Yesterday I said I was surprised when I saw that Ryan Van Bibber of SBN ranked the Tennessee Titans' safety tandem as the 8th best in the league. That seemed high. Today he ranked the linebackers, and this time I am surprised that they ranked so low- coming in at 27th:

Veteran Will Witherspoon, on the weak side, leads a pair of second-year players. Colin McCarthy took over the starting middle linebacker job late in the season, and the results have the Titans looking forward to his second season. Akeem Ayers started as a rookie last season too, on the strong side. Both he and McCarthy could be in for good season in 2012.

Ranking all of the linebacking units in the league is a little bit silly because comparing 4-3 units vs. 3-4 units really is apples and oranges. The two groups are asked to do very different things.

One thing that I feel very confident in saying is that the Titans group will rank much higher this time next year. People are going to learn a lot more about McCarthy and Ayers as the season goes a long, and Zach Brown is going to be a pretty good upgrade over Witherspoon.