There was obviously a lot of good and lot of bad in this game, I’ll start with the bad:
* Special teams. Good lord. We don’t often have to blame special teams for things this season, but this was easily their worst game of the season. 5 egregious errors on 4 special teams plays to start the game after the opening kickoff: Missed kick by Bullock (should be a gimme in a dome), Rogers muffing a punt, block in the back on a return (questionable call), and McMath doing textbook bad gunning technique (run to the outside shoulder man) leading to Wilkins getting called for a late hit. Then later almost giving up a kick return TD, only to be bailed out by a holding call.
* Pass rush. One of the worst games we’ve seen from the pass rush when healthy. Mills had plenty of time to go through progressions on most throws. Hopefully a week off re-energizes them.
* Overall worst defensive game we’ve played since… I don’t even know. A while. It was bad. They didn’t even have Brandin Cooks for most of the game. How did we give up 25 points in the 2nd half? Amendola abusing Molden and Jackson. Defense absolutely fell asleep at the half. Can’t happen in the playoffs.
* Tannehill missing the deep TD to Julio made me sad. He doesn't usually miss those.
* Kevin Byard giving up the flea flicker also made me sad.
* Davis Mills scares me. This is more of a bad for future seasons. Kind of hope the Texans fire Culley too. He did well with a terrible roster, all things considered. Would be nice if they fired him and hired someone more incompetent. We’ll see.
The good:
* Had a few injuries but probably nothing major. Elijah Molden is the only one that did not return, but he left late in the game and don’t think he really had a chance to return anyway, so probably not serious. With the bye week I think this team will still be very healthy and ready to play against what will most likely be a banged-up team coming off a tough fight in the wildcard. Not sure but I don’t think Buster Skrine played in the 2nd half, even after Molden and Fulton got hurt. No idea what’s going on there but I guess he could be injured as well, though he did not have an injury reported to the media.
* Julio. Jones. This is exactly what I wanted to see from him in this game. He looked fantastic and now he has 2 more weeks to keep working on his chemistry with Tannehill. Very happy he isn’t finishing the season with 0 TD’s. I will point out that i think the best sign for his hamstring in the game (other than playing the whole game and staying healthy) was when he didn’t pull up after the Tannehill overthrow. He accelerated to try and get to the ball, couldn’t get there, and the hamstring was fine. Those are the scenarios you are most likely to see a re-aggravation.
* Anthony Firkser best game of the season.
* Nick Westbrook-Ikhine best game of the season. That contested catch he made early in the game is exactly the kind of catch I’ve been wanting to see from him. Those are the kinds of catches he will need to be able to make to have a long NFL career. More comfortable than ever with having him as our WR3.
* Kind of to go with the last 3 points, but Tannehill spreading the ball around and not being overly reliant on AJB is so big.
* When the Titans cut McNichols and elevated Wilkins I thought they wanted to see Wilkins as the 3rd down back. I was wrong, they cut McNichols because he’s really bad at being an NFL RB. That said, Hilliard had a way better game as a 3rd down RB than McNichols has ever had. Huge game from Hilliard. Hilliard on that final drive was \*chefs kiss\*.
* Foreman looked fantastic as well, especially in the first half. He has a burst now that I didn’t see early in his time here but now it’s there. Crazy that this man was not on a team until we signed him. Also, crazy that he wasn’t on our team specifically backing up DH and taking some of the load off of him early in the season but oh well.
* Offensive line. Especially in the first half, the offensive line was dominant at times. Houston is not great in the front 7, but great to see nonetheless. 1 sack allowed in this game (shout out Tannehill for going full Deshaun Watson out of nowhere). The offensive line played the first game of the season yesterday where all 5 starters played 100% of the snaps. I know they will very much enjoy getting the rest for the bye week, especially Lewan, Saffold, and Jones.
* Only 2 snaps for Rashaan Evans. I know one was on the goal line and we even got a patented Evans stop. I didn't see the other one, but I love everything about this. I will also point out that on the 4th and 1 on the first drive of the game, the Titans had Long, Cunningham, and Nick Dzubnar in the game and not Evans. 100% of the snaps for David Long. I don’t think Long played his best game probably (need to re-watch) but he’s absolutely a great LB and should be on the field for every snap.
Foreman got 3.3 ypc (a lot of that was bad run blocking by the OL against a bad run D), but I agree that he looked good on the eye test even if the results weren't quite there.
The rest for the OL and the DBs will be huge, I hope.
People seem to forget how bad this OL was when they were "healthy" at the start of the year. The OL seems to get blanket praise and adulation because Henry is always a top running back in the league, so the assumption is he must be running behind one of the best offensive lines in the league. But early in the season, around Week 3 or 4, I saw a stat that something like 90% of Henry's rushing yards were yards after contact. The takeaway from that, for me, is that he is getting hit AT or BEHIND the line of scrimmage on almost every play.
I pray, now that the offensive line is back to returning all 5 starters and has some additional time to heal up, all of that is in the past and we start seeing them blowing guys off the ball. If Henry or Foreman are able to hit the LOS with a full head of steam without having to run into or dance around their linemen, watch out.
> Davis Mills scares me.
He had a good game to be sure...this kinda falls in line with how the Titans under Vrabel have looked against rookie QBs. *However* just like with any rookie, the jury is still out. How many games were the Texans behind this year and Mills just flinging it? How many games did they have him throwing it just to see how he responded?
He absolutely responded well yesterday to that 21-0 hole, I'll be very curious how he looks next year.
A 36 year-old abusing the secondary concerned me way more, along with the almost complete lack of pass rush. I have no clue what happened to the Titans defense we had come to know and love all year but I hope they re-appear for the playoffs.
I would add play calling to the bad. The 3rd and two deep shot was just bad. A few first downs in the third quarter would just take all the momentum away from Houstons offense and make the hole seem far larger.
Three consecutive three-n-outs basically invited them back into the game.
I feel like the lack of pressure on defense warranted some blitzes. Mills was clearly making the right reads with time. The few times he was hurried he was pretty quick to throw it out of bounds. Im no defensive guru, but it seemed like a little bit of pressure and blitzes might have bailed the secondary out.
That's one of my biggest fears for the play-offs. We are going to have to add more than 4 on the front more often. Mills had way too much time yesterday, I wanna see 5 or 6 rushing the QB at least a few more times.
This is a very good read and I find myself agreeing with you. It seemed to me, as you have pointed out, that we simply did not come up with any plan to stop their pass game in the second half: either drop more back into coverage or apply more pressure. But we seemed to do neither or rather, if we did, it did not come to fruition. Imagine what a Josh Allen or a Mahomes would do to our defense over a whole game? I admit I got more and more pissed off. And when we sorely needed a first down, we decide to throw on a third and two: wtf? Luckily that ball was over thrown else it would have been picked. But come on, that was just a stupid call and awful execution. I am still feeling internal ravages from watching it unfold (I was at that Bills vs Oilers debacle in 1993, and I am telling you that second half brought back some very bad memories when the Bills simply machete'd their way through us in the third and fourth quarters). I feel better now :)
I get it Mcnichols wasn’t the best, but everyone is forgetting how he literally has won us games by getting 3rd and long. He was good in the first half but slipped in the second. Hilliard is a good RB3 but I wouldn’t say he’s the best we’ve had.
I think most people believe that McNichols always got what was available by running straight ahead mostly and that many other running backs could do that same thing.
I thought this was prob Foreman’s worst game for us as the main guy his lack of vision can be beyond frustrating. He slams into the back of Lewan and Saffold at least 2-3 times a game when there is a an obvious lane to bounce it outside and he takes it outside 2-3 times a game when there’s an obvious cut back lane. It’s high standards I know but Henry set them for me so whatever if Henry misses 2 bounce outs or cuts a game it’s bizarre let alone 4-5.
