Next up on our trip around the Tennessee Titans position by position as we head into the 2013 offseason is a look at the tight end position.

In my looks at the quarterbacks and the wide receivers, I indicated that each position could rightly be viewed as a disappointment in 2012, but notwithstanding the disappointment I had a strong expectation the core players would be the same in 2013 and internal improvement to some degree was reasonable. At tight end, it's a little bit of a different story. As far as offensive positions go for the Titans in 2012, tight end was probably about the least disappointing. Of course, that's saying hardly anything at all.

When I wrote our preseason positional analysis, I spent a lot of time concentrating on what I called the Jared Cook Offense, when the Titans were in 11 personnel (1 back, 1 tight end, 3 receivers), and the Craig Stevens Offense (more than 1 back and/or tight end on the field, and no more than 2 receivers). In 2011, the Jared Cook Offense was a lot better. I don't have final 2012 numbers yet, but this wasn't really the case. Instead, the offense as a whole performed at roughly the same level as the Craig Stevens Offense did in 2012. Tight end usage, and the differing offensive philosophies that fit better with the characteristic of the Titans' two most prominent tight ends, did not seem to matter nearly as much in 2012 than it did in 2011.

That said, let's take a look at what those tight ends actually did on the field in 2012.

We continue our look around the Tennessee Titans position by position as we head into the 2013 offseason with a look at the wide receiver position.

When I wrote the positional analysis during the 2012 preseason, I started with a joke, that the Titans receiving corps would be about as good as it was in 2011. I wasn't that impressed with the group in 2011, aside from Kenny Britt's brief tenure and Nate Washington's reliability, and expected with the return of Britt and addition of Kendall Wright that the position would be much improved. Sadly, my joke proved all too prescient. I pegged Jake Locker as the team's biggest disappointment, but if I had to pick a position group and not a player, it would have been the wide receivers.

As we head into the offseason, the top seven receivers are under contract for 2013. Will the next season bring the same players, and same problems, we saw in 2012, or might we see some actual shake-up at the position?

As is our wont, we begin our trip around the Tennessee Titans position by position with a look at the state of the quarterback position as we head into the 2013 league year.

When I wrote the preseason positional analysis just over six months ago, which man would start Week 1 for the Titans at quarterback was unclear. Jake Locker ended up being the Week 1 starter and held on to his starting job the entire season, though injuries, particularly a dislocated left (non-throwing) shoulder suffered Week 4 against the Texans, caused him to miss five games and be pulled in two others once they became uncompetitive.

I broke down Locker's play against the Dolphins in Week 10 in some detail, and more recently expatiated on his play at some length before the season finale. He ended up 177 of 314 passes, a 56.4% completion percentage, and threw for 2,176 yards, an average of 6.9 per attempt. He threw 10 touchdowns and 11 interceptions, and was sacked 25 times. He also had 41 rushes for 291 yards, including a score. He fumbled four times, losing all of them (bad luck). He finished the season ranked 32nd (of 39) passing in Football Outsiders' per play DVOA metric and 31st in the cumulative total value DYAR metric. His reasonable efficiency when running lifted him to a 24th ranking in ESPN's Total QBR. By average NFL quarterback standards, he finished the year below average by yards per attempt, completion percentage, touchdown percentage, interception percentage, and sacks per attempt.

Barring strange and unexpected things, Jake Locker will be the Titans' starting quarterback come Week 1 of 2013, and that's how things should be.

Before we start our round of positional analyses, I wanted to repeat a little exercise from last offseason, assessing each of the Titans' veteran free agent signings.

After an unexpectedly strong 9-7 showing in 2011, the Titans enjoyed the benefit of some stability. As coordinators Chris Palmer and Jerry Gray looked more fully implement their preferred schemes in a full offseason, the Titans looked to free agency to add a couple key pieces to help in that transition. As the Titans approached free agency, they still had a number of holes on their depth chart that seemed like they needed to be filled. The Titans would make a couple moves with their own players even after I wrote that post, but it's useful as a starting point.

It would be a little bit too simplistic to say the Titans' biggest need heading into free agency was simply replacing the starters that were departing. Especially once Michael Griffin got hit with the franchise tag, Cortland Finnegan's departure, most likely to St. Louis, neared the absolutely inevitable. Jason Jones wanted no part of Jerry Gray's plans to play him at defensive end and was going somewhere he could play defensive tackle and only defensive tackle. Jake Scott, who impressed few observers in 2011, would not be back.

