I don't think it is very easy to project for the Titans right now as there are many moving parts. I find it even more difficult trying to project for them in dynasty as I am not sure if there will be continuity with the coaching staff after this season. That depends somewhat on how successful they are this season. If they improve a lot, perhaps this means Mularkey is retained for another season, and then we would have 2016 stats to pattern what 2017 might look like. If the Titans don't improve much then Mularkey likely gets canned and we are back at ground zero again in regards to the teams direction.
Some things we do know is that the Titans defense was not good last season. It would be hard for them not to improve on the defensive side of the ball, however their improvement may not be much from last season. They need to not allow so many points for the running game to really get going the way I think Mularkey wants it to.
Mularkey is currently on his 3rd head coaching job of his career. He got two seasons in Buffalo from 2004 to 2005. The offense was pretty balanced as far as run to pass ratio.Willis McGahee was their primary RB. At WR he had Eric Moulds who got most of the targets, the other WR they had didn't do too much. His more recent HC job was in 2012 with the Jaguars. They threw the ball a lot because MJD only played in six games. You see some pretty high run to pass ratios with him as an offensive coordinator for the most part as long as he has RB healthy. He is perhaps most well known for being the OC with Atlanta and Matt Ryan, in 2008 they ran 560 times to 434 pass attempts. This evened out as Matt Ryan gained more experience. They brought in Michael Turner from SD at 26 years old and he became their featured RB while Mularkey was there.
The draft and free agency for the Titans did not address the defense much unless I am missing something. They added a defensive end in Kevin Dodd and a nose tackle Austin Johnson in the second round of the draft. They also drafted a safety Kevin Byard in the 3rd round who interested me prior to the draft. In free agency most of their additions were on the offensive side of the ball, including Murray.
Last seasons total plays is the same as their 3 year average of total plays on offense at 976. With the emphasis on running the ball I don't expect this to increase.
If the offense is a 56/44 split between the pass and the run that would be 547 passing attempts 429 rushing attempts.
Marcus Mariota could run the ball more this season and if so perhaps some of those passing attempts shift to run plays. Last season Mariota ran the ball 2.8 times per game which is less than I was expecting. Over 16 games this is 45 rushing attempts. I could see that being 60 over 16 pretty easily, possibly more. Anyhow I see this leaving 380 rushing attempts for players other than Mariota.
If Murray and Henry end up splitting rushing attempts 50/50 this would be 190 rushing attempts each. I would expect Murray to win the starting job and get the majority of the work at least early on in the season, with Henry getting worked into the offense more as the season goes on. This could end up being a 60/40 split between Murray/Henry or vice versa, just depends on how well each of the RB are playing and how quickly Henry earns more time in the offense. At a 60/40 split Murray would get 228 rushing attempts over the season. If he got 65% of the 380 this would be 247 rushing attempts. I wouldn't expect Murray to get more than this.
This sets the projection range of rushing attempts for Murray at 190-228-247 as a floor/median/ceiling or 12-14-15.4 rushing attempts/game range. While I could see Murray being used more than this on a per game basis, especially early on in the season, if Henry isn't ready, I do see Henry getting worked in at some point. So this range seems reasonable to me. If there was not a second RB like Henry to compete with Murray I would be more comfortable giving Murray more rushing attempts than this.
As far as targets in the passing game go I would expect Murray to be used a lot more there. Not that Henry isn't capable as a receiver, he is, Henry is also very good in pass protection, however he is also a rookie, so they will likely feel more confident in Murray for those assignments this season.
RBs accounted for 94 targets in the passing game last season. 41 of those were to McCluster, who I am not sure what kind of role he may have or if he has one under Mularkey? I haven't heard any talk about him thus far from training camp, but I also haven't really looked into that yet.
If I assume McCluster or some other player continues to gets 30 of the RB targets, that leaves 64 for the main RBs. If Murray gets 60% of those it would be 38 targets. Murray has averaged 62 targets per season over the last 3 seasons. I think the median number of targets should be 50 and a target range would be 40-50-60 or 2.5-3.1-3.75 targets per game.
Murray has a career catch rate of 82% so on 50 targets this would be 41 receptions.
So putting that together the median projection and career 4.6 ypc/ 7.1 ypr numbers for Murray would be 228 rushing attempts 1049 yards and 50 targets 41 receptions 291 yards 8TD (at career numbers of .5 TD/game). I would expect a larger share of those numbers to happen at the beginning of the season and Murray could have a strong start.
