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

I admit it. Normally, I follow a very standard schedule when I do these positional analyses. Quarterback comes first, then running back, and so on. I started with quarterbacks this offseason, though, then didn't follow up with running back. No, I decided to push it off and wait for other positions just in case, just in case, just in case, they decided to go ahead and cut Chris Johnson by last Friday, when $9 million of his $10 million base salary for 2013 became fully guaranteed. No, I did not expect that to happen. I did not even think there was a realistic chance of it happening. I thought the chances of CJ getting cut were so remote it wasn't even worth writing a post about the possibility. And so it came to pass that Chris Johnson was still on the team.

Ever since the bye week of the 2009 season, the running back position for the Tennessee Titans has been all about Chris Johnson. In 2012, he had 276 carries, while every other running back on the Titans roster had 42. That's 87% of the workload, right in line with what he'd been doing. In the 58 games since that bye week that led to a turnaround in that season's fate, Johnson has had 85% of all running back carries for the Titans. In an NFL where backs who don't get all the work are increasingly prevalent, the Titans are one of the teams standing against the trend.

With Johnson returning, will he continue to play the same role in 2013, and what will the rest of the running back corps look like?

I thought today I'd take a brief break from our series of positional analyses to look at a broader issue of how teams build a roster.

I wrote about this at Football Outsiders, but in the NFL, there are, more or less, five ways you can acquire a player:

a. Draft them. Drafted players are subject to team control at a relatively modest price for four years (five for first-round picks);
b. Retain your own drafted players. Drafted players will eventually age out of the draft control period, and you either have to retain them by paying them market value or let them go;
c. Sign veteran free agents. Drafted players (mostly) that are, for one reason or another, not retained by the team that initially controlled their rights;
d. Sign them as young free agents (including waivers). Not every player is drafted, or makes it through the end of their initial control period with their first time. These players are subject to team control at a relatively modest price for their first four season; or
e. Trade for them.

As with almost all lists or other methods of association and assortment, this list can be a little over-simplified. After thinking the subject over for a while, though, I think I'm pretty happy with this relative level of simplification and complexity.

After the jump, how the Titans were built.

Programming note: I'll have something up, likely over the weekend, about the official Gregg Williams hiring announcement and Thursday's press conference formally introducing the 2013 coaching staff.

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

As I expected in the preseason look at the position, Quinn Johnson was the Titans' fullback in 2012 and looked, well, a lot like how Quinn Johnson had looked in the past. He blocked guys, sometimes even reasonably well, though too often for my taste not so. He handled the ball not very often, running the ball thrice for 5 yards and catching it 5 times for 40 yards. He played less than the man he replaced, Ahmard Hall used to. As noted in the snap report, Johnson played 25% of the time, approximately all of them as a regular or offset fullback with Chris Johnson. That's down from the 40% of the time the Titans in the Jeff Fisher days used a two-back set. QJ is not under contract for 2013, so what might the Titans do here?

First, it seems very likely the Titans will have a fullback-type player on the roster in 2013. Dowell Loggains spent time under Mike Heimerdinger, who was the offensive coordinator when Hall was playing close to 40% of the snaps. QJ played 25% of the time under Chris Palmer and 25% of the time under Loggains. If Loggains didn't believe in having a fullback, he could have run plays without one on the field. The fullback will have to play special teams and do other things, because that's what fullbacks pretty much have to do in the modern NFL, but it seems pretty likely there will be one.

Who will that fullback be, though? WIll the Titans bring back Johnson, another candidate from the roster, or somebody else?

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?