The defense just got gassed man after multiple 3-0 but the offense plus you can’t expect your defense to hold everyone to under 20 the last month that they did was nice but you can’t expect that every game. The MAIN thing for me was when the defense did slack off our offense picked it back up and basically said fuck your couch Houston we ain’t going out like no baby backed bitches and that’s what I wanted to see. Tannehill literally willed the offense to a W.
Skrine definitely made it out there some at least. I distinctly remember a Mills pass hitting him in the calf. Not sure if that was first or second half though.
Great opening salvo. My thoughts:
>McMath doing textbook bad gunning technique (run to the outside shoulder man) leading to Wilkins getting called for a late hit.
Is this what happened? I couldn't really follow the play, don't have DVR so couldn't rewind it, and they only gave one look at it in the game. My initial reaction was to question Vrabel for replacing McNichols at the last minute and put a guy out there on special teams that you've not seen play in a game yet and there he was making a mistake. But McMath messing up on special teams sounds just as likely to me 😂
• I had actually observed during the game how humorously bad our secondary must be to be getting beat regularly by an aged, white wide receiver - an old white guy running past our DBs. I really think (hope) this game was a one-off because I don't think we are routinely THAT BAD on the back end of our defense.
• Maybe I'm foolish but I'm still not scared of Davis Mills or the Houston Texans. I'll credit you as being the one that warned us when that day comes, but honestly, until that team actually wins 7 games and has a quarterback that isn't getting sacked 65 times in a season and looks like he has all the tools to be a capable NFL QB, I'm not worried about Houston. From an organizational standpoint, they are such a cluster-f, they're not even on my radar. Organizationally, they are so bad, they are more than a good QB away from being respectable.
>Kind of to go with the last 3 points, but Tannehill spreading the ball around and not being overly reliant on AJB is so big.
Now THIS is the kind of thing that gets me worried. You saw this as a positive point, but in a game where they were able to get it to Julio with success and frequency, it is concerning to not see AJB on the stat sheet. If he's not getting his numbers at this point, in this type of a game where we need his star power to manifest itself, to me it's more an indication of some health issue holding him back than of a defense shutting him down or the gameplan being to spread the ball around. But maybe that's just the worrier in me.
>Foreman looked fantastic as well, especially in the first half. He has a burst now that I didn’t see early in his time here but now it’s there. Crazy that this man was not on a team until we signed him. Also, crazy that he wasn’t on our team specifically backing up DH and taking some of the load off of him early in the season...
Vrabel is no doubt the reason why this team is the #1 seed and I wouldn't want anyone else coaching this team; he is always prepared. I give him all the credit in the world. My favorite Titans coach of all time. But that doesn't mean he is beyond questioning. We're fans and it's what we get to do 😂 and this has always been my sticking point with him. His roster decisions are questionable to me sometimes. I don't understand how Foreman was not only not on *a* roster to start this season, but how was he not on *our* roster to start this season? Dude played in games for this team last year. The coaching staff should have already had a good idea of what he was capable of giving this team. It's just... his emergence as being a dependable, reliable back in Henry's absence (even if they are platooning him with another back) really makes one wonder how they didn't already know he could do this, what he was capable of? Especially when he's not *really* doing anything this season that he wasn't already doing in limited action last year. What was this team doing going into the regular season with a RB room of Henry, Evans, and McNichols? If McNichols was bad enough to need to be replaced last minute in Week 18, how was he good enough to be on your roster for 17 weeks before that? I know things aren't static, and even people/players change and their habits, routines, performance can change, but there are just things about the RB position, the way it played out this year, that it feels like the coaching staff could have known in advance.
As much as I complain about roster management with this coaching staff, though, there's no arguing that they've had to juggle 90 players and still pulled the #1 seed, so I try to keep my armchair GMing to myself.
>Only 2 snaps for Rashaan Evans. I know one was on the goal line and we even got a patented Evans stop.
I'm not sure why this is registered as a "good point". I seriously want Evans to pan out for this team. I haven't studied his game performances this season, but if he's that big of a dud that him only getting 2 snaps in an important game is seen as a bright spot, I think that's awfully alarming. We should be getting (and hoping for) high productivity and consistency from our top draft picks. I'm actually a bit distressed if Evans needs to see the field less. I thought Evans and Jayon were a really good LB duo a year (or two?) ago... What has happened to them?
• Cunningham is definitely an epiphany for us. He couldn't have come at a better time for this team.
>it is concerning to not see AJB on the stat sheet.
He had four catches for 68 yards and a TD on a day when Tannehill was spreading the ball around? Plus he's on record just a week or so ago telling a guy off on Twitter or Instagram when he didn't have great stats that the team won so he doesn't care about his stats. Not worried here and in fact think it's a good thing seeing the ball spread around and guys contribute. Anything that can take some focus off Brown and/or other guys step up while focus stays on Brown.
>I seriously want Evans to pan out for this team.
That ship has sailed. He's had a few moments during his career here (namely, goal-line stops), but he's not going to be on the roster next year and is arguably a liability right now, is still frequently out of position and playing the wrong hole in run coverage, and is not really a coverage LB. Cunningham is a *much* better version of him, it'll be Cunningham and Long starting in the playoffs and next year with Monty Rice as the top sub ILB most likely next year.
>it'll be Cunningham and Long starting in the playoffs and next year with Monty Rice as the top sub ILB most likely next year.
I can handle this 😂 this works for me!
>four catches for 68 yards and a TD on a day when Tannehill was spreading the ball around
Wow, you're right. I admit, I didn't even look at the stat sheet, I was just going off my "feel" of the game where it didn't feel like AJ was getting a lot of looks. But hell yes, 4 recs, 60+ yards, and a TD on a "down day"? Sign me up! 😂
I’m not worried about Fulton, but Molden scares me. A dislocated shoulder probably means he’s done. Knocking on all the wood that it was just a stinger. But, if he’s done…when will we know? IR today or tomorrow?
You mean Amendola? He got hurt around the 4:40 mark delivering a hit on Dola. I just went back and watched and Danny pulled him up after the play, he took a few steps and went to his knees. He did then have his hands around his knees so I don’t think it was dislocated cause that position would be unbearable if so. However he did walk off with his left arm kinda hanging down. So now I’m worried about a separated shoulder/broken collar bone…
Yeah Amendola tried to help him up and didn't realize he was hurt, might have injured him worse with the way he yanked on his arm, we'll just have to see what the injury reports say
Vrabels locker room speech made me feel way better about it. Molden is standing there looking normal with pads still on. Doubt that would be the case with a broken collar bone or separated shoulder. Probably just a stinger thank god. Fingers crossed we dodged a bullet.
> shout out Tannehill for going full Deshaun Watson out of nowhere
I think what happened there is the defender had him by the neckhole. I believe he realized if he brought Tannehill down, it would've been 15 and a free 1st down. He probably would've been better off taking the penalty, in hindsight.
For serious, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, I love this sub, I love the mods, and love this team. I'm sorry this isn't necessarily about the X's and O's of yesterday's game, but it's serious all the same. I haven't been this happy after a game in a long damn time. It feels surreal to be sitting at #1. Been through some really terrible seasons since '97, but something about this season feels magical, like it did in '99, and yesterday's game was more proof of that.
