Finishing up the AFC, we’re moving to the South Division. In the AFC South, there has been big time turnover, and many of the teams look vastly different than the past year. We’ll dive in and explore some offseason acquisitions for each team, before making our 2021 predictions:
2020 Standings:
1. Tennessee Titans 11-5
2. Indianapolis Colts 11-5
3. Houston Texans 4-12
4. Jacksonville Jaguars 1-15
2021 Outlook:
Tennessee Titans:
The Titans were a dominant offense, that seen very spotty defensive play for the greater part of 2020. They ranked 4th in points and 2nd in yards offensively and finished 24th in scoring and 28th in yards defensively. After back-to-back dominant years rushing, Arthur Smith left town to take the Atlanta Head Coaching position. The offense begins and ends with Derrick Henry, who eclipsed 2,000 yards this last year. Tannehill is still playing like a top 10 quarterback, and the addition of Julio Jones to pair with another year older AJ Brown should keep this offense extremely viable. Defensively, it was apparent the team was not happy with their DB room, and they shed most 2020 veteran contributors. Kenny Vacarro, Malcolm Butler, and Adoree Jackson are all gone. Insert Janoris Jenkins and Rookie Caleb Farley to combine with incumbent Kristian Fulton to make a new defensive back corps. Bud Dupree was signed to a big deal, to bring pass rush heat opposite Harold Landry. Jeffrey Simmons looks to build off another healthy year to be a top IDL. Overall, the team is very talented and should see some improvement, but there are a lot of gambles on a defense that was not very good the year prior.
Indianapolis Colts:
The Phillip Rivers experiment in Indy was short, as he rode off into the sunset after a tough playoff loss to the Buffalo Bills. Indy as a whole was a very respectable football team ranking 9th in scoring and 10th in yardage offensively, and 10th in points allowed and 9th in yardage defensively. The team continues to take leaps and bounds on defense under Matt Eberflus. They return a majority of the same team, replacing Justin Houston (currently unsigned) with rookie Kwity Paye. Deforest Buckner remains an anchor on the interior with all-pro Darius Leonard and Bobby Okereke manning the second level. Former first rounder Malik Hooker is out, but the rest of the secondary returns as they resigned Xavier Rhodes. Offensively they made a big move getting Frank Reich’s former QB Carson Wentz. They also signed the nicked-up Eric Fisher, who will miss the beginning of the year, to man the LT spot. TY Hilton hopes to return to form, and with the run game fueled by the trio of Jonathan Taylor, Marlon Mack, and Nyheim Hines the team hopes for even more stability and growth in 2021.
Houston Texans:
The Texans are the winners of the “I have no idea what they are doing” offseason award. They had extremely depleted draft capital due to bad trades and drafted a QB after signing and trading for a couple of others (Tyrod Taylor, Ryan Finley, etc.). The Deshaun Watson led squad finished 18th in scoring and 13th in yardage offensively, and 27th in scoring and 30th in yards allowed defensively. Watson’s legal troubles, and his disdain toward the organization have almost guaranteed he will not play for Houston in 2021. The team in addition to QB’s, have stockpiled running backs adding Phillip Lindsay, Mark Ingram, and Rex Burkhead to pair with David Johnson. Wide receivers are a weak point led by Brandin Cooks, Randall Cobb, Keke Coutee, and Rookie Nico Collins. The defensive release icon JJ Watt, and saw Jonathan Joseph retire. There was a whole laundry list of other small-scale signings like LB Christian Kirksey, IOL Lane Taylor, and many more. All moves combine to make this the worst roster in the NFL in my opinion. This team most likely ends up selecting top 5 next spring after a down year.
Jacksonville Jaguars:
Owner Shad Kahn made a big splash move in an effort to get the franchise moving in the right direction and signed Urban Meyer as the new Head Coach of the Jaguars. Duval ended the year as the outright worst football team, record-wise, in 2020. The team finished 26th in scoring and 20th in yardage on offense, and 21st in scoring allowed and 24th in yards allowed on defense. On the Brightside, the worst record ended up getting them the generational QB prospect Trevor Lawrence. The team will look much updated with Lawrence under center, rookie Travis Etienne paired with James Robinson. Newly signed Marvin Jones pairs up with DJ Chark and Laviska Shenault to create an interesting WR room. All five offensive line starters return as well to support the new rookie QB. Defensively, there’s room for improvement and Urban has not been shy about making changes. After drafting a cornerback top 10 in 2020, they went back to the DB well signing former Seahawk Shaq Griffin, in addition to drafting Tyson Campbell and a safety Andre Cisco. The secondary should be improved, with a healthy Josh Allen, and ascending talents in K’lavon Chaisson and Duwane Smoot the needle is pointed upward for the young Jags.
2021 Record Prediction:
1. Indianapolis Colts, 8-9
2. Tennessee Titans, 8-9
3. Jacksonville Jaguars, 4-13
4. Houston Texans, 1-16
I’m not going to lie; this division could be the weakest in football. At the top, the Colts nudge out the Titans, but not by much. Being more balanced on both sides of the ball gives them the nod. Titans still have serious defensive woes with big questions in pass rush and secondary help. Jacksonville improves on last year, and their youth movement will show big strides, but they are still a year or two away from competing. Spoiler alert, the Houston Texans in my simulation will finish with the worst record. Without Deshaun Watson, they have the worst roster in the NFL by a wide margin. Last year it was the NFC East sneaking a team in the playoffs, this year we see the AFC South do something similar.
2021 AFC South Awards:
MVP: Derrick Henry
Defensive Player of the Year: Darius Leonard
Offensive Rookie of the year: Trevor Lawrence
Defensive Rookie of the year: Andre Cisco
Comeback Player of the year: Bud Dupree
Derrick Henry is the driving force behind the Tennessee offense, and if they are going to win games it will be him stacking the box to create good outside matchups for Tannehill and Co. Darius Leonard is going to put up crazy numbers in his contract year and return to all-pro status for the elite Eberflus defense. No surprise that Lawrence is the favorite for ROY in this division, but surprisingly I picked Andre Cisco. Cisco is a ball hawk and has an extremely easy route to playing time. Dupree comeback off a torn ACL and has a bounce back year opposite Harold Landry.
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