What to do, what to do, what to do....

The question really is...what do the Titans want to do...try to win now or try to win later...they are currently using both approaches which is not really a good idea. At some point, you have to decide which direction to take....and the timing for that decision is NOW.

For example, the signing of Thornton, Hope and Mawae suggest a win-now approach.

The drafting of VY suggests a win later approach.

So what do we do...trade McNair for whatever we can get then use Volek/Collins to tread water til VY is ready and prepare our cap for our next window of opportunity while hoping that VY develops into everything we hope he will?

Or do we make some tough cuts to keep McNair at his current contract and have him start and mentor VY but at the cost of some vets and having to start some rookies and lose some valueable depth?

Both approaches have serious risk. The win-now approach has 23mil of our cap tied to McNair who is oft injured, was hit a lot behind a leaky OL last year and potentially may never play at an MVP level. In addition, if Mac9 goes down and a few other key guys are injured, we'll have little backup talent. But suppose McNair doesn't get hurt, the OL plays well, Mac9 regains his form...it will all be worthless if the D doesn't drastically improve! As you can see, a lot has to go right for this to work!

The win later approach has several risks as well...If VY busts, we could choose to lose for a few years developing him and then be stuck in cap hell for a few years (when we have re-signed him and he doesn't work out) chewing up 6-8 years before we have another legit shot. Also, a lot of our current players will be ready for retirement or will be too expensive to keep 5 years from now (probably have to replace Pillar, Olson, Mawae, Kinney, Bennett, KVB, Bulluck, Sirmon, Woolfolk at least). Obviously, we'd also need to draft well for this approach to work correctly as well and to maximize our next window of opportunity.

The Cut/Trade McNair option also has one big problem....LOSING! While VY develops, the Titans could continue at a .500 level for a few years unless the defense takes an unexpected jump in improvement. 5 years from now when the team may likely be ready for a Super Bowl run, it is unlikely Jeff Fisher and Floyd Reese will be around to run it. No matter how exciting VY is, Bud Adams is unlikely to accept mediocrity for the next few years after the last couple. He IS spending a lot of money on this.

The win-now approach is obviously complicated AND dicey. McNair will be a huge cap hit and to sign our rookies we'll have to make some severe (but makeable) cuts. This will leave us especially vulnerable to the injury bug as we'll have a depleted bench. We will need the D to step up bigtime - a 17th ranked D won't get us into the Superbowl...let alone allow us to win it - which is the point of this approach. However, this approach obviously gives us our best chance to win and that is the only way we can have a shot at the SuperBowl in the next couple of years and the only way Jeff Fisher will make it to the VY era of Titans football.

So what approach would you take?

Gut

 

Only differences are...

The Steelers have a top 5 D...we don't.

The Steelers have one of the best running attacks in the NFL....we don't.

The Steelers have all the weapons on offense except they had Maddox as an achilles heel. We're hardly in the same situation!

Gut