Is Hunting Season Open?

With a switch to quarterback Zach Mettenberger for the Tennessee Titans, is hunting season open? Big play wide receiver Justin Hunter may have a new found value for fantasy.

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Justin Hunter has had an up and down season so far for the Titans. From being made to wear a jersey in the preseason that read JAG, which stood for just a guy, in practice by coach Ken Whisenhunt, to sporadic production during the regular season. So far in the tumultuous 2014 campaign for the Titans there have been 2 starting quarterbacks, and this weekend they will add a third. There has been a lack of consistency for the offense, and Charlie Whitehurst was not going to be a guy to do a lot more than manage the Titans to closer losses than if they put a tackling dummy in at quarterback. It seems quite likely that there could be some better days ahead for Hunter and the Tennessee offense.

In college at Tennessee Hunter didn't do a whole lot in his first 2 seasons. As a freshman he was a big play guy, catching 16 passes for 415 yards, scoring on 7 of his receptions. His yards per catch was 25.9 during that season. As a sophomore in 2011 Hunter caught 17 balls in the 3 games he played before tearing his ACL. The big breakout season was in 2012 as a junior where hunter caught 73 passes for 1083 yards and 9 touchdowns. The per catch numbers came down, but the sustainability of 25.9 yards per catch was ultimately unrealistic.

Hunter has great size at 6'4 and great vertical and broad jump abilities, measured at 39 1/2 inch vertical and 136 inch broad jump, both best performances at the combine for wide receivers. His 33 1/4 inch arms and 9 3/8 inch hands give him the reach and hand size needed to be able to control the ball. The Titans took him in the second round (34th overall) of the 2013 draft. Paired along side of Kendall Wright and Nate Washington, with Delanie Walker at tight end, the Titans were set up to have a good receiving corps. The inconsistent play at quarterback, and inability of Jake Locker to stay healthy, has cost the Titans. Along with the inconsistent play from their signal callers, the Titans have struggled to put together a running game to take the pressure off of their quarterbacks.

Now enter Mettenberger. A 2 year starter at LSU, Mettenberger has shown a propensity to get the ball

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down the field. His senior season Mettenberger had an average yards per attempt of 10.4. That is a huge number for average yards per attempt. In recent history some now NFL quarterbacks had smaller numbers for down field attempts. Blake Bortles had an average yards per attempt of 9.4 his senior year. Andrew Luck had an average of 8.9 yards per attempt over his 3 seasons at Stanford. Robert Griffin III had 10.7 his senior year, but an average of 8.7 during his college career. And even Austin Davis, known as a bit of a gunslinger, had an average of 7.1 yards per attempt during his time at Southern Mississippi.

The desire and ability of Mettenberger to push the ball down the field is a great thing for the Titans offense overall. This will allow playmakers like Hunter and Wright to get down field and make plays, and in turn could take some pressure off the line of scrimmage for the run game. All of these factors could open up the entire offense for the Titans for the rest of this season. A fairly favorable schedule also awaits the Titans passing game for the remainder of the season. The rest of the year the Titans only play one top 10 passing defense in the Colts in week 17, and if your playoffs don't include that week you get to skip their worst match up. The whole rest of season average pass defense to be faced by the Titans is 20th. They face only 3 teams in the top half of pass defense rankings the rest of the year. If Mettenberger can lead this offense and pick up the speed of the game, the Titans may be able to finish on a high note.

If you are inclined to gamble a little on a season that is sitting at 3-4, you could do worse than to acquire Hunter, or even try to buy low on Kendall Wright, and maybe add Mettenberger to your team and put your wager on the Titans being able to take advantage of their good schedule for the rest of 2014.