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Titans Rewind: The 2014 Titans QB Room
Between the Titans Rewind here on the SoBros Patreon and ‘Tennessee Titans Throwback Thursday’ on SoBros Network dot com, we’ve taken a dive into some of the memorable games and memorable people in this franchise’s history. Today’s column is not going to be one of those columns. Between coverage on the site, and on The Unofficial Titans Podcast, we’ve taken quite the deep dive into early 2010s era Titans football this summer. But, we’ve glazed over the couple of years that came out of that – when the bottom fell out.
After a tumultuous couple of years, Mike Munchak was fired at the conclusion of the 2013 season. Titans ownership elected to go the route of Ken Whisenhunt as the team’s next head coach. He was thought to be an offensive guru that would bring with him a dramatic shift in philosophy. Personally, I wasn’t sold on the Whisenhunt hire from the jump, and I think he got way more credit than he deserved for that Cardinals team that went to the Super Bowl. He didn’t right the ship for the Titans – instead, he went 3-20 as a head coach, and was canned in November of 2015.
Under Whisenhunt, the Titans endured the darkest times of the franchise’s history. I had never seen worse Titans teams, and have thankfully yet to see worse Titans teams, than those 2014 and 2015 teams that went 2-14 and 3-13 respectively. One of the bigger black eyes on the Whisenhunt era was the quarterback play. Now, you can certainly joke about the Titans being cursed at the position – they missed out on the Peyton Manning sweepstakes (as I wrote about on the last Titans Rewind), Jake Locker couldn’t stay healthy, and their best option in the 2014 NFL Draft for a rebuild was Johnny Manziel. In other words, the cupboard was bare, and there was little the Titans could do about it.
The solution for this dilemma? Try to make it work with Locker, spend a late round draft pick on Zach Mettenberger, fall back on reliable backup Charlie Whitehurst, and surely, things would sort themselves out. At the time, Whitehurst was the lovable backup that many Titans fans wanted to see get a real crack at the starting job. But, it never really felt like the talent was there for him to excel as a starter in the NFL. Patience was wearing thin on Locker, who was inconsistent at best, and always seemed injured.
Looking back, that’s a terrible quarterback room (Jordan Palmer was also in it, though he only completed one pass all season, for seven yards). The writing was on the wall for Locker. Whitehurst, while steady, didn’t offer a lot of upside. Though there was real promise with Mettenberger there for a hot minute, he fizzled out in a blaze of glory. It was clear that there was a real problem here. Ultimately, it led to the drafting of Marcus Mariota in 2015, but the Titans really had to tough it out at the position in 2014.
Locker, Mettenberger, and Whitehurst each played in seven games that season. Locker was 86/146 for 993, five touchdowns, and seven interceptions. It would end up being his last season in the NFL altogether, as he retired in March of 2015. Mettenberger went 107/179 for a team-leading 1,412 passing yards, eight touchdowns, and seven interceptions. He was done as a Titan after 2015, and bounced around the league a bit afterwards. Now, he serves as the offensive coordinator for Hillsboro High here in the Nashville area. Whitehurst was the highest rated of the three, going 105/185 for 1,326 yards, seven touchdowns, and two interceptions. I do consider Whitehurst one of the 10 greatest Titans quarterbacks of the team’s run here in Nashville, though I think that says more to the lack of quality quarterback play for the Titans than Whitehurst’s pedigree. He played a couple more years before retiring, and had a hell of a run as one of the league’s best backups for a decade. He was just never going to be that superstar quarterback. Quarterback play was a tremendous weakness on a team that had plenty of weaknesses.
When you look back at this collection of quarterbacks, it’s no wonder that Whisenhunt didn’t get it done, and the Titans won five games in two seasons. Yikes.
Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, second on Football & Other F Words, analyst for Stacking The Inbox, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, the NFL Draft, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley.
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