FanPost

On Whiz, personnel, and who to blame


The 2014 Tennessee Titans have been a disaster and there is no denying that. Any hope of turning this season around has been all but lost. Granted, there are still seven games left in the season and the Titans could win some games down the stretch and look good closing out which would provide some hope that this season hasn't been a total waste. Anyway, as with any bad season, there is going to be plenty of people assigning blame as to why this team is terrible. For some, it's the front office, others, it is the coaching staff, and some will say the players haven't been playing up to potential (an aside, that's a favorite word amongst Titans fans). Like any good topic, I'm going to provide a thesis statement and offer an argument for it and go right ahead if you have a counter argument, I'm all for it.

Statement: At some point in time, we can't blame Whiz for everything that has gone wrong with this team.

Let's talk about Ken Whisenhunt and his resume. There is a lot of good and a lot of bad on it and you can't discount either. He's proven that he can take a team all the way to a Super Bowl but he's also proven that he can lead a team down the wrong path i.e. Arizona 2012. Then again, not every coach is going to have a clean resume and even the best coaches have horrid seasons and Whiz is no exception to this. In fact, most head coaches leave their job after piling up losing seasons at the end of their resume, see the end of Tom Landry's tenure as Cowboys head coach. Now, even though he deserves a lot of credit for taking a previously horrid franchise to the Super Bowl, he also deserves plenty of criticism for leading the team down the wrong path as well and mismanaging the quarterback and personnel situation down there.

What about his resume as an offensive mind? His offense has been proven to work in the NFL and here, it is struggling. Most people would counter saying he only had good offenses because he had really good quarterbacks, and I'll say, "Isn't that true for most offenses in the NFL?" The top five offenses in the NFL this year are: Indianapolis, New Orleans, Denver, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. If you notice about all those teams, they have a really good quarterback who knows how to run the system. (Philadelphia might be an exception to this since there has been talk that Nick Foles isn't the kind of quarterback that Chip Kelly wants but the offense really started clicking last year under Foles and they finished last year strong and he was a big part of that.) If you think about all those teams and if you took off the quarterbacks of those teams, where would their team's offense be in terms of ranking? I would guess they would be at the near bottom of the standings. The Colts in 2010 had a top five offense but the next year, it was 30th. Obviously, that was the year Peyton Manning was injured but I hope you see my point in that the best offenses in the NFL have good quarterbacks.

Now, let's talk about the Titans' offense which has been horrid and Whiz deserves blame for some of the things that have gone wrong. The running back by committee has been disastrous and there seems to be a lack of creating favorable match ups for our players. However, at some point in time, Whiz can only do so much when it comes to preparing his team. Is it his fault that Shonn Greene fumbled at the goal line against Baltimore? Is it really all his fault that the offensive line keeps getting penalties, wiping productive gains by the running backs and forcing the team into long down and distances? That completely changes how you call a game when you go from a manageable 1st and 10 to a first and 20 which changes the kinds of plays you call. At some point, these players have to be smarter and more disciplined and can't rely on their coach to prevent them from getting penalties. Yes, a coach should do something about the penalties and Whiz did by bringing in referees to practice this week. It didn't do much since the players were still committing mistake after mistake. Is that the fault of Whiz there?

Now, there has been talk around the site about Whiz mismanaging personnel and how certain players have taken a step back. To me, that's a little too broad for me. Delanie Walker has gone through the same offensive change as Justin Hunter but he's doing fine. In the Baltimore game, Kendall Wright was open on third down but a bad throw by Mett that hit a blitzing corner prevented that conversion. Is that on Whiz or was that just a simple lack of execution? Justin Hunter made a catch down the sideline but was negated because he pushed off which caused a penalty that put the offense back 15 yards, changing how Whiz would call that series. I can go on and on but my point is these players have to make catches or the quarterbacks have to make the right throws for this offense to succeed and the default answer can't always be, "Well, if the coaches knew how to use our personnel right, this wouldn't happen". I know that sounds incredibly basic but it's still valid.

In closing, Whiz deserves plenty of blame for what has happened this season and I have no problem if people criticize him. However, you can't just blame everything on him when he is coaching players that are making mistake after mistake that have nothing to do with coaching. You also can't just dismiss what he has done in the past that has been good as luck and just bring up the bad. There are a lot of issues with this team and Whisenhunt isn't to blame for everything that has gone wrong. Feel free to counter in the comments below, I welcome it.