This is the Athletic Football Show.

Welcome to the Athletic Football Show.

I'm Robert Mays and joining me today, the athletics own Stephen Holder. Stephen, how are you? Doing great. Looking forward to this. We are ready for the season. I know I am, at least. It's crazy. We're recording this on Tuesday. It's going to run on Wednesday. We're two days away from the season. We're talking about the AFC South today, a team that will be represented during the season no program with the Texans playing the Chiefs. But a division overall that I think pretty wide open, you can make an argument for three teams pretty strongly to win this division. I'm sure we'll get into the reasons why all of them are contenders. You cover the Colts for the Athletic. I'm very excited to talk to you about them. I think they're a fascinating team for a bunch of different reasons. But before we get to the Colts, let's talk about the surprise team of last year in a lot of ways and a team that I think a lot of people are probably picking to win this division and that is the Tennessee Titans. It is a fascinating division. First ball. I'll start with that. I mean, you had two playoff teams last year and then one team in the

Colts that was in it until the last couple weeks of the season. So I think you're going to have sort of a sequel of the same scenario this year. We're three teams fighting for however many playoff spots it is. But Tennessee, yes, absolutely fascinating. They went from a team that

I can tell you from my perspective in Indianapolis, a team that Colts fans really didn't worry about,

frankly, you know, when they were on the schedule to a team now that is a force. And I think really

that is a credit to Vrable and his staff, but also a lot of the playmakers that they've acquired on that team. They're a team to be reckoned with. They were a forgettable team. They were a team that you could just kind of gloss over. They were in that eight and eight range pretty much every single year. They were a middle of the road team in the first couple years with Mike Vrable and just that regime in general. And the Ryan Tannanhill trade was truly transformative.

I mean, to go trade him for a fourth round pick, pay absolutely nothing for him to be

a quarterback, and to have him kind of unleash that offense in the second half of the year.

I mean, Tannahill finished fifth in passing DVOA last season, first in yards per attempt,

first in completion percentage over expectation. This team first in yards per attempt, first in completion

percentage over expectation. This team was third, I believe, in weighted DVOA over the course

of the year, which places more emphasis on what you do late in the season. I mean, they got so hot

in the back half of the year. And I think the main question for them and for the other teams in

this division is how much of that success is transferable

into this year. And I don't know how to answer that. We'll get into some of the specifics,

but just your kind of initial thought about how real that stretch from Tannenhill and the

offense was. What's your read on that? You know, when you talk about it from a statistical

standpoint, that's pretty real, you know, and I think when you? You know, when you talk about it from a statistical standpoint, that's pretty real.

You know, and I think when you watched it play out too, you could see examples where,

okay, like that doesn't just happen.

And I think there's something to that.

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