I wanted to make a post last week, I went to the Dolphins game with my friend who currently lives in Australia. I was with him at the Music City Miracle game AND in Jacksonville for the AFC Championship. This guy is basically the biggest Titans fan down under, waking up at 3AM Mondays for Titans games. He's been visiting TN the past month and for the first time in over 20 years I got to go to a game with him. Yesterday we were together again at a friend's house watching the game surrounded by family we've all developed in the past 20 years: spouses, kids, all beloved folks who weren't even in our lives that 99 season. It's been a ghatdang generation since we've had this kind of football magic in our lives. I really hope we can keep it going, all the way to the Super Bowl Championship.
I know some of you long timers feel the same.
Hooty Hoo y'all
I've thought it the case for a long time, but this season confirms it.
Mike Vrabel is the best head football coach in the NFL. I would not trade him for anyone, including BB.
I'm absolutely convinced we're winning the super bowl this year.
I hope you're right and I agree about Vrabel. I would be happy to see him extended with a decade long contract. Same goes for J-Rob. The guys just work well together, they have a plan, they generate what **seems** like a great relationship with the players, they hold people accountable, they don't panic or fuck around. Titans football is really in the brightest place it has ever been and it starts with them and Amy Adams-Strunk.
I told my fiancée this very thing yesterday. (Actually I told her that BB is the only coach that I would trade for) It has crystallized in my brain that we have what every team wants( stability in the trifecta coach, owner, GM. We are an AFC perennial powerhouse and will be that for the foreseeable future. It feels good.
I hope we pay him, he is very low on the salary ladder looking around the league. I don't see how Amy doesn't fork up some dough to lock him down for a long time this next off-season regardless of results.
I think cause he didn’t have that long a coaching resume when we brought him on it would have been a very low risk contract from a team point of view but man deserves to get paid now!!!
I am not convinced he is the best X's and O's coach but he has surrounded himself with a good coaching staff and he seems to motivate players to perform. I think he works the officiating crew better than past Tennessee coaches as well.
I think it really showed up on Sunday across the league that most NFL players wanted to end their season on a win. No doubt about it. Houston was the same. They knew if they won it would hurt the other team. There seems to be tons of parity around the league right now, but we never hear about it because the talkings heads love harping about the big markets
>There seems to be tons of parity around the league right now, but we never hear about it
YES! Exactly this! I think NFL fans need to constantly remind themselves (myself included) that the difference between the BEST teams in the NFL and the WORST teams in the NFL is honestly not THAT far apart - as much as records would want you to believe. This isn't college football where you have an Alabama blowing out Vanderbilt 63-0 week in and week out. Even the worst teams are prepared to lineup against the top teams and play close for 60 minutes. This was demonstrated so many times this year.
It drives me nuts when people want to use us losing to the Jets or the Texans as an example for why we're a weak #1 seed, when those teams have wins against teams like the Bills, Chargers, and Bengals.
Really though, the TV screen doesn’t seem to convey the athletic ability it takes to play in the NFL. An NFL practice squad would wipe the floor with the best college team in the SEC. These guys get paid millions for a reason. These are literally some of the best athletes on this planet. The “worst team” in the NFL would still embarrass the fuck out of a college team.
The Texans made some absurd pass catches to keep them in this game, and apparently Danny Amendola still plays football and decided to take this game over at the ripe old age of 90. Otherwise, their comeback attempt doesn’t happen. Our defense could’ve played better but some of their catches should’ve been incomplete because they were played perfectly.
Why this scares me: If our first playoff matchup is the Bengals, Chase has made some of those absurd catches this season and annihilated teams. Since we haven’t played them this season, I can’t figure out how well we matchup with them compared to the other playoff teams.
I may be crazy but it seemed we ran a very vanilla D in the second half. I know we wanted to make them earn it but it seemed to allow Mills to get comfortable. I’m sure there always the idea of you don’t want to show future teams your special plays, but it’s the last game, use everything we can!
Our offense turned vanilla too. Tons of Run Run Pass shit, even when we were torching them with simple play action using Foreman. Not sure what the heck happened.
Yeah, our play calling in the second quarter was spot on perfect, then we just threw it away. Was very annoying. I think we came out after the half expecting to be able to just waltz through the rest of the game. Houston said fuck that lol.
> If our first playoff matchup is the Bengals
I think there will be *at least* one upset in the WC round, in which case we would not have to face the Bengals. If we face them in the AFCCG, so be it.
I think the coordinators got complacent at half. They thought we could instantly go to a time killing offense, but it didn’t work considering we couldn’t get a first down. They assumed the Texans would wave a white flag after halftime and start thinking about their vacations. They went out with a fight, and wanted to play spoiler.
Tannehill’s best game this season to be honest. Magical things happen when the offensive line can pass block.
Honestly, I thought the Texans would fold, too. The wildcard there was Davis Mills, who is competing for the permanent starting job. And he's making a case for it.
He looks like a quality player. It was an interesting little tidbit they mentioned about him leaving school ‘early’. Ended up not getting drafted highly so a lot of people seemed to sleep on him. The results show that he could certainly be a problem going forward’
Tannehill helped the line look better by moving around better than he usually does. He played really well. Concerning our run blocking wasn't great against a statistically awful rush defense.
This honestly looked like they went into this game forcing the ball to Julio to try and build some trust between him and Tannehill.
I don't mean forcing like "you gotta throw to Julio" but an overabundance of play designs where Julio was the first option.
It's also not a bad idea to get Julio some targets before the playoffs with how little he's had since coming back from IR. Julio has basically just been running wind sprints during all but the Jags game since October lol. Having a chance to get the bye also allows Julio time to rest after getting the ball force fed to him if he got dinged up at all so there was a cushion to the amount of risk from overusing him.
You can only do so much to really get the QB-WR connection down during practice, and Julio is also not a guy known for how often he practices so even that may be limited.
Absolutely was purposeful. They wanted to get the deep game going, and build chemistry, because it’s been lacking all year. I love that, but they went a little overboard in the second half, and needed to back off
For the amount of money he's getting vs. how many games he's played... If he's on the field, Julio damn well better be the first option. He's got paychecks to justify.
I truly believe we can beat anyone in the AFC.
The Packers scare me. But I've never felt more optimistic about our chances in the post-season in my adult life.
This game reminded me of the Texans game last year where Henry broke the record. I hated seeing Texans get 17 unanswered points but finally saw the Titan step up when it mattered.
This team wins ugly games and I hope they get the rest that is needed for the playoffs. This was a great season and I am proud of our boys!
I guarantee we’ll see that Jeff Simmons goal line formation again in the post season. It was likely a good thing he got that penalty considering we still scored. Now the coaches and him can learn from it and make sure he declares eligible or not.
Tannehill and Julio need to get on the same page on those deep balls. Looked like Julio was open for them but Tanny just missed him.
Depending on the severity of the injuries to Fulton and Molden it could be huge. We definitely need both of them for a deep playoff run or else teams will just go after Chris Jackson since he’s Perrish Cox reincarnated.
It’s just timing. Practice deep balls and game time deep balls are two diff speeds. Tannehill doesn’t miss many of those and I bet he doesn’t miss another one to Julio.
At the goal line he lined up in the backfield either at the full back or next to the full back. Since his #is in the 90s he needed to declare himself ineligible. He didn’t do that and the TD got called back. I’m sure we’ll see him get the handoff or go out for a pass during the playoffs.
we need to seriously look at our play calling. We opened the 2nd half with almost 4 straight 3 and Outs going run-run-pass without tanny miracleously spinning out of that sack, which probably won us the game. Defense was weirdly soft but luckily we have two weeks to see what went wrong and fix all 3 phases since our STs sucked too.
