Jake Locker (10) GEORGE WALKER IV / THE TENNESSEAN
By Jim Wyatt, The Tennessean
The Titans have decided on their starting quarterback for the 2012 season - it's Jake Locker, according to sources familiar with the situation.
Locker,
the team's first round pick in the 2011 NFL Draft, competed with
veteran Matt Hasselbeck during the course of the offseason and in the
preseason.
Titans Coach Mike Munchak said on Sunday he
planned to name a starter on Monday. According to sources, the Titans
have decided on Locker. An official announcement is expected later on
Monday .
Locker will start the team's preseason finale on
Thursday against the Cardinals. More importantly, he'll be behind center
for the regular season opener on September 9 against the Patriots.
Locker started his first NFL game on Friday at Tampa Bay, and didn't play well.
He completed just 4-of-11 passes for 21 yards and a touchdown in the team's 30-7 win over the Buccaneers.
Locker
has completed 11-of-24 (45.8 percent) passes for 101 yards and an
interception in the preseason while Hasselebeck is 9-of-14 (64.3
percent) for 74 yards and two interceptions in the two games. Locker's
passer rating in the preseason is 40.5, compared to 38.1 for Hasselbeck.
Overall,
however, Locker has had a solid training camp. In practices, he's
thrown just three interceptions in training camp practices, compared to
11 for Hasselbeck. Hasselbeck started all 16 games last season after
signing a three-year, $20 million deal with the team.
Locker
played well coming off the bench in place of Hasselbeck last season,
however. In five games in 2011, Locker completed 34-of-66 passes for 542
yards and four touchdowns.
On Sunday, Munchak said he
thought Locker did a nice job bouncing back after his struggles on
Friday. Munchack could not be reached for comment on Monday morning.
"We
talked about the (Tampa Bay) game and watched it. There are a lot of
things that you can turn a lot of ways in games. He made mistakes early
but came back and made better decisions later on when he had the same
decision to make. Like when he took off and ran, after we converted on a
third and eight and had a first down and we had a penalty on holding
and now we are third and 18, there was no one open and he got enough
yards for us to make the field goal,'' Munchak said of Locker.
"He
made good decisions after he made a couple of bad ones. I think you can
find the positive in a lot of things and you want to see how guys
handle struggling. Like today he had a couple bad practices and how he
bounced back. I think that is another part of the equation. You have to
look at the quarterback spot for both of those guys and other positions.
In this league you are going to have some days and games that will not
start the way they want them to. You hope you have less of those than a
lot of those but you have to learn how to deal with that too."