With Luck’s retirement, what’s your expectations for the AFCS?

[Danger]

19 hours ago, ET80 said:

Titans fans don't agree with me, but...I feel the Titans are a 9-7 team with Marcus Mariota at QB, and a 12-4 team with Ryan Tannehill at QB.

I just have zero confidence in Mariota as a starter - healthy or not. Roster wise, they have an incredibly talented team - with a deep and talented secondary, a front seven that's very athletic (with a HC who knows how to work with the front seven and get them playing at a very high level) an OL and RB that can be very physical and dominate the unit in front of them, and a WR unit that has two potentially dominant WRs on the edges and a very shifty slot guy with the most underrated TE of this generation to work the seams.

That 2016 Titans team should have been an 11-5 team - but they went 9-7. I'm not saying it's ALL on Mariota, but he's got his load to share.

I think they're 8-8 with Mariota, 10-6 with Tannehill. Simply because of the youth on that team. 

That said. I do think in terms of Rookie production. AJ Brown is going to be the #1 receiver out of this class. 

Mariota is just a game manager at best, a liability at worst.

[Dr A W Niloc]

Going strictly by efficiencies and aggregate talent, Indi wins the division (11-5?), Tennessee second (9-7?), Jacksonville and Houston tied for 3rd-4th (7-9?).  Tennessee tends to disappoint, though. 

With no Hall of Fame coaches in the AFC South I'll stick with the numbers.

[tom cody]

Texans

Jaguars

Titans 

Colts

[ET80]

1 hour ago, Dr A W Niloc said:

Going strictly by efficiencies and aggregate talent

Curious as to the metrics you're using on this? I'm not disagreeing, but would like a peek under the hood, if you will.

[raidersedge]

That division is so up in the air, I could see any team winning it with an 9-7 record.

[Blackstar12]

I’d say this Ballard definitely did a good job building a more balanced team then the one he had in 2017. Who knows if Jacoby plays with a chip on his shoulder the Colts could sneak up and win the division. We’ve seen worse QBs lead teams into the playoffs.

 

Edited August 26, 2019 by Blackstar12

[FrantikRam]

Before Luck retired:

 

Jags - 11-5

Colts - 9-7

Texans - 8-8

Titans - 7-9

 

After:

 

Jags - 11-5

Texans - 10-6

Colts - 7-9

Titans - 7-9

[Dr A W Niloc]

4 hours ago, ET80 said:

Curious as to the metrics you're using on this? I'm not disagreeing, but would like a peek under the hood, if you will.

I just used the run and pass efficiencies, defense and offense, from Football Outsiders plus the aggregate PFF ratings of the starters.  Indianapolis was 9th, Tennessee 15th, with Jacksonville and Houston 17th and 18th, respectively.  It's crude and undervalues the skill positions but might work well where coaching won't decide matters.

[ET80]

12 minutes ago, Dr A W Niloc said:

I just used the run and pass efficiencies, defense and offense, from Football Outsiders plus the aggregate PFF ratings of the starters.  Indianapolis was 9th, Tennessee 15th, with Jacksonville and Houston 17th and 18th, respectively.  It's crude and undervalues the skill positions but might work well where coaching won't decide matters.

We're these FO ratings with Luck, or were they updated following this news?

I find it interesting that the Texans and Jags have the only two guys who are universally considered top 3 at their position in CB Jalen Ramsey and WR DeAndre Hopkins; If there was some sort of weighted average based on that calibur of player, I think the rating would be a bit higher.

[dtait93]

I believe Vrabel is a better coach than both BOB and Marrone and I think that will give us the edge tbh

[Dr A W Niloc]

2 hours ago, ET80 said:

We're these FO ratings with Luck, or were they updated following this news?

Sadly, no.  They do these things well before the preseason. 

FWIW, I looked at the offensive pass efficiency numbers for 2017, with Jacoby Brissett at the helm.  He would have to play every bit as badly as he did then, with no improvement by anyone else, for the Colts to be edged out by Tennessee (93-90) this year.  Given the Indi blocking and targeting seen in 2018 and expected in 2019, that seems improbable (especially if we factor in the chance of the Titans underperforming as well).

Parenthetically, despite Luck's departure, the Colts, Seahawks and Ravens will be surprisingly good sources for bargain-hunting Fantasy owners.

[ET80]

2 hours ago, dtait93 said:

I believe Vrabel is a better coach than both BOB and Marrone and I think that will give us the edge tbh

I don't think there's some huge gap between Vrabel and BOB/Marrone. He's probably better, yes - but the gap isn't significant, it's Dan Quinn vs Ron Rivera at the most. And... Frank Reich is still top dog in the division; let's not forget that, he's the Sean Payton of the group. 

When coaching is that close, you gotta look at QB. Now... there's no question on that one now, Deshaun Watson is the top of this division with no real challenger across th board in the AFCS. 

It's like when Aaron Rodgers was dragging the corpse of Mike McCarthy across the likes of Leslie Frazier/Mike Zimmer, Lovie Smith and whoever was coaching Detroit those years. McCarthy wasn't much better than any of those HCs (and was probably worse than Zimmer, TBH) but Rodgers was SIGNIFICANTLY better than Jay Cutler, Matt Stafford and whoever was the QB for Minnesota, it didn't matter - Green Bay was at the top of the division during that period.