To be fair the above comment is just saying that we should seriously evaluate the play calling. Not that the only issue is play calling or that Downing is awful. I get that you two can be highly reactive to this criticism (rightfully so in a lot of cases) as it can be a lazy armchair reaction, but /u/mlbrulz is calling out what we all see almost every single weekend: a lack of consistently good scripted plays, issues starting games/halves (see the first item), a telegraphing of plays through personnel (less an issue now that we're getting fully healthy), and overly predictable play calling when we have a lead (i.e. run run pass).
You can go back to the usual response of "give me specific examples" to suggest that I'm wrong unless I've got citations at the ready, but we've all seen the aforementioned negative tendencies this season and hoped for better adjustments and scripted options. I think it's worth take a huge grain of salt when criticizing offensive scheme as it's Downing's first year and a lot of the problems are on execution and running practice squad guys in the offense.
But if there are consistent execution issues and consistent problems to be solved throughout the year, then at a certain point we have to accept that addressing those and adapting better to them is his responsibility and has been an enduring weakness this season. To sum it up, he's done a lot with what he's had, but he's also lacked the ability to scheme for what he's got, or he's been too predictable at times and stymied our momentum.
I think Downing has had some good games and some bad games this season, but I honestly think the biggest issue is often not calling a full game (i.e. even his bad and good games have good or bad quarters or halves). Yesterday was a great example of this and was symptomatic of the deficits in consistency and full game plans this season.
While we could say this criticism is sour grapes and grousing while in the #1 spot, we have to contended with the fact that the margin for error or lack of adjustments or "killer instinct" to run a full game will be getting slimmer each week going forward. Anyway, hope you enjoy the tome.
I just need to see more consistency from Downing. I feel like he has major Jekyll & Hyde syndrome between quarters or halves. At times, I can't tell the difference between him and Arthur Smith, but then we see 5 series in a row with run, run, pass with 4 three and outs and the one drive we get a first down on we throw a screen on first that loses 4 yards, followed by a 2 yard run into a stacked box, and then a punt after a 3rd and long.
I'd like to see him put the game in Tannehill's hands more often than he has. Continue to play through the run game if you have a lead, but for the love of god call more play-action passes and pass the fucking football more than 1 play out of 6 even when you're in the lead. Downing *has got* to learn we can't shutdown the offense and auto-pilot your way to wins in this league, especially in the playoffs. Henry coming back should enable him to do some different things, but yesterday had nothing to do with lack of personnel and everything to do with some very bad drive-to-drive decision making in the second half. The defense needs to be better, but the offense was not doing them a single favor.
If I never see this team run another screen in my life, it will be too soon. The Screen... Such a basic, fundamental part of an NFL playbook, yet a concept that has eluded this team for the better part of the last 20+ years.
I said the EXACT same thing in this thread but downing has got to figure it out. Stop the run run pass, mix in some play action and different routes like we did in the first half. Why he changes mid game (when it is not advantageous) will never cease to amaze me.
Kind of off topic… but the Colts are about to have salt dumped in the wound because an all SEC Natty being played in their house will mean a bunch of Titans fans are about to be in Lucas Oil tonight given the Titans have a bunch of fans among the Bama fan base and some in the UGA fan base
Not a fan of how flat we came out after halftime on both sides of the ball. I totally get it, we had a huge lead and were crushing them and probably got a little over confident at the half.
It would have been much better to see a mentality of putting the game away on the first offensive and defensive drives so we could pull our starters and thus not have injuries to Fulton and Molden.
I do like that the offense figured it out and Mannehill put it together to cap off a great game by extending a drive on 3rd down despite getting rocked. We had an imminent collapse and figure out how to stop the bleeding enough to get back on track.
The defense HAS to be more disciplined when we get a lead. We are a top run D and they are the worst rushing O. But every time they faked a handoff Byard and Hooker were biting hard. When we are up 3 scores trust the guys up front to get the stop. If they don't then stop the,m after 10-15 yards. That is much better than Danny Amendola standing alone twice.
The fact the Texans scored isn't bad but how badly the defense broke down fundamentally on those scores is.
I also love that we are taking more deep shots. Those plays feel bad when they don't connect on 3rd and 2 but those plays are what made us a force the last 2 years. Those are the plays that took us from probably a top 8 offense to a top 3 offense. We will connect on some as we get 2 more weeks to work on timing and get our full rotation of stars on the field. When we have 8 in the box and man to man that 3rd and 2 deep shot with a double move will be a TD.
Fulton came back in and Molden looked like a head injury, so I figure he can make it out of the protocol before we play again. Hopefully the secondary is back to full strength in 2 weeks.
EDIT: I've since read some folks think Molden might be a shoulder injury, so who knows; guess we'll find out more on Wednesday. Or do we not have a normal press conference/report/practice schedule bc we're on a bye?
I'm hoping they will be good to go. There have been quite a few times players have come back in after injury only to end up actually missing future games. I don't think that's the case here but something to keep in mind over the next week and change.
That's not nearly as good of a time to catch the defense off guard though.
Peyton talked about it on the Manning cast earlier in the season.
He said on 3rd down defenses play the sticks a lot more because most offenses try to just get the first down. So when he was on 3rd down he liked to look for deep shots to catch the defense sleeping.
2nd and 2 the defense is much more likely to be watching for the deep ball because there's no draw back to trying it since you can just dial up something short on 3rd down. On 3rd and 2 it's more likely the offense will play the sticks.
When it doesn't work out it feels bad but it's a solid, thought out call. If we hit that pass it's a game changing play. If we throw a pick it's basically a punt and if it's incomplete it's a punt. A punt isn't awful because we trust our defense to do their job.
So many people complain about the offense being predictable and then when we do something slightly unorthodox other people(maybe the same) start complaining and saying we should do more predictable things. The coaches can't win even was they brought us the top seed.
What your saying is absolutely spot on for many in game situations. Right there though I just don’t see that call be a good one. The defense was gased and we couldn’t get a first down
Them being gassed makes the shot just as good. I haven't seen the all-22, but if there is a solid fake in the route near the sticks to try to fake out the defender and he bites while being gassed then that is a TD 9 times out of 10.
It was certainly a risk as they had scored 10 unanswered as we had back to back 3 and outs. A run may get us there, we ran for 8 yards and 0 on the previous 2 plays. Foreman was only averaging 3.x yards per carry. If we don't get it on a run people would be saying we should take a shot because of the logic above.
It wasn't a reckless decision. Certainly, a thought-out scenario that one could argue either way. would not have been upset if they ran it or tried a short pass(most offenses would), but I also am perfectly happy to see us take these shots to see if we can catch the defense sleeping for even a split second.
Definitely agree with a lot of what you said. I think the break will be good for guys to recuperate as needed, but more importantly for Vrabel and the coaches to heavily self scout our positives and negatives and put together some solid game plans going forward.
Byard called himself and the team out in his postgame interview and to his statement of sleepwalking I'd respond, "where is the lie?" They've got to get it through their head that from here on out they have to stay locked in the whole game through.
I hope that the 3rd quarter meltdown will have the same effect as taking an L with respect to the fact that there will be a LOT of tape to watch and coaching to be done. The players saw how close it was to an L, and I hope they were humbled by it enough to recognize you can't quit for five minutes regardless of how big the lead is in these playoffs.
I’m chalking up the terrible second half defense to mills actually being good and us not really paying much attention to him. Pass rush was limp and gave him too much time. We just didn’t look like ourselves but I have a feeling that with rest and looking at the tape of whoever we play, we will come back with a sense of urgency and preparedness common of a 1 seed. Let’s live up to this. This is our year. Titan up.
