Tuesday night, October 22nd, The Tennessee Titans and Head Coach Ken Whisenhunt announced that rookie quarterback Zach Mettenberger, whom the Titans drafted 178th overall in the 6th round of the 2014 NFL Draft out of LSU, will start over quarterbacks Jake Locker and Charlie Whitehurst for the 2-5 Titans this Sunday against the Houston Texans.
Firstly, the QB position has basically been a mess for Tennessee this season. Jake Locker somewhat struggled to start the season, completing only 57 of 101 pass attempts for a completion rate of 56, throwing 3 interceptions and losing 2 fumbles in the 1st 3 regular season games (@ KC, - DAL, @ CIN) and left the 3rd game of the season against Cincinnati with a knee injury that sidelined him for a week until he and the Titans played Cleveland where he then suffered a thumb injury early, after completing 8 of 11 passes for 79 yards and a TD in the game which has kept him sidelined since. So add all of those stats together and in 4 games this season (all started) Locker has completed 65 of 112 passes (58 % completion rate) for 764 yards (6.8 yards per completion), 4 TD's and 4 INT's.
Secondly, backup Charlie Whitehurst made his season debut in Week 4 against the Colts in Indianapolis when he started at QB and completed 12 of 23 (52.2% completion rate) for 177 yards and both 1 TD and INT each and also carried the ball 5 times for 40 yards (team's leading rusher that game) but lost a fumble as well as the Titans lost 17-41. In the 3 other games he's played (2 started), Whitehurst has completed 47 of 75 passes (63% completion rate) for 587 yards (13.6 yards per completion) 4 TD's and 1 INT and 1 fumble lost. From the naked eye, it seems like Whitehurst has done better than Locker this season and this writer personally believes that is true but that is the personal opinion of someone and only the opinion of yours truly.
Now, yours truly may say Whitehurst has done better than Locker but that doesn't necessarily mean I think Charlie has done great. Whitehurst has averaged nearly 7 more yards per completion more than Locker, have a higher completion rate by 6% and have 3 less INT's than Locker as well but he's struggled too. Whitehurst has only topped 200 yards passing in one of his games played, which was Week 6, a 16-14 win against Jacksonville, his only win as a starting QB this season and Jacksonville is arguably the worst team, if not has the worst defense in the NFL. Also, out of the 3 games Locker played and finished, 2 of those 3 are in their conference playoffs (Dallas 1st seed in NFC at 6-1 and Bengals 6th seed in AFC at 3-2-1) and the other team, Kansas City, is T-9th in the AFC. In the 3 games Whitehurst has started, 2 of the 3 teams he's faced are currently the 2nd worst in their conferences (Redskins 15th overall in NFC at 2-5 and Jaguars 15th in AFC at 1-6) with the Browns, the other team, who're 3-3 this season and T-9th in the AFC. So the opponents Locker faced were tougher than the one's Whitehurst has faced.
So with the injuries and struggles of Jake Locker and struggles of Charlie Whitehurst, Head Coach Ken Whisenhunt announced on Wednesday (October 22nd), that rookie Zach Mettenberger would start at QB in Week 8 at home against the Houston Texans. Now, this won't be Zach's NFL debut, as he played late in Tennessee's 41-17 blowout loss in Indianapolis to the Colts and completed 2 of 5 passes for 27 yards and threw an INT. Like I stated earlier, Mettenberger was the 178th overall pick in the 6th round of the 2014 NFL Draft out of LSU. In his college career there he ranked in the top 10 and top 5 in school history many categories. In 3 years at LSU, he completed 407 of 659 pass attempts for 5,783 yards and threw only 15 interceptions and was 19-6 as a starter. Mettenberger could have possibly gone higher in the draft if he did not tear his ACL in his final collegiate game. In the 4 preseason games, in which Zach played in all, he completed 47 of 68 passes (69.1% completion rate) for 659 yards, 2 TD's and 2 INT's. He also lost 3 fumbles. In the final preseason game, in which Mettenberger started against the Minnesota Vikings, he completed 12 of 17 pass attempts for 154 yards and 0 TD's or INT's in the 3-19 loss.
We'll see how Mettenberger does on Sunday when the Titans take on the Texans at 1 p.m. eastern time on FOX as Tennessee will attempt to get their season back on track and if he will stay as the starting QB in the coming weeks.