I thought Jeff Fisher left Tennessee?

If you haven't heard by now, head coach Mike Mularkey wants to run an "exotic smashmouth" offense in Tennessee this year. That's why they went out and traded for DeMarco Murray earlier in the offseason -- to set up this exotic smashmouth offense. Because it's a thing and stuff.

Well, in the second round of the draft, the Titans selected running back Derrick Henry.

I'll say it again: I thought Jeff Fisher left Tennessee?

No player was hurt more -- fantasy-wise -- from the draft than Murray. Entering, there was a chance he'd see 260 carries in the Tennessee offense next year. Exiting, he'll probably be lucky to hit 200.

A huge problem with Mularkey's "exotic smashmouth" (I still can't believe this is the phrase he used) approach is that the defense isn't even above average -- last year they ranked 18th according to our schedule-adjusted Net Expected Points (NEP) metric.

Let's run through a quick exercise. Over the last five seasons, 24 teams have ended the year with a 1.10 pass-to-run ratio or lower, or roughly five teams per season. Meaning, if the Titans try and achieve something like this, they'll be one of the five run-heaviest teams in football next year.

Well, the average Adjusted Defensive NEP among these teams was 4.56, when the Titans finished last year with a 78.93 score. This doesn't mean the Titan defense was better -- the 78.93 total means the defense allowed roughly 74 more expected points than these run-heavy teams saw.

While we might want to say a good ground game helped those defenses, our own Joe Redemann, just last week, showed that wasn't the case.

This is all just a really simple way to say that it's going to be tough for the Titans to simply run this exotic smashmouth offense. Game script and game flow matters, and that means less opportunity for both Murray and Henry.