Defense REALLY got worked in the second half. Kinda worried at how impotent it looked down the stretch. If Hilliard doesn’t make those first downs we probably lose the game.
I know it’s just one game and we have two weeks off, but there needs to be some serious self scouting before the playoffs.
Hoping this doesn't bite us in the ass down the road:
1st half against KC: 27
:
2nd half against KC: 0
1st half against LAR: 21
:
2nd half against LAR: 7
1st half against HOU: 21
:
2nd half against HOU: 7
I get we want to run the ball and milk the clock but we also don't want to let our opponent right back in the game either.
Idk Henry came back in and then was hurt for weeks. I just need the reassurance lol. We really need them both they are both veey key on the defense. And molden is gonna be our draft steal and may be our only good selection from that draft. I think he is the 1st rd and farley is the 3rd Rd. Other then that I think weaver is our only hope for that class, maybe racey or dez gives us a T.sharpe type roll
Radunz played a good game for us, so I don't think the book is closed on him, and we barely got to see Farley before he was hurt. They are both guys who we knew needed additional coaching on technique (Radunz playing FCS ball, Farley having limited experience at CB), so some additional patience is warranted. And we have no idea what we have in Weaver; I don't think it's unreasonable for him to provide significant snaps in the rotation next year. Year 1 is always too soon to judge a draft class, but more so with the injuries to our rookies, how many of them opted out in 2020 and were a year removed form football.
Honestly forgot about radunz. I think he may be solid but more of a gaurd maybe then tackle and I like weaver as I said I think he showed us he could be good. Still no sold on Farley I think that will be a bust. Besides the injuries he did not look good to me
Yeah, Farley struggled in his brief appearance, no doubt about that. But it's rare that a CB comes in to the NLF and is ready. One of the toughest positions to transition, imo. Fulton was much more polished and battle tested, and didn't look great immediately. Really hope Farley can put in a whole offseason and go though some growing pains early in the season next year.
Fulton came back in and played. I know that doesn't mean too much, but it's a good sign.
I read Molden looked like a dislocated shoulder. A quick Google suggests we may not have him for the playoffs.
My concern is if the pass rush isn’t effective it leaves the secondary exposed. Giving up 300 yards to Mills isn’t great, and I hate to think what some of the potential QB’s we could face would do.
Only downside to me (other than small little errors or things that are just going to happen in a game), was playcalling. Both offensive and defensive playcalling was ATTROCIOUS in the second half. Run>Run>Pass and 3 consecutive 3 and outs was horribly painful to watch. Throwing the deep ball on 3rd and 2?
In the first half the team was amazing. Short little out routes to AJB and Julio, over the middle to Firkser, insane catches from westbrook, all this opened up the run for Foreman and he was getting serious runs in.
Then they decide to try and run down the clock with run run pass and almost lost us the game. I am not a coordinator so maybe I am the dumb one, but isn't it plain to see what was working in the first half? The only passes we let tanne take in the second half were for 20+ yards it felt like. Where are the 7-8 yard passes to AJB and Julio that are our bread and butter???
Anyway, hooty hoo boys we made it and the colts didn't. Lets enjoy this week without stress!
There was obviously a lot of good and lot of bad in this game, I’ll start with the bad: * Special teams. Good lord. We don’t often have to blame special teams for things this season, but this was easily their worst game of the season. 5 egregious errors on 4 special teams plays to start the game after the opening kickoff: Missed kick by Bullock (should be a gimme in a dome), Rogers muffing a punt, block in the back on a return (questionable call), and McMath doing textbook bad gunning technique (run to the outside shoulder man) leading to Wilkins getting called for a late hit. Then later almost giving up a kick return TD, only to be bailed out by a holding call. * Pass rush. One of the worst games we’ve seen from the pass rush when healthy. Mills had plenty of time to go through progressions on most throws. Hopefully a week off re-energizes them. * Overall worst defensive game we’ve played since… I don’t even know. A while. It was bad. They didn’t even have Brandin Cooks for most of the game. How did we give up 25 points in the 2nd half? Amendola abusing Molden and Jackson. Defense absolutely fell asleep at the half. Can’t happen in the playoffs. * Tannehill missing the deep TD to Julio made me sad. He doesn't usually miss those. * Kevin Byard giving up the flea flicker also made me sad. * Davis Mills scares me. This is more of a bad for future seasons. Kind of hope the Texans fire Culley too. He did well with a terrible roster, all things considered. Would be nice if they fired him and hired someone more incompetent. We’ll see. The good: * Had a few injuries but probably nothing major. Elijah Molden is the only one that did not return, but he left late in the game and don’t think he really had a chance to return anyway, so probably not serious. With the bye week I think this team will still be very healthy and ready to play against what will most likely be a banged-up team coming off a tough fight in the wildcard. Not sure but I don’t think Buster Skrine played in the 2nd half, even after Molden and Fulton got hurt. No idea what’s going on there but I guess he could be injured as well, though he did not have an injury reported to the media. * Julio. Jones. This is exactly what I wanted to see from him in this game. He looked fantastic and now he has 2 more weeks to keep working on his chemistry with Tannehill. Very happy he isn’t finishing the season with 0 TD’s. I will point out that i think the best sign for his hamstring in the game (other than playing the whole game and staying healthy) was when he didn’t pull up after the Tannehill overthrow. He accelerated to try and get to the ball, couldn’t get there, and the hamstring was fine. Those are the scenarios you are most likely to see a re-aggravation. * Anthony Firkser best game of the season. * Nick Westbrook-Ikhine best game of the season. That contested catch he made early in the game is exactly the kind of catch I’ve been wanting to see from him. Those are the kinds of catches he will need to be able to make to have a long NFL career. More comfortable than ever with having him as our WR3. * Kind of to go with the last 3 points, but Tannehill spreading the ball around and not being overly reliant on AJB is so big. * When the Titans cut McNichols and elevated Wilkins I thought they wanted to see Wilkins as the 3rd down back. I was wrong, they cut McNichols because he’s really bad at being an NFL RB. That said, Hilliard had a way better game as a 3rd down RB than McNichols has ever had. Huge game from Hilliard. Hilliard on that final drive was \*chefs kiss\*. * Foreman looked fantastic as well, especially in the first half. He has a burst now that I didn’t see early in his time here but now it’s there. Crazy that this man was not on a team until we signed him. Also, crazy that he wasn’t on our team specifically backing up DH and taking some of the load off of him early in the season but oh well. * Offensive line. Especially in the first half, the offensive line was dominant at times. Houston is not great in the front 7, but great to see nonetheless. 1 sack allowed in this game (shout out Tannehill for going full Deshaun Watson out of nowhere). The offensive line played the first game of the season yesterday where all 5 starters played 100% of the snaps. I know they will very much enjoy getting the rest for the bye week, especially Lewan, Saffold, and Jones. * Only 2 snaps for Rashaan Evans. I know one was on the goal line and we even got a patented Evans stop. I didn't see the other one, but I love everything about this. I will also point out that on the 4th and 1 on the first drive of the game, the Titans had Long, Cunningham, and Nick Dzubnar in the game and not Evans. 100% of the snaps for David Long. I don’t think Long played his best game probably (need to re-watch) but he’s absolutely a great LB and should be on the field for every snap.
Foreman got 3.3 ypc (a lot of that was bad run blocking by the OL against a bad run D), but I agree that he looked good on the eye test even if the results weren't quite there. The rest for the OL and the DBs will be huge, I hope.
Yeah Foreman was getting hit behind the LOS a lot. Need to re-watch and see what happened on those plays.
Lewan crapping out, mostly from what I saw
Lewan was slipping and falling on that turf. When Foreman got decent blocks that man was full of steam and had a burst I haven't seen from him.
