Former Tennessee Titans cornerback Jason McCourty’s career on “Good Morning Football” is off and running, and he was already tasked with evaluating his old team.
The panel recently discussed teams in the National Football League they view as legitimate Super Bowl contenders. McCourty noted that the Titans were getting superstar running back Derrick Henry back this year but kept Tennessee out of his list of contenders because of the A.J. Brown trade.
“I don’t see the Titans as a contender,” McCourty proclaimed. “You’re getting Derrick Henry back and your thought process is, ‘Alright, here we go. We’re going to win this thing.’ And then you trade away A.J. Brown. For me, for a younger team where you’re still building, you can get the young guy in, bring him along, and he’ll grow with the team.
“But for a team, when you’re ready to win right now, your team is built for that — the No. 1 seed last year — and we get rid of our most productive offensive player… that makes it tough for me to really believe they’re going to be the team that takes it over the top.”
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"I don't see the #Titans as a contender."
Do you agree with @McCourtyTwins? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/T5PkHrJttC
— Good Morning Football (@gmfb) July 25, 2022
While McCourty’s points have merit, the Titans secured the No. 1 seed in the AFC despite having to field a record number of players due to injury all over the roster, including at the wide receiver position with Brown.
Despite going half a season without Henry, and with Julio Jones and Brown in and out of the lineup all year long, Tennessee went 12-5 on the season.
Having said that, the Titans go into the 2022 campaign with several question marks on the roster. Wide receiver is atop the list and is largely dependent on the health of Robert Woods and the conditioning of Treylon Burks.
If both have productive seasons, and Henry picks up where he left off before the injury, the Titans should be in a favorable spot at the end of the year. The defense figures to once again be their bread and butter, but quarterback Ryan Tannehill needs to be more consistent this year after a lackluster 2021.
Of course, anything can happen in the postseason (see: 2019), but should the Titans make the playoffs again, they’ll need both sides of the ball to be firing on all cylinders if they want to make a deep postseason run.
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