Titans coach Jeff Fisher has a lot of work to do to return this team to the place it once held after an on-going, three-year bloodletting to right a salary cap gone out of control.

Offensively, the Titans can still score despite the changing landscape of their personnel. A year ago, with quarterback Steve McNair hurting, No. 2 receiver Justin McCareins gone and running back Chris Brown getting his first chance to carry the full load, Tennessee still scored 344 points, 15th best in football. That's the middle of the pack but with all the changes, and with McNair throwing only 215 times after injuries forced him to the sidelines in favor of backup Bill Volek, it remains clear that the Titans will still score. The question Fisher must answer is can he put a team on the field that can stop its opponents
from doing the same.

Tennessee finished 27th in total defense and 30th in points allowed last season, giving up 30 or more points seven times and 37 or more five times and must cope with the loss of starting defensive linemen Kevin Carter and Carlos Hall in free agency as well as both cornerbacks. Along the line are a trio of young ends and a tackle who all must improve in a hurry in only their second year in the league. Travis LaBoy, Bo Schobel and Antwan Odom all struggled a year ago and only Odom has improved enough to get on the field regularly. He joins Kyle Vanden Bosch, a journeyman free agent, and two big tackles in Albert Haynesworth and Randy Starks. They must supply the rush to help a pass defense not likely to improve with the loss of both starting cornerbacks, Samari Rolle and Andre Dyson.

That group will have to do better than produce 32 sacks if this unit is to improve on its ranking of 26th against the pass because youth will rule in the secondary. No. 1 draft choice Adam "Pac-Man'' Jones is expected to start at one corner, although he has some off-the-field issues to deal with, and former No. 1 pick Andre Woolfolk will be asked to start for the first time at the other. Woolfolk worked mostly covering slot receivers last year and started only two games so he's untested playing in space against the elite receivers in the league and Jones is still a rookie. Until both prove themselves questions abound.

Those questions also exist at safety and at wide receiver. The one place that has been shored up is at running back, where Brown is being joined by recently acquired Travis Henry. Brown has durability issues, lasting only 11 games and being nagged by an assortments of aches and pains. Henry, the ex-Buffalo Bills back who lost his starting job to Willis McGahee, gives Fisher a proven big-play back who could readily step in.

HOT SEAT: Drew Bennett. A year ago he was asked to become the team's No. 2 receiver after the departure of Justin McCareins. He responded with 80 catches for 1,247 yards, 11 scores and an average catch of 15.6 yards. Now he's been elevated again to become the team's No. 1 receiver after Mason became one of the latest salary cap causalities. It's one thing to be a team's second receiver. It's another to face and break double coverage, as Mason so often did. Whether Bennett can do that will be up to him and also to the play of the new No. 2, Tyrone Calico.

OVERHEARD: New offensive coordinator Norm Chow is fixated on providing McNair with better protection with more than scoring points in mind. McNair was seriously considering retirement before off-season sternum surgery and a weight-loss program returned him to relative good health. But if he takes a beating again this year on a rebuilding team that is not likely to be competitive, McNair could leave for good, which would be a serious blow to the Titans' rebuilding efforts.

OUTLOOK: Gloomy. The Titans are expected to be the youngest team in football this year after a three-year purge to clean up an atrocious salary cap situation. The team is younger and faster but also inexperienced and devoid of many veteran playmakers. Fisher and his staff will coach them up and get the most out of them, but they won't have enough to give to be competitive in the improving AFC South this year even with McNair at the controls of the offense.

PREDICTION: Fourth.

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