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Grantland Reality Check for the Titans

Last week was fun. But unfortunately I have to agree with 99% of this article by Bill Barnwell on Grantland. Although the D-Line has 'promise', we are going nowhere without a major renovation of at least 4 offensive line spots.

The likely future of our team: there is a window with excellent skill positions spreading the field - Cook, Washington, Britt, Wright, CJ - that is only held open by the threat of a modest run game that forces defenses to pick a poison. Because they refused to draft, sign, or develop any starting O-lineman before age and cap issues close this window, we will waste this opportunity. The coaches will be fired, Bud will die, the team will be sold, new owner/management will clean house, and we won't have another shot at sustained success for about 6 years or so. The worst crime lost in all that will be the career of Jake Locker. I say that he is a franchise quarterback. But with front office upheaval, a revolving door of offensive coordinators, and a constantly deteriorating/increasingly patchwork o-line, his will be a career of what-if's. I like all the decision makers in the front office. They're really good at finding affordable upside talented character defensive guys in the draft. But the decision to avoid offensive linemen there and in free agency is fatal. Nothing matters in the playoffs more than an offensive line.