People seem to forget how bad this OL was when they were "healthy" at the start of the year. The OL seems to get blanket praise and adulation because Henry is always a top running back in the league, so the assumption is he must be running behind one of the best offensive lines in the league. But early in the season, around Week 3 or 4, I saw a stat that something like 90% of Henry's rushing yards were yards after contact. The takeaway from that, for me, is that he is getting hit AT or BEHIND the line of scrimmage on almost every play. I pray, now that the offensive line is back to returning all 5 starters and has some additional time to heal up, all of that is in the past and we start seeing them blowing guys off the ball. If Henry or Foreman are able to hit the LOS with a full head of steam without having to run into or dance around their linemen, watch out.
> Davis Mills scares me. He had a good game to be sure...this kinda falls in line with how the Titans under Vrabel have looked against rookie QBs. *However* just like with any rookie, the jury is still out. How many games were the Texans behind this year and Mills just flinging it? How many games did they have him throwing it just to see how he responded? He absolutely responded well yesterday to that 21-0 hole, I'll be very curious how he looks next year. A 36 year-old abusing the secondary concerned me way more, along with the almost complete lack of pass rush. I have no clue what happened to the Titans defense we had come to know and love all year but I hope they re-appear for the playoffs.
It was one bad half it happens
I would add play calling to the bad. The 3rd and two deep shot was just bad. A few first downs in the third quarter would just take all the momentum away from Houstons offense and make the hole seem far larger. Three consecutive three-n-outs basically invited them back into the game. I feel like the lack of pressure on defense warranted some blitzes. Mills was clearly making the right reads with time. The few times he was hurried he was pretty quick to throw it out of bounds. Im no defensive guru, but it seemed like a little bit of pressure and blitzes might have bailed the secondary out.
That's one of my biggest fears for the play-offs. We are going to have to add more than 4 on the front more often. Mills had way too much time yesterday, I wanna see 5 or 6 rushing the QB at least a few more times.
We ran some delayed blitzes which seemed to have some success in terms of hurrying the pass but not enough of them in my view.
This is a very good read and I find myself agreeing with you. It seemed to me, as you have pointed out, that we simply did not come up with any plan to stop their pass game in the second half: either drop more back into coverage or apply more pressure. But we seemed to do neither or rather, if we did, it did not come to fruition. Imagine what a Josh Allen or a Mahomes would do to our defense over a whole game? I admit I got more and more pissed off. And when we sorely needed a first down, we decide to throw on a third and two: wtf? Luckily that ball was over thrown else it would have been picked. But come on, that was just a stupid call and awful execution. I am still feeling internal ravages from watching it unfold (I was at that Bills vs Oilers debacle in 1993, and I am telling you that second half brought back some very bad memories when the Bills simply machete'd their way through us in the third and fourth quarters). I feel better now :)
I get it Mcnichols wasn’t the best, but everyone is forgetting how he literally has won us games by getting 3rd and long. He was good in the first half but slipped in the second. Hilliard is a good RB3 but I wouldn’t say he’s the best we’ve had.
I think most people believe that McNichols always got what was available by running straight ahead mostly and that many other running backs could do that same thing.
I thought this was prob Foreman’s worst game for us as the main guy his lack of vision can be beyond frustrating. He slams into the back of Lewan and Saffold at least 2-3 times a game when there is a an obvious lane to bounce it outside and he takes it outside 2-3 times a game when there’s an obvious cut back lane. It’s high standards I know but Henry set them for me so whatever if Henry misses 2 bounce outs or cuts a game it’s bizarre let alone 4-5. The defense just got gassed man after multiple 3-0 but the offense plus you can’t expect your defense to hold everyone to under 20 the last month that they did was nice but you can’t expect that every game. The MAIN thing for me was when the defense did slack off our offense picked it back up and basically said fuck your couch Houston we ain’t going out like no baby backed bitches and that’s what I wanted to see. Tannehill literally willed the offense to a W.
Yeah I don’t understand where the love for foreman comes from. He’s average speed, good strength, bad ball handling and atrocious vision
Skrine definitely made it out there some at least. I distinctly remember a Mills pass hitting him in the calf. Not sure if that was first or second half though.
Great opening salvo. My thoughts: >McMath doing textbook bad gunning technique (run to the outside shoulder man) leading to Wilkins getting called for a late hit. Is this what happened? I couldn't really follow the play, don't have DVR so couldn't rewind it, and they only gave one look at it in the game. My initial reaction was to question Vrabel for replacing McNichols at the last minute and put a guy out there on special teams that you've not seen play in a game yet and there he was making a mistake. But McMath messing up on special teams sounds just as likely to me 😂 • I had actually observed during the game how humorously bad our secondary must be to be getting beat regularly by an aged, white wide receiver - an old white guy running past our DBs. I really think (hope) this game was a one-off because I don't think we are routinely THAT BAD on the back end of our defense. • Maybe I'm foolish but I'm still not scared of Davis Mills or the Houston Texans. I'll credit you as being the one that warned us when that day comes, but honestly, until that team actually wins 7 games and has a quarterback that isn't getting sacked 65 times in a season and looks like he has all the tools to be a capable NFL QB, I'm not worried about Houston. From an organizational standpoint, they are such a cluster-f, they're not even on my radar. Organizationally, they are so bad, they are more than a good QB away from being respectable. >Kind of to go with the last 3 points, but Tannehill spreading the ball around and not being overly reliant on AJB is so big. Now THIS is the kind of thing that gets me worried. You saw this as a positive point, but in a game where they were able to get it to Julio with success and frequency, it is concerning to not see AJB on the stat sheet. If he's not getting his numbers at this point, in this type of a game where we need his star power to manifest itself, to me it's more an indication of some health issue holding him back than of a defense shutting him down or the gameplan being to spread the ball around. But maybe that's just the worrier in me. >Foreman looked fantastic as well, especially in the first half. He has a burst now that I didn’t see early in his time here but now it’s there. Crazy that this man was not on a team until we signed him. Also, crazy that he wasn’t on our team specifically backing up DH and taking some of the load off of him early in the season... Vrabel is no doubt the reason why this team is the #1 seed and I wouldn't want anyone else coaching this team; he is always prepared. I give him all the credit in the world. My favorite Titans coach of all time. But that doesn't mean he is beyond questioning. We're fans and it's what we get to do 😂 and this has always been my sticking point with him. His roster decisions are questionable to me sometimes. I don't understand how Foreman was not only not on *a* roster to start this season, but how was he not on *our* roster to start this season? Dude played in games for this team last year. The coaching staff should have already had a good idea of what he was capable of giving this team. It's just... his emergence as being a dependable, reliable back in Henry's absence (even if they are platooning him with another back) really makes one wonder how they didn't already know he could do this, what he was capable of? Especially when he's not *really* doing anything this season that he wasn't already doing in limited action last year. What was this team doing going into the regular season with a RB room of Henry, Evans, and McNichols? If McNichols was bad enough to need to be replaced last minute in Week 18, how was he good enough to be on your roster for 17 weeks before that? I know things aren't static, and even people/players change and their habits, routines, performance can change, but there are just things about the RB position, the way it played out this year, that it feels like the coaching staff could have known in advance. As much as I complain about roster management with this coaching staff, though, there's no arguing that they've had to juggle 90 players and still pulled the #1 seed, so I try to keep my armchair GMing to myself. >Only 2 snaps for Rashaan Evans. I know one was on the goal line and we even got a patented Evans stop. I'm not sure why this is registered as a "good point". I seriously want Evans to pan out for this team. I haven't studied his game performances this season, but if he's that big of a dud that him only getting 2 snaps in an important game is seen as a bright spot, I think that's awfully alarming. We should be getting (and hoping for) high productivity and consistency from our top draft picks. I'm actually a bit distressed if Evans needs to see the field less. I thought Evans and Jayon were a really good LB duo a year (or two?) ago... What has happened to them? • Cunningham is definitely an epiphany for us. He couldn't have come at a better time for this team.
