Five weeks in to the 2018 NFL season Brynden Trawick Jersey White , the Titans top receiving tight end is Luke Stocker with 5 catches for 63 yards. Delanie Walker — who was injured midway through the opening game in Miami and is unlikely to return any time soon — is second with 4 catches and 52 yards. The guy that everyone expected to step up when Walker went down, second year tight end Jonnu Smith, has just 2 catches for 21 yards for the entire season. The Titans entire tight end room has been blanked in the box score two weeks in a row and has just 4 catches for 35 yards combined over the last four weeks. The problem extends far beyond catching passes though. The Titans aren’t getting much from their tight ends as run blockers either. Luke Stocker ranks 30th among tight ends in run blocking on PFF, while Jonnu Smith checks in at 42nd. The Tennessee running game is being hurt by missed blocks from this position group far too often right now.The fallout from the tight end struggles ripples through the rest of the roster as well. The lack of a viable receiving threat out of this group puts more pressure on the young receivers and depth receivers like Darius Jennings and Nick Williams. We’ve seen how that has worked out to this point. The blocking failures have virtually crippled the play that should be the staple of this rushing offense, the outside zone. That’s been reflected in Derrick Henry and Dion Lewis’ statistics through five weeks. Bad tight end play is hampering virtually every aspect of this offense right now.Jonnu Smith played pretty well during his rookie season as the No. 2 to Walker’s No. 1, leaving most to believe that he could prove to eventually be become the team’s top option at the position. He followed that up with a great offseason, finishing a close runner up to Derrick Henry for the coaching staff’s offseason recognition. By all accounts — including my own — Smith looked like a player poised to take the next step in 2018. All that build up makes his performance over the last four weeks that much more frustrating. His blocking has been a problem and he’s not offsetting it with any production in the passing game. Worse, it seems as if he may have lost some of Marcus Mariota’s trust when he dropped that easy 3rd down pass against the Eagles. Since that drop, there have been multiple plays where Mariota has seemingly passed up an open Smith to throw elsewhere, including the ill-fated throw to Nick Williams in Buffalo. The coaches may be losing some faith in their young tight end as well. Smith’s snap count dropped to 78% of snaps against the Bills, marking the first time it’s been under 90% since Walker got injured. Stocker was the primary beneficiary, jumping from 35% in Week 4 to 59% in Week 5. It’s not as if Stocker has been tearing it up this season either. He’s clearly a better blocker than Smith, but even on his best day he’s not a serious threat as a receiving option. Playing Stocker more and Smith less could yield more consistency at least, but it certainly lowers the ceiling of what the offense can be. The only other options on the roster currently are MyCole Pruitt and Anthony Firkser who was just promoted from the practice squad. Pruitt has gotten a little playing time over the last couple weeks, primarily as a blocker, but he entered the league as a big time athlete who was quite productive as a receiver in college. Firkser may be the best receiving tight end on the roster right now given what we’ve seen from Smith to this point. He’s not strong enough to hold up as a point of attack blocker though which limits what the team can do with him on the field. The free agent market is pretty barren at tight end. The two options that have performed at the level of a TE1 previously in the NFL are Coby Fleener and Martellus Bennett. Fleener was last seen being released by the Saints after failing to be medically cleared to return from a concussion. Bennett has recently tweeted that he won’t be planning on returning to the NFL because he can’t pass a drug test. Neither of those guys are realistic options. There isn’t a Kenny Vaccaro type free agent tight end that can come to the rescue. A trade for a tight end could be possible in theory, though midseason player trades are pretty rare in the NFL. Cameron Brate would make the most sense in my opinion. O.J. Howard has supplanted him as the top tight end in Tampa Bay which makes him somewhat expendable. He also has ties with Titans GM Jon Robinson who was part of the front office that brought Brate to Tampa as an undrafted free agent in 2014. We’ve seen Robinson come back to guys he has connections with before so that model fits here. The problem is that Brate just signed a 6 year, $41M contract extension earlier this offseason so it would appear that the Bucs see him as a part of their long term future, even if he’s not the top tight end. As the Titans are proving right now, a second tight end can be pretty important. That’s also a big contract for the Titans to take on considering they just handed out an expensive extension to Walker earlier this offseason and will have possible extensions to discuss with Mariota and Kevin Byard this spring. I just don’t see how a Brate deal gets done realistically and there isn’t another deal out there that makes a ton of sense for both sides.So what do the Titans do to make it better?Obviously, the Titans were never going to replace Delanie Walker. You don’t just lose a 3-time Pro Bowler and rattle right along like nothing happened. This was always going to be a team effort to pick up the large amount of slack left by his injury. Wide receivers like Corey Davis, Taywan Taylor, and Tajae Sharpe must continue to improve. The Titans need their offensive tackles to get healthy and stay healthy so the tight ends don’t have to chip and help in pass protection so often. However, Tennessee is going to need to find a way to get something out of the tight end