Jake Locker went down with an injury to his non-throwing shoulder last week against the Patriots, but he’s been practicing all week and will start. As he returns, he gets Kenny Britt back from suspension, but loses Nate Washington, likely, with an injury of his own. Britt is an incredibly talented player who has caught 56 passes for 1146 yards and 12 touchdowns in his last 13 games. He’ll probably be limited to just passing downs, with Kendall Wright and Damian Williams working as the starters, as he comes off a knee injury, but he’s still talented enough to make an impact with a limited snap count.

Locker completed 23 of 32 for 229 yards, 1 touchdown, and 1 interception last week before going down with an injury, despite a rough day from Nate Washington, who only caught 2 of 7 targets, dropping 3. Locker’s adjusted QB rating, which takes into account drops, non-targets (throw aways, spikes, etc), and YAC, was 95.3 in the opener, 10th best in the league last week. With Britt coming in, even with Washington going out, he should be able to have another good game this week.

I still believe the Titans are a sleeper team; they just ran into possibly the best team in the league in the opener. They had the league’s 8th ranked scoring defense last year, despite having 6 of 11 starters in their 3rd year or younger. That continued growth and maturity, as well as their cornerback depth, and the addition of Kamerion Wimbley and potential breakout of Derrick Morgan as much needed pass rushers would cancel out the loss of Cortland Finnegan.

Offensively, I felt they should continue to have one of the best passing blocking offensive lines, led by bookend tackles Michael Roos and David Stewart and I felt their run blocking would be better with Steve Hutchinson replacing Jake Scott at guard. Meanwhile, I felt Chris Johnson would be back to his old self. Chris Johnson averaged 3.0 YPC in his first 8 games last season after missing most of the offseason with a new coaching staff coming in and also getting out of shape. However, he averaged 4.8 YPC the rest of the way and put in a ton of work this offseason to get back into tip top shape, attending every single one of the Titans’ offseason activities, even the optional ones (OTAs) which he would normally skip in order to train at home in Orlando.

They also have Kenny Britt returning from injury. Britt missed 13 ½ games with injury last year, but he’s still only 24 (later this month) and the 2009 1st round pick has 56 catches for 1146 yards and 12 touchdowns in his last 13 full games. In 2010, when Britt was healthy (11 games) and Chris Johnson was still his old self, the Titans averaged 27.1 points per game in those 11 games. That number is a little skewed because the Titans had an unrealistically low yards per point ratio, but the point is, when they have all their offensive weapons, they can put points on the board.

Since then, Nate Washington and Jared Cook have broken out in Britt’s absence and the latter could be even better this year after catching 21 passes for 335 yards and a touchdown in his final 3 years last year. They also add 1st round pick Kendall Wright as a 3rd receiver. On top of that, they’ve made an obvious upgrade at quarterback going from Kerry Collins and Vince Young to Matt Hasselbeck and now to Jake Locker, who led them to 1.83 points per drive last year, as opposed to 1.63 points per drive for Hasselbeck (albiet in limited action).

Basically, I felt the same way about the Titans that I did at that point last year about the Lions, who proved me right. And you know what, none of that has really changed. I’m a little bit more worried about Chris Johnson now and the injury to Nate Washington hurts, but they should be able to pull off an upset victory against a Charger team that perennially underachieves in September and October. One other injury that hurts is to linebacker Colin McCarthy, who had a very solid season as a rookie last year, but that won’t kill them. Talented 2^nd round rookie Zach Brown will step into the lineup for him.

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