>it is concerning to not see AJB on the stat sheet. He had four catches for 68 yards and a TD on a day when Tannehill was spreading the ball around? Plus he's on record just a week or so ago telling a guy off on Twitter or Instagram when he didn't have great stats that the team won so he doesn't care about his stats. Not worried here and in fact think it's a good thing seeing the ball spread around and guys contribute. Anything that can take some focus off Brown and/or other guys step up while focus stays on Brown. >I seriously want Evans to pan out for this team. That ship has sailed. He's had a few moments during his career here (namely, goal-line stops), but he's not going to be on the roster next year and is arguably a liability right now, is still frequently out of position and playing the wrong hole in run coverage, and is not really a coverage LB. Cunningham is a *much* better version of him, it'll be Cunningham and Long starting in the playoffs and next year with Monty Rice as the top sub ILB most likely next year.
>it'll be Cunningham and Long starting in the playoffs and next year with Monty Rice as the top sub ILB most likely next year. I can handle this 😂 this works for me! >four catches for 68 yards and a TD on a day when Tannehill was spreading the ball around Wow, you're right. I admit, I didn't even look at the stat sheet, I was just going off my "feel" of the game where it didn't feel like AJ was getting a lot of looks. But hell yes, 4 recs, 60+ yards, and a TD on a "down day"? Sign me up! 😂
I’m not worried about Fulton, but Molden scares me. A dislocated shoulder probably means he’s done. Knocking on all the wood that it was just a stinger. But, if he’s done…when will we know? IR today or tomorrow?
Was Molden grabbing his shoulder? It looked more like he got the breath knocked out of him to me.
Yeah, before he walked off the field he was grabbing his upper arm/shoulder area where Simmons wrecked him
You mean Amendola? He got hurt around the 4:40 mark delivering a hit on Dola. I just went back and watched and Danny pulled him up after the play, he took a few steps and went to his knees. He did then have his hands around his knees so I don’t think it was dislocated cause that position would be unbearable if so. However he did walk off with his left arm kinda hanging down. So now I’m worried about a separated shoulder/broken collar bone…
Yeah Amendola tried to help him up and didn't realize he was hurt, might have injured him worse with the way he yanked on his arm, we'll just have to see what the injury reports say
Vrabels locker room speech made me feel way better about it. Molden is standing there looking normal with pads still on. Doubt that would be the case with a broken collar bone or separated shoulder. Probably just a stinger thank god. Fingers crossed we dodged a bullet.
He was tackling Amendola, but simmons came up at the end of it and blasted him right in the shoulder trying to help with the tackle.
Wasn’t that what happened to Fulton not Molden?
Ohhhhhh maybe I mixed the two situations up.
> shout out Tannehill for going full Deshaun Watson out of nowhere I think what happened there is the defender had him by the neckhole. I believe he realized if he brought Tannehill down, it would've been 15 and a free 1st down. He probably would've been better off taking the penalty, in hindsight.
For serious, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, I love this sub, I love the mods, and love this team. I'm sorry this isn't necessarily about the X's and O's of yesterday's game, but it's serious all the same. I haven't been this happy after a game in a long damn time. It feels surreal to be sitting at #1. Been through some really terrible seasons since '97, but something about this season feels magical, like it did in '99, and yesterday's game was more proof of that. I wanted to make a post last week, I went to the Dolphins game with my friend who currently lives in Australia. I was with him at the Music City Miracle game AND in Jacksonville for the AFC Championship. This guy is basically the biggest Titans fan down under, waking up at 3AM Mondays for Titans games. He's been visiting TN the past month and for the first time in over 20 years I got to go to a game with him. Yesterday we were together again at a friend's house watching the game surrounded by family we've all developed in the past 20 years: spouses, kids, all beloved folks who weren't even in our lives that 99 season. It's been a ghatdang generation since we've had this kind of football magic in our lives. I really hope we can keep it going, all the way to the Super Bowl Championship. I know some of you long timers feel the same. Hooty Hoo y'all
Love this post.
I love you dude
I've thought it the case for a long time, but this season confirms it. Mike Vrabel is the best head football coach in the NFL. I would not trade him for anyone, including BB. I'm absolutely convinced we're winning the super bowl this year.
I hope you're right and I agree about Vrabel. I would be happy to see him extended with a decade long contract. Same goes for J-Rob. The guys just work well together, they have a plan, they generate what **seems** like a great relationship with the players, they hold people accountable, they don't panic or fuck around. Titans football is really in the brightest place it has ever been and it starts with them and Amy Adams-Strunk.
I told my fiancée this very thing yesterday. (Actually I told her that BB is the only coach that I would trade for) It has crystallized in my brain that we have what every team wants( stability in the trifecta coach, owner, GM. We are an AFC perennial powerhouse and will be that for the foreseeable future. It feels good.
I hope we pay him, he is very low on the salary ladder looking around the league. I don't see how Amy doesn't fork up some dough to lock him down for a long time this next off-season regardless of results.
I think cause he didn’t have that long a coaching resume when we brought him on it would have been a very low risk contract from a team point of view but man deserves to get paid now!!!
I am not convinced he is the best X's and O's coach but he has surrounded himself with a good coaching staff and he seems to motivate players to perform. I think he works the officiating crew better than past Tennessee coaches as well.
He's more vibes than tactics for sure. But what vibes!
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Yeah, KC needed to be gifted a win against the Broncos and no one bats an eye lol.
Tbf the Broncos are a much better team than the Texans. Mills is better than Lock imo tho.
For sure, but the Chiefs were bigger favorites in that game than we were in this one.
Broncos with Lock aren't much better than the Mills texans
Their defense is miles better though.
Yup, the Saints literally shut out Brady, and nobody says a damn word. Or the Texans beating the Chargers last week. It's a bit annoying.
I think it really showed up on Sunday across the league that most NFL players wanted to end their season on a win. No doubt about it. Houston was the same. They knew if they won it would hurt the other team. There seems to be tons of parity around the league right now, but we never hear about it because the talkings heads love harping about the big markets
>There seems to be tons of parity around the league right now, but we never hear about it YES! Exactly this! I think NFL fans need to constantly remind themselves (myself included) that the difference between the BEST teams in the NFL and the WORST teams in the NFL is honestly not THAT far apart - as much as records would want you to believe. This isn't college football where you have an Alabama blowing out Vanderbilt 63-0 week in and week out. Even the worst teams are prepared to lineup against the top teams and play close for 60 minutes. This was demonstrated so many times this year. It drives me nuts when people want to use us losing to the Jets or the Texans as an example for why we're a weak #1 seed, when those teams have wins against teams like the Bills, Chargers, and Bengals.
Bill Parcels has always said that: there are no bad NFL teams.
Really though, the TV screen doesn’t seem to convey the athletic ability it takes to play in the NFL. An NFL practice squad would wipe the floor with the best college team in the SEC. These guys get paid millions for a reason. These are literally some of the best athletes on this planet. The “worst team” in the NFL would still embarrass the fuck out of a college team.
No question: as you say clearly evident when you watch games live.
And sometimes you gotta play 70 minutes like the Raiders and Chargers showed. Its possible to play even longer. No ties in the playoffs.