spot. The most optimistic solution would be to stay the course with Smith and continue to coach him up and that’s ultimately what I expect they’ll do. He’s a young player with plenty of physical ability. It’s just about getting the mental side of the game to slow down for him. If I was Matt LaFleur or Marcus Mariota, I would be trying to find a way to get Smith an easy catch or two early on in the Ravens game to try to get him jump started and build a little confidence. Another option is to elevate Stocker to the TE1 role. That at least improves the team from a blocking standpoint. They could then bring Smith on for certain packages or even take a look at Pruitt or Firkser in a potential “3rd down tight end” role if Smith continues to struggle. It’s a less than ideal solution because it limits how multiple you can be out of the same personnel package Womens Logan Ryan Jersey , but being multiple may not be a luxury the Titans have right now.Tight end is one of the toughest positions on the field to play. You have to know the route tree as well as pass protections. You have to run like a receiver one play and then block like an offensive lineman the next. Right now Smith is offering neither and it’s really hurting this offense. I don’t think it’s time to give up on him altogether, but it is time for the Titans to admit that there is a problem at this position and start addressing it one way or another.Top 5 takeaways from Titans OTAs and minicamp The Titans wrapped up minicamp on Thursday with a visit to the shooting range to learn gun safety with the Metro Nashville Police Department replacing the final practice session. We won’t see the team on the field again until they kickoff training camp on July 26th, but I wanted to take a quick moment to recap the offseason program and what we learned from it — if anything — about the 2018 Titans.1. Team health is very important to Mike VrabelThe health of the roster is important to every NFL coach, but Vrabel seemed to really be focused on it during OTAs and minicamp. When asked if he learned anything from his first time going through OTAs and minicamp as a head coach, Vrabel responded “I think you learn every day that the health of the team is critical to your success. There’s nothing more important than the health of our football players. You’re in constant communication with Todd [Toriscelli] and the training staff to try to balance conditioning with practice.”The team appeared to be pretty cautious with guys that may have had minor injuries or conditioning issues. Corey Davis, Rishard Matthews, Michael Campanaro, Phillip Supernaw, Will Compton, and Jack Conklin all missed at least parts of team activities over the last few weeks. Outside of Conklin’s recovery from the torn ACL he suffered in the Divisional Round of the playoffs, all the injuries have been described “minor” and Vrabel said that he expects to have the entire roster (besides Conklin) full-go by the start of training camp.Davis and Matthews are certainly the most critical pieces out of the group that were held out. Davis participated in individual drills — and looked good doing it as you can see in the video below — but was held out of team periods. Vrabel said that “we felt like the best thing for Corey was to, at times be out there full-go, and at times not be” before mentioning that he’ll discuss the injury report when they get to training camp. Both of those receivers need to be healthy for the Titans offense to reach its potential in 2018 and they really need a chance to get as many reps as possible with Marcus Mariota in the new offense. Vrabel is smart to be cautious with the team’s health at this point in the offseason. The dirty little secret of the NFL is that outside of teams on the extreme ends of the talent spectrum, a lot of success and failure comes down to how healthy a team stays and how much turnover luck they get throughout the year. 2. The Titans secondary is both talented and deepTennessee added Malcolm Butler to a secondary that was already trending up and early reports indicate this position group could be the backbone of the defense. Butler has gotten a few rave reviews. One came from John Middlekauff, a former NFL scout who now covers the Raiders and 49ers for The Athletic. Middlekauff visited Titans practice recently and wrote this about Butler based on his observations. Middlekauff also noted that Butler was the second Titans player on the field after Marcus Mariota, something that aligns with Jon Robinson’s comments about Butler being on the field running sprints at 8:00 AM the morning after signing his free agent contract. Butler’s work ethic and competitiveness are part of what makes him so good and it seems that the big contract hasn’t changed that.The addition of Butler isn’t the only reason for optimism though. Adoree Jackson is heading in to his second season after a rookie year that saw him get better and better each week. By the end of 2017, Jackson was playing at a very high level. Combine that trend and his first offseason focused entirely on football without track or combine training (which is essentially track training) and you have a recipe for a potential breakout season. In addition to Jackson, the remainder of the Titans starting secondary — Logan Ryan, Kevin Byard, and Johnathan Cyprien — all head in to their second year as starters. That familiarity with each other, even if they are playing in a new system, should help this unit function more consistently at a high level in 2018. Not to be forgotten, LeShaun Sims has created some buzz with his play during OTAs and minicamp as well. His experience and ability makes him one of the best 4th corners in the NFL. Jon Robinson used Sims as an example of a player that he was proven to be right about during his excellent interview with Paul Kuharsky. That’s a pretty strong compliment for the 3rd year cornerback.As a group, the Titans secondary dominated during team drills in offseason workouts. While it must be noted that they were often working against backup receivers with Davis and Matthews sidelined, it is encouraging to hear that the defensive backs are living up to their billing so far. That group has certainly come a looooooong way in the last couple years. 