to Patrick Peterson with his length and athleticism.
The Jaguars only had one pick in the top five of the draft but they wound up with two top-five players. Myles Jack fell to them in the second round because of a knee problem that will eventually require surgery. In the short term, Jack is expected to be a key defender in coverage over the middle of the field. NBC’s Josh Norris ranked Jack as the best player in the draft. “Despite Telvin Smith being athletic, he is not good in coverage,” Norris said. “Paul Posluszny has difficulty covering ground. So, at a minimum, Jack should impact in nickel and dime sets, in both zone and man situations.”
Jack and Ramsey are impact players. So are Jackson, Amukamara and Gipson. Fowler and Ngakoue could be, too. The real question for the Jaguars is if Bradley is the right coach to mold this new class of talent into a quality defense. If he is, the Jaguars could fulfill some of their potential and make the playoffs. If he’s not, the next coach will be inheriting a very talented roster in 2017.
Will Mularkeyball work for the Titans?
The Tennessee Titans ran for 288 yards in their first preseason game this year. Two hundred and eighty-eight yards! It was quite the introduction for Mike Mularkey’s ‘exotic smashmouth’ offense. It was also a somewhat contrived introduction. Mularkey used his whole playbook during a game when teams typically employ basic schemes, and he also left his first-teamers in to go against the Chargers’ second-teamers. That created some excitement and optimism around a team that has had very little reason for excitement and optimism lately.
Mularkey was hired in the offseason after serving as the interim coach for the departed Ken Whisenhunt. Whisenhunt was fired because he had a 3-20 record, yet Mularkey was hired in spite of his 18-39 career record as a head coach and 4-21 record over his previous 25 games. Mularkey was no different from Whisenhunt, or at the very least he was no better. What made the hire even more frustrating was the apparent sham interview process that the Titans used to hire him.
CEO Steve Underwood didn’t help matters when the topic was broached at Mularkey’s introductory press conference, saying that “[owner Amy Adams Strunk] largely knew that she wanted to keep Mularkey.”
With fans already frustrated, Mularkey and new general manager Jon Robinson set about building a team that could dominate the 1970s.
“Exotic smashmouth” is designed to be a run-heavy, run-based offense. The Titans want to focus their offense around DeMarco Murray and Derrick Henry, making Marcus Mariota more of a complementary piece. Think Kordell Stewart or Colin Kaepernick, as opposed to Tom Brady or Drew Brees. Mariota can run, but he’s not a runner like Mularkey’s former quarterback Stewart. He showed during his rookie season that he is an excellent pocket passer, someone who can diagnose coverages, mitigate pressure in the pocket with his footwork and throw receivers open with his accuracy. Mariota’s only limitation was/is his inability to throw deep downfield. Yet Mularkey wants to run an offense that will make him more of a runner and shot-play passer. It’ll make Mariota incapable of elevating his teammates because he will have less flexibility in his assignments.
Mularkey’s impact on Mariota will be more important than any record the Titans can achieve this year. If he destroys the former Oregon prospect’s development, it will impact the direction of the team for the next decade. Mariota is the second best quarterback in the AFC South, the Titans shouldn’t need to be great around him to contend. Mularkey’s track record, his antiquated philosophy and his limited roster suggests they will be far from great.
They will be lucky to escape the basement of the AFC South.
Predictions
Colts 11-5
Texans 8-8
Jaguars 8-8
Titans 4-12