It was possible the Titans would sign a veteran cornerback of some sort, but I wasn't expecting one. It seemed probable the Titans would try to sign a starting-caliber guard, though I thought the pickings were slim. I found a deeper pool of potential candidates at defensive end. Beyond those two needs, the Titans could have added key players at virtually any position on the roster. What did they actually find in free agency in 2012?

After writing up the offense yesterday, it's time to put together my thoughts on how the Titans defense performed in Week 17 against the Jaguars after watching the all-22. As I did for the game against the Jets, this writeup is a somewhat organized collection of my thoughts on each individual play.

1. As a reminder of what happened in the game, the Jaguars came out and moved the ball very well, scoring touchdowns on their first two possessions. They were unable to come close to the end zone after that, though. One reason was the Titans finally started taking advantage of Chad Henne's attempt to give them the football. Even before Zach Brown's first interception late in the first half, he, Akeem Ayers, and Jason McCourty failed to haul in potential interceptions. Ayers' missed pick was a play where he jumped the route and had the ball go through his arms. McCourty's was a two-man route where he and Griffin over the top had the receiver blanketed, and Henne made a throw he had no business attempting. Brown's missed pick came when it looked like he was playing robber coverage and Henne either didn't see him or thought he could stick the throw in there to Blackmon, who was ahead of McCourty on a dig route.

2. Jacksonville's offensive line outside of left tackle Eugene Monroe is nothing to write home about, but Jurrell Casey stood out with a lot of positive plays. Just a sampling of my notes: beats Brewster with quick pressure; gets inside guard and moves down line to make play; wins and gets pressure on a play where Henne forces the dumpoff; great interior pressure against Whimper that created a tackle for loss. Nobody else stood out nearly as much to me in a positive way.

I finally made it through my review of the all-22 from the final game of the Tennessee Titans' season, the 38-14 home win against the Jacksonville Jaguars, which means it's time to report on what I watched. As I did for the game against the Jets, this will be a somewhat organized collection of my notes for each individual play. 

1. Before the game, I went ahead and wrote a somewhat cranky post on Jake Locker, who went out and completed 9 of 15 passes with a couple drops. He had a couple good seam throws, one to Hawkins for a big gain and the other that Washington dropped. Both were only thrown after it was clear the receiver had already won. One of the sacks was a bad one, where he elected not to throw the open short crosser on fourth-and-2 and tried to scramble instead, while the other was a protection bust by the interior of the offensive line. He also had a 2-yard scramble where he apparently failed to recognize his man was coming and didn't throw to the open man on the short crosser.

2. The Titans' starting interior offensive linemen did not impress me very much. The backups were worse. The Jaguars did not have a great defensive line, but the Titans struggled at times to get movement. I had Deuce Lutui's name down again, and Kyle DeVan a couple times as well. I've said this before, I think, but I don't want to see either one starting for the 2013 Titans unless they're tanking.

I'll have a post or two later this week on the all-22 from the season finale against the Jaguars, then we'll probably be starting our normal offseason positional analyses. Before that, though, I have a data dump-type post or two I want to run, and I'll start with the one today on penalties.

Were the Titans a heavily-penalized team or one not hurt very much by penalties in 2012? It seems like it should be an obvious question to answer one way or the other, but it's kind of both. On the one hand, the Titans were flagged 135 times for penalties, and their 106 accepted penalties against ranked them in the top ten in the NFL in that category. They were clearly a far cry from the almost amazingly flag-resistant Falcons, who had a mere 55 penalties accepted against them last year. Then again, the Falcons were an extreme outlier, ranking first by an amazing 17 penalties. Despite their nominal ranking of tenth, the Titans were nearly as close to the Vikings, who had the fourth-fewest penalties, than the Ravens, who had the second-most.

On the other hand, all those penalties didn't hurt the Titans that much, especially comparatively speaking. Though they ranked tenth in penalties against, they only ranked eighteenth in penalty yardage at 847 yards. True, that's more than double the yardage of the extreme outlier Falcons, but it's also nowhere close to the Ravens, who had 1,127 yards in penalties, or the Steelers, who averaged more than 10 yards per penalty against. The better ranking in penalty yardage implies the Titans committed relatively fewer long penalties, especially long pass interference penalties, than did other teams. While teams didn't get those free yards, though, they did get plenty of extra chances to stop the Titans on offense or gain yards on a Titans defense. On the whole, I would say that even though yardage wasn't a big issue, those extra chances against bad units hurt the Titans.

To get a better idea of just what type of penalties hurt the Titans in 2012, I'll go through position group by position group.