3. The offense is a work in progressGiven the zero sum nature of practicing against yourself http://www.thetitanslockerroom.com/authentic-ryan-succop-jersey , the defense dominating means that the offense struggled. Obviously, the absence of Davis and Matthews has something to do with that, but I expect the offense would have struggled even if they had their top two wide receivers healthy. The transition the defense is making from Dick LeBeau’s defense to the system that Dean Pees is going to use will be little more than a small speed bump in comparison to the complete overhaul that the offense is going through. Everything about the offense that Matt LaFleur is installing is different than what the Titans ran under Terry Robiskie the last two years. The running game will be transitioning from a power-gap heavy attack to one that is primarily built about zone blocking and outside zone-stretch runs. The passing game will move from a vertical, down-the-field attack to more of a traditional west coast scheme featuring short-to-intermediate routes with an emphasis on getting receivers the ball in space with a chance to create after the catch. Dan Orlovsky, a former NFL quarterback who spent last season in Rams camp working under Matt LaFleur, does a great job of breaking down this offense and what makes it different from other schemes. For one, the Shanahan style offense that LaFleur has been raised in as an NFL coach is one of the more verbose when it comes to the wording required to communicate plays. You can see some of that in this video. The passing offense is largely based on timing and the reads are very structured compared to other offenses. Orlovsky describes the process of learning this offense for a quarterback as being broken down and then rebuilt from scratch. Footwork is critical as the wide receivers routes and the quarterback’s reads are all designed to be synced with the footwork of the drop from center. This offense is not easy to learn, but it has proven to be quite effective once installed and understood by the players. The wordy playcalls allow for tweaks and adjustments to be made on the fly to take advantage of what the defense is presenting during the game. There is a good chance that the defense will remain ahead of the offense throughout much of training camp as they continue to work through this transition. The hope is that LaFleur is able to get Mariota and the Titans up to speed as quickly as he and Sean McVay were able to get Jared Goff and the Rams ready last year. Last year LA opened up the season scoring 46, 20, 41, and 35 points in their first 4 games. I wouldn’t set the expectation level quite that high for the Titans — after all, the Titans open with three of the best defenses in the NFL in the first four weeks in Houston, Jacksonville, and Philadelphia — but you should hope to see the offense start closing the gap on the defense by the end of the preseason. Now is not the time to panic on the offense.4. Rookie first impressionsIt’s very hard to tell much about the play of the rookies so far because of the NFL’s rules about what reporters are allowed to say about practice. For example, they aren’t supposed to say things like “Player X is working with the 1’s” unless the coach acknowledges it during a press conference first. However, there have been a few comments about Rashaan Evans and Harold Landry that have stood out to me. Vrabel said Evans “is not where he needs to be to start for our defense, and that’s OK”. And that is OK, he’s only got about 20 practices under his belt in a brand new system with brand new teammates. That also shouldn’t be read as Evans being off to a bad start. Vrabel has praised how conscientious his rookie linebacker is and his presence in the defensive huddle. Landry has been drawing attention on the practice field already. Kuharsky commented that he’s “been impressed with how much Landry is out there” in a recent periscope. The Titans second round pick has certainly seemed to adopt the right attitude as a newcomer to the veteran-led outside linebacker group as shown in this great profile from Jim Wyatt.It seems extremely likely to me that Landry will have a significant role as a rookie in this Titans defense. Again, we will know far more once camp gets here and information about where players are in the pecking order starts getting reported. 5. Marcus Mariota’s wider baseOne of the big talking points surrounding the Titans most important player has been his focus on widening his base both in the pocket and when delivering his passes. Quarterback coach Pat O’Hara discusses the importance of a strong base in the video below. A wider base should help Mariota get more zip on the ball as well as reducing the number of high misses. You can see the difference already. Here is a shot of him with his narrower base from 2017.Now take a look at the shot below and you can see quite a difference in how wide Mariota’s feet are set both in his drop and when he delivers the ball. Obviously, one example is from game action with 300 pound men chasing him and one is from a controlled practice setting with no rush, but the Titans are trying to get this worked in to his muscle memory so that it will be second nature by the time the season starts. Matt LaFleur, like many west coast offense practitioners, is a footwork fanatic and is largely credited with adjusting Jared Goff’s lower half mechanics last offseason. This is the kind of thing that Mariota didn’t have the chance to work on while recovering from his leg injury last offseason, but can make a big difference in a quarterback’s performance over the course of a season.