Our WRs Lack Versatility

MCM, we have a problem. It's not breaking news, but it has been overshadowed by the suckiness of CJ and the offensive line.

It's called the Titans receiving core, and if you haven't noticed, it's hurting our offense arguably as much as the running game's woes are.

The reason our passing game is suffering can be simplified into this: "Kenny Britt injured"
.. But there are plenty of offenses that lose their star WR's and don't suddenly turn into Pop Warner passing games.

Take for example the Texans. When they lost Andre Johnson earlier this year, they didn't suddenly shut it down. Their passing game still succeeded even when the running game sputtered.

That's because unlike them, our wide receivers are geniune role players and nothing more. Take them out of their roles and ask more of them... and they struggle.

With KB, our receiving core was like this:

#1: Kenny Britt
#2: Nate Washington
#3: Damian Williams
#4: Marc Mariani/Lavelle Hawkins

We succeeded with the above group.

Without KB, it's basically this:

#1: Nate Washington
#2: Damian Williams
#3: Marc Mariani/Lavelle Hawkins

The reason our wide receiver core is suddenly so terrible is because the loss of Britt has thrown all our wide receivers into roles they're simply not good at.

Nate Washington: He is tough, and is a great #2 wide receiver. Earlier in the year he was able to take advantage of the attention KB was attracting and make plays.
However, it's been apparent that Nate just isn't good enough to be a #1 wide receiver in the NFL. He is much better suited to the number two spot.


Damian Williams: He is inconsistent, but not too inconsistent for a 3rd option. However, the number two option on a team has to be consistent enough to make plays when the #1 is attracting all the attention. Damian's inconsistency makes him a bad #2 WR but makes him a #3 that can be tolerated.


Marc Mariani/Lavelle Hawkins:

Mariani is to us as Devin Hester is to the Bears. He's great at returns but not very good at being a true wide receiver. He's poor at running routes and catching the ball as a receiver, but once he gets the ball he's very elusive and has good vision.

Part of that is also true for Lavelle Hawkins. Hawkins sucks at running routes, getting lined up, catching the ball, and basically being a wide receiver in general... but if you manage to get him the ball, he can make guys miss. Remember the time he made a first down by making 6 defenders miss? Yeah. That's his game and all his game is. If Mariani wasn't such a great return man, he'd be in the same boat as Hawkins.

This isn't really a negative for either guys as 4th-stringers, but when Nate and Damian can't make a play, Marc and Lavelle are the next guys our QB has to progress to, and since they both suck at running routes... they're usually not open or not in the right place.

That's the problem here. We have an injury-prone beast of a wide receiver in Kenny Britt, and a receiving core that entirely depends on that same injury-prone beast staying healthy.

Either Nate has to turn into superman (Which he's currently trying to do), Damian has to lose his inconsistency overnight, or Marc and Lavelle have to suddenly transform into actual wide receivers.

In short, our receivers have to suddenly become more versatile and adapt to their roles without KB in. Otherwise, our passing offense won't improve.

Nate has shown the most desire to adapt to his new responsibility as #1 WR, and Damian Williams also showed desire to be a solid #2 a few weeks ago, but has since fell back into being the inconsistent 3rd option playing as a number two WR. Neither of them are fixing our passing offense, even if they're trying to.

So, honestly, I'm interested... What IS our solution to this personnel problem?

Do we need to retool who we have, address it in the upcoming draft, just pray that Kenny Britt finds a way to stay healthy, or hope Jake Locker can pull a Brady/Manning/Brees when he takes over the offense and make all of these guys better?

What should we do to fix this mess?

Poll

What do we do to fix this?

24%

Put Jake Locker in.

12 votes

36%

Add a versatile WR in the draft.

18 votes

4%

Retool who we have.

2 votes

8%

Get Kenny Britt back next year and keep him healthy.

4 votes

4%

Draft a WR to replace Britt as the #1 WR

2 votes

4%

Sign Terrell Owens!

2 votes

14%

Get a @#$%ing running game.

7 votes

0%

We're screwed no matter what.

0 votes

6%

Warren Moon will make all these guys good. /WTF'd

3 votes

50 votes | Poll has closed