Programming Note: Last year, I picked a special teams MVP. I'm not going to do that this year. If I did, it would probably be Darius Reynaud given the Titans ranked first in the league in Football Outsiders Punt Return value. More on that and related matters in a future post.

.Last year, this was a very difficult choice, as there were four members of the rookie class who had highly productive seasons and could stake some sort of claim to the honor of rookie of the year. I ultimately chose Jurrell Casey, but Akeem Ayers, Karl Klug, and Colin McCarthy all had some sort of argument in their favor. This year, only two rookies became starter-level contributors, which meant they were the only two rookies I considered for this award. (Sorry, Beau Brinkley, I don't consider long-snapping a starter-level contributor.) Of the two choices, I had to pick a winner, and decided to go with outside linebacker Zach Brown over wide receiver Kendall Wright.

Brown, a second-round pick out of North Carolina, picked up his first NFL start in Week 2 at San Diego and would end up starting 14 of 16 games. The early start notwithstanding, it took him until midseason to solidify his status as a major contributor. As late as the Week 7 contest against the Bills, he played only 7 snaps on defense as the Titans spent the majority of the game in the nickel package and they did not yet trust Brown to play weakside backer in that role. That changed the next week against the Colts, and the change was confirmed a week later against the Bears, when he played more snaps than any other linebacker. I broke down his play against the Bears in some detail and was pleasantly surprised by the improvement even from earlier in the season. While he still made plenty of mistakes due to inexperience, that kind of elevation from afterthought to major contributor and the improvement I noticed in his game was enough for me to make Brown my rookie of the year.

After making an offensive MVP selection, eventually settling on Michael Roos, I turned my attention to the other side of the ball and found myself with difficulties just as great as those I'd just faced. As was the case on offense, neither the run defense nor the pass defense was anything like consistently good. Moreover, the Titans allowed more points than any team in the history of the franchise. Ultimately, though, I decided that having committed myself to this endeavor, I had to go make a choice.

Unfortunately, there were no great choices. On offense, I eventually went and defaulted to the best player on the team who I feel fairly comfortable saying is an above-average NFL starter for his role on the team. On the defensive side of the ball, I'm not sure there's any such player. I don't mean for that to sound like too much of an insult-there are players on the defense who played pretty well at times, but there are a lot of really good players around the NFL. Part of that, of course, is what I wrote before the draft, about the Titans lacking premium defensive players, and the players they're playing like premium defensive players didn't spend 2012 playing like they were premium defensive players.

My 2012 Tennessee Titans defensive MVP is defensive end Derrick Morgan. The 2010 first-round selection seemed to be a good example of a player who really blossomed in his second year back after the ACL ended that ended his rookie season after only four games. He started all 16 games and ended the year with more playing time any other player in the front seven. He responded to the playing time by putting up numbers, including a career-high 6.5 sacks and, as I noted, creating even more sacks for other players. At the same time, he wasn't just a pass rusher, playing stout run defense. The Titans were on the whole a pretty bad run defense, but an area of relative strength was against runs right end, where they ranked 13th by Football Outsiders Adjusted Line Yards metric. In a defensively down season, he stood out the most in a positive way to me.

After the jump, a breakdown of the other candidates I considered.

Once again this offseason, I'll be writing about the 2012 season that was, including picking some team MVPs, highlighting various statistics and trends, and trying to give you a better idea of the season that was. That should lead into our positional analyses, and then we'll start talking about the 2013 draft and free agency. If there's anything in particular you'd like to see, post it in the comments and I'll consider it.

Last year, this was a pretty easy choice. The Titans had a surprisingly efficient passing offense, even without Kenny Britt for most of the season, and that was because of Matt Hasselbeck. 2012 presents a more difficult challenge, as the Titans were not nearly as successful as they were last year. Even more important in terms of picking an MVP, there wasn't really anything on offense the Titans were reliably good at. The run game was productive, some of the time, and terrible unproductive as much or more of the time. The same was true of the pass game. 

In the end, I had to sit down, come up with a list of every candidate I couldn't immediately dismiss, and eventually pick a winner. So, here's how it went down, with candidates listed in order by last name.

Starting this weekend, the 12 best teams in the NFL will participate in postseason play while the Tennessee Titans and 19 other teams will watch their superiors perform.

