The Titans' offense struggled mightily last year. They ranked 29th in pass yards, 13th in rush yards, 25th in total touchdowns, and they had one of the worst offensive lines in the league. While many fans hope that the firing of offensive coordinator Todd Downing will change this, that is starting to look unlikely.

When you get into the numbers, it becomes clear why the Titans fired GM Jon Robinson in the middle of last season. While trying to contend in recent years, Robinson has set the Titans up for cap hell in 2023.

The Titans currently have the 30th most expensive offense in the league. They spend just $89M on the offense, compared to $102M on the defense. A considerable part of that spending goes toward the defensive line. These are the average salaries for the Titans' front four:

•Jeffery Simmons: $23.5M

•Harold Landry: $17.5M

•Denico Autry: $7.1M

•Arden Key: $7M

That means the Titans are spending about $55.1M each year on this one unit. While the defensive line has become the team's strength, that is still a lot of money to spend on one positional group.

This becomes more noticeable when you look at past misses Robinson had on the defensive line. During the 2020 offseason, Robinson took two big swings by signing DE Jadeveon Clowney and DE Vic Beasley. Both were massive misses and were gone by the next season. 

Even with that, the disparity in pay between the two sides of the ball is defensible. However, the way the Titans spend money on the offensive side is not.

The Titans are spending 60% of their offensive cap space on just two players:

•$36.6M for Ryan Tannehill (second highest for any QB)

•$16.4M for Derrick Henry (highest for any RB)

This is the highest percentage of offensive cap a team spends on a QB-RB duo, and it isn’t very close. The league average for offensive cap spent on a team's QB1 + RB1 is just 19%. No other team in the NFL pays more than 39% of their offensive cap space on a QB-RB pair.

That team is the Packers with Aaron Rodgers and Aaron Jones. When Rodgers is inevitably traded, second place will go to the Chiefs for Patrick Mahomes and Clyde Edwards-Helaire (35%).

Last year, Tannehill and Henry cost the Titans 37% of their offensive cap space. However, with the increases in both contracts, that number has ballooned for the 2023 season.

If the quarterback was Patrick Mahomes, maybe this could work. Sadly, Ryan Tannehill is not Patrick Mahomes. For him to succeed at a high level, he needs to have strong pieces around him. With so much of the cap going toward Henry and him, it becomes increasingly challenging to surround them with quality players.

Robinson did not do much better when it came to drafting. While he had his hits, only one of the eight players he drafted in the first round signed a second contract with the Titans (Jeffery Simmons).

The demise of Robinson continued when he drafted Isaiah Wilson and Caleb Farley in the first round back-to-back years.

After his rookie season, they traded Wilson for just a seventh-round pick, making him one of the biggest busts in recent history. He is no longer in the NFL.

Farley was a risky pick at the time, as he had suffered a plethora of injuries throughout his time at Virginia Tech. Farley has struggled in his limited time playing and has ended both of his first two seasons on the IR.

The final nail in the coffin was the infamous AJ Brown trade. Coming off a season where the Titans finished as the number one seed in the AFC, Robinson traded their star wide receiver during the draft.

The move was criticized at the time and looked even worse by the end of the year.

The Titans struggled to move the ball in the air all season, partly due to the lack of talented wide receivers. AJ Brown had an incredible season and helped lead the Eagles to a Super Bowl appearance.

Now that Robinson is gone, Ran Carthon will have to turn things around if the Titans hope to return to contention.