If Indy/Jax/Tenn can land a guy like Tua, they'll compete. If they land a guy like Lawrence in 2021, they'll take the division for the long term.

Until then, the team with the better QB will typically win.

[Jeezla]

Justin Houston must be so stoked

[TitanLegend]

45 minutes ago, ET80 said:

I don't think there's some huge gap between Vrabel and BOB/Marrone. He's probably better, yes - but the gap isn't significant, it's Dan Quinn vs Ron Rivera at the most. And... Frank Reich is still top dog in the division; let's not forget that, he's the Sean Payton of the group. 

When coaching is that close, you gotta look at QB. Now... there's no question on that one now, Deshaun Watson is the top of this division with no real challenger across th board in the AFCS. 

It's like when Aaron Rodgers was dragging the corpse of Mike McCarthy across the likes of Leslie Frazier/Mike Zimmer, Lovie Smith and whoever was coaching Detroit those years. McCarthy wasn't much better than any of those HCs (and was probably worse than Zimmer, TBH) but Rodgers was SIGNIFICANTLY better than Jay Cutler, Matt Stafford and whoever was the QB for Minnesota, it didn't matter - Green Bay was at the top of the division during that period.

If Indy/Jax/Tenn can land a guy like Tua, they'll compete. If they land a guy like Lawrence in 2021, they'll take the division for the long term.

Until then, the team with the better QB will typically win.

 

I don't like making definitive judgements off of anything in football when the only sample size is a single season, but Vrabel was considerably better than both BoB and Marrone last year. Going 9-7 with the issues the team had last year required some good coaching.

For all I know it was a fluke and Vrabel sucks(we've certainly seen coaches fall off a cliff after a single season before), but if you're just solely judging off last year, there is a pretty large gap between Vrabel and BoB/Marrone.

And that's not even saying Vrabel was elite as a coach, I don't think he was. Just think he was good/solid. But BoB is a really bad coach and Marrone ain't far off, hell, given the locker room issues the Jags reportedly had/have, he might be worse than BoB.

Mariota and Tannehill are both average QBs when healthy. Mariota never stays healthy though, and Tannehill is a bit of a ? in that regard now too after his recent history. I don't think it matters who they go with there. I think ideally it's Mariota because Mariota's mobility is a bit better and I like him better in late game situations, but again, not a very big gap regardless.

Mariota or Tannehill either one needs to be the Flacco or Eli or 2015 Peyton or insert other average or so QB here that went to the playoffs here for our defense and run game(not that I'm saying the Titans are a superbowl contender if that happens, just using their play as a reference to teams that have had success with lesser QB play, and that). So long as the QB doesn't screw up constantly, the team around him is good enough to win with assuming Henry hasn't forgotten what made him successful the 2nd half of last year and the defense holds true to it's 3rd best scoring D rank from last season.

I think the FO/coaching staff realizes that to. We get Delanie back which obviously helps, but they added another guy in Adam Humphries that is also good in the short to intermediate game just like Delanie. The pieces are in place for the "manage the game/let run game/defense win it for you" formula. We'll have to see if it works out or not.

[ET80]

36 minutes ago, TitanLegend said:

 

I don't like making definitive judgements off of anything in football when the only sample size is a single season, but Vrabel was considerably better than both BoB and Marrone last year. Going 9-7 with the issues the team had last year required some good coaching.

For all I know it was a fluke and Vrabel sucks(we've certainly seen coaches fall off a cliff after a single season before), but if you're just solely judging off last year, there is a pretty large gap between Vrabel and BoB/Marrone.

...so, I can't believe I'm doing this. Really, I can't. If we're only using last year, I'm actually taking BOB. And I HATE BOB.

Last year, BOB had an embarrassing 0-3 start, injuries hampering his #2 defender (again) and every CB who was under 34 years old, had a poor OL that nearly destroyed Deshaun Watson's internal organs, lost his starting RT 30 minutes into the first game of the season to a broken leg, lost his #2 WR to an ACL injury, lost his #3 WR to various hamstring injuries, lost his newly traded #2 WR to an achilles tear, was going into December with his #3 QB as his #3 WR... And he still managed to go 11-5 to win the division, which included a league leading nine game winning streak.

Perhaps I'm missing context, but Vrabel took a 9-7 playoff team to... 9-7, and no playoffs. I know Mike Mularkey wasn't a good HC either, so back-to-back 9-7 seasons tells me the Titans have a DAMN good roster on their hands. I know Delanie Walker was lost, that's a huge loss. I know Mariota was hurt, which is a way of life in his career to this point. Jack Conklin played last year, right?

So, what am I missing that makes Vrabel "considerably" better? I'll concede he's probably better in a holistic sense (maybe not the best tactical guy - he took a top 5 Texans defense and turned them into the 26th ranked defense, the only time in nearly a decade the Texans didn't have a top 10 defense) but he's definitely an "arrow pointing up" sort of HC, and I'll even admit that BOB is not a good HC - but that admission is due to a collection of disappointing seasons and early playoff failures from years past (as well as the cluster that is this current off-season). Last year, in a vacuum? How do you come to your conclusion?

I'm willing to concede, I don't like defending BOB. Give me something, though.