It should be no surprise to anyone who watched the Titans this past season to learn the Titans did not fare well playing against those teams.  Overall, the Titans did not fare well at all, but they were especially outclassed, and usually embarrassed, by the teams they faced who went on to postseason competition.

When you evaluate a team by how well they fared against the best competition they faced, the Titans came up woefully short in the measurements.  These are some stark realities.

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Per Jim Wyatt of the Tennessean, Tennessee Titans owner Bud Adams has informed head coach Mike Munchak his job is safe and he will be back to coach the team in 2013. Adams indicated to Wyatt he believes Munchak needs the right people around him. It's easy for me to think that believes Jerry Gray will not be back as defensive coordinator in 2013, but we'll see.

Not returning to the team for next season for sure will be Senior Executive Vice President/Chief Operating Officer Mike Reinfeldt.  As Adams told Wyatt, "He had two years left on his deal but I thought we'd be better off without him. He is out." Reinfeldt served as general manger of the team from 2007-2011, then was promoted to COO last January when Ruston Webster was installed as general manager. In his job as COO, he oversaw all football and non-football operations.

It's difficult to know what exactly led to Reinfeldt's ouster. I was not really a huge fan of the job he did as general manager, but he's no longer general manager. It could be the failure of Bud's pursuit of Peyton Manning, especially with the Broncos taking the top seed in the AFC after finishing with a worse record than the Titans had last year. It could be business-related. It could be a delayed evaluation of the job Reinfeldt did as general manager. It could just be Bud wanted to see somebody's head roll after a fall in the record from 9-7 to 6-10. Either way, Reinfeldt is gone.

It'll be interesting to see what the Titans do now in the front office. Adams also indicated to Wyatt that GM Ruston Webster will remain with the team. I assume that means as general manager, but the Titans still have that COO vacancy. I assume there's basically no chance Steve Underwood comes out of retirement, but could Bud bring somebody else over from his non-football operations and have them run the off-the-field side of the business? I highly doubt Webster takes over both roles, but it wouldn't surprise me if he becomes the sole man to answer for football decisions. We shall see what the Titans do.

Due to the regular rotation of the NFL schedule, we've already known 14 of the 16 games the Titans will play in 2013 and now that the 2012 regular season is concluded, we know the final two opponents.

The Titans, who finished third in the AFC South this year, will face the New York Jets, who finished third in the AFC East, and the Pittsburgh Steelers, the third-place finishers in the AFC North.  The Titans, as well as the other AFC South teams, will also face the AFC West and the NFC West next year, in addition to their regular home and away division games.

Although we don't yet know when the games will be played, we do know where.  Here's the slate of games (with the 2012 records of the Titans opponents) and some thoughts after the jump.

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The NFL this year is keeping track of player participation information and releasing that information to the media on a weekly basis. Here's how the Titans officially lined up in the Week 17 home win against the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Offense (54 total)
QB: Jake Locker 54
RB: Chris Johnson 39, Quinn Johnson 23, Collin Mooney 10, Darius Reynaud 4
TE: Taylor Thompson 53, Brandon Barden 23
WR: Kenny Britt 35, Nate Washington 31, Kendall Wright 30, Michael Preston 15, Lavelle Hawkins 6
OL: Kyle DeVan 54, Deuce Lutui 54, Michael Roos 54, Byron Stingily 54, Fernando Velasco 54, Mike Otto 1

Defense (74 total)
DE: Kamerion Wimbley 60, Derrick Morgan 59, Jarius Wynn 19, Scott Solomon 11
DT: Sen'Derrick Marks 47, Jurrell Casey 45, Mike Martin 30, Karl Klug 27
LB: Akeem Ayers 73, Zach Brown 62, Tim Shaw 12, Will Witherpsoon 1
CB: Jason McCourty 74, Coty Sensabaugh 63, Tommie Campbell 52, Alterraun Verner 31
S: Al Afalava 74, Michael Griffin 74

Xavier Adibi, Jordan Babineaux, Patrick Bailey, Beau Brinkley, Mitch Petrus, and Tracy Wilson each only appeared on special teams. Jamie Harper and Matt Hasselbeck were active but did not appear in the game.

Notes