After sinking to the worst division in the NFL, the AFC South might be experiencing a revival with two teams in the Titans and Texans that could make some noise in the division and playoffs.

The Texans may end up with the best defence in the league, the Titans are turning into a very promising offense with young quarterback Marcus Marriota behind centre and the Colts still have Andrew Luck, who when healthy is an MVP-calibre quarterback that can carry his team.

The Jaguars have made significant improvements on defence and having Tom Coughlin in the front office to shake up the culture will be good for the team, but until Blake Bortles can figure it out, they can only go so far.

Still, the AFC South should be a dog fight up until the end of the season between at least two of the four teams in the division.

Tennessee Titans

Quarterback Marcus Mariota has fully recovered from a broken leg and is primed to become one of the premier QBs in the league.

The former Heisman winner was having a very strong season before he fractured his right fibula in week 16 last season, throwing for 26 touchdowns and only nine interceptions.

Mariota will have a new young deep threat in rookie wide receiver Corey Davis. The Western Michigan product is currently suffering from a hamstring injury, but head coach Mike Mularkey listed the 22-year-old as “week-to-week” and he should be ready for the Titans’ season opener against the Oakland Raiders.

Rishard Matthews continues to be a strong second option after a 65-catch season for 945 yards and nine touchdowns in his first season with the Titans. With the chemistry he and Mariota seem to have, those numbers should only improve. The team will also have another interesting young option at receiver in Tre McBride and a two-time Pro Bowl option at tight end in Delanie Walker.

Even if DeMarco Murray regresses a bit after a fantastic first season with the Titans in which he rushed for 1,287 yards and nine rushing and three receiving touchdowns, the team has a potentially formidable one-two punch of Murray and rookie Derrick Henry at halfback. The receivers and running backs form a combo that has the makings of a really exciting offence.

It’s a heavy reliance on young receivers and a young quarterback under centre, but all signs point to big plays coming from the Music City.

The secondary is the Titans’ biggest question mark. The team’s defence gave up 25 touchdowns and 4,585 yards and that will have to be improved.

The Titans drafted CB Adoree’ Jackson out of USC to fill that void paired with LeShaun Sims, but that is a very young secondary.

Overall, the Titans are definitely on the rise. They should be a young, exciting team and challenge the two-time defending AFC South champion Texans for the division title. And if they get on a roll, they might just steal a playoff game.

Indianapolis Colts

The Andrew Luck era started with a bang as the Colts made it to the playoffs in his first three seasons, but the team has fizzled out a bit in 2015 and 2016 with .500 finishes and Luck spending significant time on the disabled list.

The 27-year-old only played in seven games in 2015 and although he made 15 of 16 starts last season, is currently on the physically-unable-to-peform list after undergoing surgery to repair an issue in his throwing shoulder that has been lingering since 2015.

If Luck’s not ready for the beginning of the season, the team seems to be taking steps to put in place a plan B after trading receiver Phillip Dorsett for New England Patriots’ quarterback Jacoby Brissett.

Brissett was effective in occasional playing time for the defending Super Bowl Champions, completing 61.8 per cent of passes for 400 yards.

The Colts obviously didn’t have confidence in starting current back-up Scott Tolzein under centre, who has a combined record of 0-2-1 as a starting quarterback.

Whether it’s Luck or the newly acquired Brissett, they’ll have T.Y. Hilton to throw to, who is still one of the best wide receivers in the game. He’s a huge deep threat and had a career-high 1,448 receiving yards last season.

Defence is also a concern for the Colts. The team finished as the 27th-ranked pass defence last season and they cut veteran CB Antonio Cromartie after an anthem protest. Instead the Colts tried to build their secondary through the draft, picking up safety Malik Hooker and corner Quincy Wilson.

Ultimately, it comes down to Luck – and they’ll need a lot of it to win the division. Even though there’s no clear-cut favourite, without a healthy franchise quarterback, the Colts are not strong enough to challenge the Titans and Texans.

Houston Texans

The two-time reigning AFC South champs enter the season as the favourite, especially with a healthy J.J. Watt. Adding Watt back to a front seven of Jadeveon Clowney (52 combined tackles and six sacks last season) and Whitney Mercilus (53.5 combined tackles and seven and half sacks) turns a solid defence into potentially the number one defence in the league.

However, there are question marks on offence – especially at quarterback.

The Texans seem to want to start Tom Savage at quarterback instead of rookie Deshaun Watson, but Savage was only a marginal improvement over the struggling Brock Osweiller last season. In two starts, the 27-year-old Savage threw for 436 yards and no touchdowns.

Those kinds of numbers aren’t going to turn around the NFL’s number 29 passing offence.

Meanwhile, Watson has the potential to be a dynamic playmaker with his legs and arm. The Texans have never had that kind of player under centre. And it’s a curious decision to let Watson sit when they moved up from 25th to 12th in the draft to select the former Clemson star.

Lamar Miller had a good year out of the backfield, rushing for 1,073 yards and five touchdowns last season in 14 games, but if the Texans can’t figure out their potential quarterback controversy, they might lose the fight for the division to the Titans.

They’ll be hanging around because strong defence usually trumps good offence and the Texans have proven in the last two seasons that they can win with a mediocre quarterback with nothing but an incredible defence.

But a mediocre division is improving and the Titans will be right on their heels.

Jacksonville Jaguars

Although the Jacksonville Jaguars have lost 11 games or more in five straight seasons and haven’t been to the playoffs in a decade, the team has brought in a familiar face to help run the team. Former New York Giants head coach Tom Coughlin was head coach of the Jaguars from 1995-2002. Coughlin ran a tight ship, but was incredibly successful as the Jaguars’ head coach, taking the team on a four-year playoff streak during his tenure, capped off by a 14-2 season in 1999 – not to mention his two Super Bowl victories over the heavily-favoured New England Patriots with the Giants.

With Coughlin in the fold to run football operations and new head coach Doug Marrone at the helm, things may be turning around for the Jags.

On the field, much of the team’s success will fall on quarterback Blake Bortles. Bortles is entering a contract year, which may give the 25-year-old added motivation. And he’s shown the arm is there after throwing for 4,428 yards in 2015, but he needs to heavily cut down on the turnovers. Through three seasons in the NFL, Bortles has thrown 51 interceptions.

However, evidence out of training camp doesn’t show an improved Bortles. He’s been overthrowing receivers and throwing balls way out of bounds, much to the chagrin of receivers, Allen Robinson and Marcedes Lewis. If he can’t turn his game around, many believe he’ll be benched and replaced by an outside option on the trade market.

The team is very high on number four overall pick in this year’s draft, Leonard Fournette. The 23-year-old is currently nursing a foot injury, but the running back out of LSU may end up shouldering much of the offensive load if Bortles struggles out of the gate.

The Jaguars have already shown that they probably will depend heavily on the running game. In their first preseason game against the New England Patriots, the Jags ran the ball 37 times.

There’s more promise on defence, though. After ranking sixth overall in yards allowed in 2016, the Jaguars have shored up their defensive corps with the signings of DE Calais Campbell, CB A.J. Bouye and S Barry Church.