AFC South
Houston Texans: A secondary that works
In the 2019 regular season, the Texans played man coverage on 37% of their defensive snaps, which ranked seventh overall in the league. Which made the decision to play man coverage almost exclusively against the Chiefs in the divisional round of the playoffs. Blowing a 24-0 lead and allowing 41 straight unanswered points in an eventual 51-31 loss got defensive coordinator Romeo Crennel out of the picture in that position, but it’s not as if Crennel had a lot to work with.
Lonnie Johnson Jr. was the most obvious problem in the secondary, allowing nine touchdowns with no interceptions and a 133.5 opponent passer rating. Vernon Hargreaves III gave up five touchdowns to one pick and an opponent passer rating of 112.1. Gareon Conley allowed six touchdowns to one pick and an opponent passer rating of 93.2. And on and on. The Texans do have some talent in their secondary, most notably cornerback Bradley Roby and safety Justin Reid, but the lack of scheme-to-personnel wisdom set this defense back in 2019, and it’ll have to change with a quickness under new defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver.
Indianapolis Colts: A quarterback who’s better than average
Andrew Luck’s surprise retirement last August left the Colts in a pickle. Expected to compete at a high level with their franchise quarterback guiding a team adeptly constructed by general manager Chris Ballard and expertly coached by Frank Reich and his staff, Indy was left with backup quarterback Jacoby Brissett, who they knew from his 2017 season spelling the injured Luck. Sometimes it worked; sometimes it didn’t. Brissett completed 60.9% of his passes for 2,942 yards, 18 touchdowns and six interceptions — not bad numbers, but the Colts’ passing game was almost completely missing the explosive plays needed to wrestle with the NFL’s best defenses. A 7-9 record isn’t good enough for the Colts, and Brissett may not be, either.
“Jacoby did some good things … but our passing game has to improve, unequivocally,” Ballard said at the end of the season. “The jury is still out.”
“When I talked to him the other day, we really didn’t go there,” head coach Frank Reich said at the combine of Brissett’s unsure status. “Every player in this league knows. There’s very few players in this league that have the luxury of saying ‘I’m a lock. 24-7. I don’t have to worry about job security.’ That’s a luxury in this league that not many people have. We don’t talk about that stuff. It’s the unwritten, unspoken truth that we all know exists. You’re a man about it, you welcome the competition, let’s get better.”
Generally speaking, when a GM says the jury is still out on a quarterback, the jury has already come back with a unanimous verdict. So watch for the Colts to take their scads of cap space (only the Dolphins have more going into the 2020 offseason) and address this with certainty. They may have run out of Luck last year, but the Colts are in no way a falling or failing team.
Jacksonville Jaguars: A new set of franchise cornerbacks
When the Jaguars traded A.J. Bouye to the Broncos for a fourth-round pick last week in part to get Bouye’s $13,437,500 cap number off the books for 2020, it was yet another hit to a defense that looked like one of the NFL’s best a couple of seasons ago. Trading Jalen Ramsey to the Rams last October for a wealth of draft capital, including first-round picks in the 2020 and 2021 drafts, was the biggest move, but both transactions leave the Jags without their formerly formidable outside cornerback group. Tre Herndon and D.J. Hayden were decent stopgaps last season, but for a franchise that looked like it had the next Legion of Boom at the end of the 2017 season, this talent shortage leaves a lot of unanswered questions — or perhaps specifically answered questions — about Tom Coughlin’s tenure at the top. Now, the Jaguars have to rebuild that secondary. They have the picks to do it, especially in a draft rich with talent at those positions. And with their current cap space just over $32 million, there’s enough to make a bit of a splash in free agency.
Tennessee Titans: A franchise-defining edge-rusher
As PFF pointed out, the Titans had nine players with 100 or more pass-rushing snaps this season. The only one with a pressure rate above 10% was Cameron Wake, who is now 38 years old. Harold Landry almost hit the 10% mark with 63 pressures in 639 pass-rushing snaps, and the arrow is pointing up there. And we all know that multi-gap lineman Jurrell Casey can be highly effective when he’s fully healthy. But if the Titans are to hit a next level on defense, especially after the retirement of brilliant defensive coordinator Dean Pees, they’ll have to figure their edge situation out for the future.