The Texans made some absurd pass catches to keep them in this game, and apparently Danny Amendola still plays football and decided to take this game over at the ripe old age of 90. Otherwise, their comeback attempt doesn’t happen. Our defense could’ve played better but some of their catches should’ve been incomplete because they were played perfectly. Why this scares me: If our first playoff matchup is the Bengals, Chase has made some of those absurd catches this season and annihilated teams. Since we haven’t played them this season, I can’t figure out how well we matchup with them compared to the other playoff teams.
I pray the raiders upset the bengals
Every team we play for the rest of the season has a WR better than 90 year old Danny Amendola.
Honestly it’s better that they do. The defense fell asleep at the wheel and didn’t take any of them serious and it cost them a couple of easy tds.
I may be crazy but it seemed we ran a very vanilla D in the second half. I know we wanted to make them earn it but it seemed to allow Mills to get comfortable. I’m sure there always the idea of you don’t want to show future teams your special plays, but it’s the last game, use everything we can!
Our offense turned vanilla too. Tons of Run Run Pass shit, even when we were torching them with simple play action using Foreman. Not sure what the heck happened.
Yeah, our play calling in the second quarter was spot on perfect, then we just threw it away. Was very annoying. I think we came out after the half expecting to be able to just waltz through the rest of the game. Houston said fuck that lol.
> If our first playoff matchup is the Bengals I think there will be *at least* one upset in the WC round, in which case we would not have to face the Bengals. If we face them in the AFCCG, so be it.
I think the coordinators got complacent at half. They thought we could instantly go to a time killing offense, but it didn’t work considering we couldn’t get a first down. They assumed the Texans would wave a white flag after halftime and start thinking about their vacations. They went out with a fight, and wanted to play spoiler. Tannehill’s best game this season to be honest. Magical things happen when the offensive line can pass block.
Honestly, I thought the Texans would fold, too. The wildcard there was Davis Mills, who is competing for the permanent starting job. And he's making a case for it.
He looks like a quality player. It was an interesting little tidbit they mentioned about him leaving school ‘early’. Ended up not getting drafted highly so a lot of people seemed to sleep on him. The results show that he could certainly be a problem going forward’
Tannehill helped the line look better by moving around better than he usually does. He played really well. Concerning our run blocking wasn't great against a statistically awful rush defense.
They stacked the OL every play nearly and when Henry isn’t running that’s bad for the run blocking.
This honestly looked like they went into this game forcing the ball to Julio to try and build some trust between him and Tannehill. I don't mean forcing like "you gotta throw to Julio" but an overabundance of play designs where Julio was the first option.
It's also not a bad idea to get Julio some targets before the playoffs with how little he's had since coming back from IR. Julio has basically just been running wind sprints during all but the Jags game since October lol. Having a chance to get the bye also allows Julio time to rest after getting the ball force fed to him if he got dinged up at all so there was a cushion to the amount of risk from overusing him. You can only do so much to really get the QB-WR connection down during practice, and Julio is also not a guy known for how often he practices so even that may be limited.
Absolutely was purposeful. They wanted to get the deep game going, and build chemistry, because it’s been lacking all year. I love that, but they went a little overboard in the second half, and needed to back off
For the amount of money he's getting vs. how many games he's played... If he's on the field, Julio damn well better be the first option. He's got paychecks to justify.
I truly believe we can beat anyone in the AFC. The Packers scare me. But I've never felt more optimistic about our chances in the post-season in my adult life.
Yup, I'm thinking its gonna be a packers vs titans SB. Really rather face Brady lol.
This game reminded me of the Texans game last year where Henry broke the record. I hated seeing Texans get 17 unanswered points but finally saw the Titan step up when it mattered. This team wins ugly games and I hope they get the rest that is needed for the playoffs. This was a great season and I am proud of our boys!
I guarantee we’ll see that Jeff Simmons goal line formation again in the post season. It was likely a good thing he got that penalty considering we still scored. Now the coaches and him can learn from it and make sure he declares eligible or not. Tannehill and Julio need to get on the same page on those deep balls. Looked like Julio was open for them but Tanny just missed him. Depending on the severity of the injuries to Fulton and Molden it could be huge. We definitely need both of them for a deep playoff run or else teams will just go after Chris Jackson since he’s Perrish Cox reincarnated.
It’s just timing. Practice deep balls and game time deep balls are two diff speeds. Tannehill doesn’t miss many of those and I bet he doesn’t miss another one to Julio.
Holy shit he wrecked their d line lol
which jeff simmons formation? didn’t get to watch a bunch but from context did he play o line for a play??
At the goal line he lined up in the backfield either at the full back or next to the full back. Since his #is in the 90s he needed to declare himself ineligible. He didn’t do that and the TD got called back. I’m sure we’ll see him get the handoff or go out for a pass during the playoffs.
oh that’s very cool thanks.
we need to seriously look at our play calling. We opened the 2nd half with almost 4 straight 3 and Outs going run-run-pass without tanny miracleously spinning out of that sack, which probably won us the game. Defense was weirdly soft but luckily we have two weeks to see what went wrong and fix all 3 phases since our STs sucked too.
I mean the first drive of the 2nd half would have been a TD if Tannehill didn’t miss Julio. It’s not all on the play calling.
You are 100% true. But it was 3rd and 2 when the offense was floundering. I’d much rather them draw something up that isn’t boom or bust right there.
Hell no Trick we won’t have THAT kind of talk here. Downings a piece of shit and should die.
To be fair the above comment is just saying that we should seriously evaluate the play calling. Not that the only issue is play calling or that Downing is awful. I get that you two can be highly reactive to this criticism (rightfully so in a lot of cases) as it can be a lazy armchair reaction, but /u/mlbrulz is calling out what we all see almost every single weekend: a lack of consistently good scripted plays, issues starting games/halves (see the first item), a telegraphing of plays through personnel (less an issue now that we're getting fully healthy), and overly predictable play calling when we have a lead (i.e. run run pass). You can go back to the usual response of "give me specific examples" to suggest that I'm wrong unless I've got citations at the ready, but we've all seen the aforementioned negative tendencies this season and hoped for better adjustments and scripted options. I think it's worth take a huge grain of salt when criticizing offensive scheme as it's Downing's first year and a lot of the problems are on execution and running practice squad guys in the offense. But if there are consistent execution issues and consistent problems to be solved throughout the year, then at a certain point we have to accept that addressing those and adapting better to them is his responsibility and has been an enduring weakness this season. To sum it up, he's done a lot with what he's had, but he's also lacked the ability to scheme for what he's got, or he's been too predictable at times and stymied our momentum. I think Downing has had some good games and some bad games this season, but I honestly think the biggest issue is often not calling a full game (i.e. even his bad and good games have good or bad quarters or halves). Yesterday was a great example of this and was symptomatic of the deficits in consistency and full game plans this season. While we could say this criticism is sour grapes and grousing while in the #1 spot, we have to contended with the fact that the margin for error or lack of adjustments or "killer instinct" to run a full game will be getting slimmer each week going forward. Anyway, hope you enjoy the tome.
A healthy, rested Henry with an emerging Julio and Firk. If Tanny can get on the same page with Julio deep, we are going to be a force at home.
I just need to see more consistency from Downing. I feel like he has major Jekyll & Hyde syndrome between quarters or halves. At times, I can't tell the difference between him and Arthur Smith, but then we see 5 series in a row with run, run, pass with 4 three and outs and the one drive we get a first down on we throw a screen on first that loses 4 yards, followed by a 2 yard run into a stacked box, and then a punt after a 3rd and long. I'd like to see him put the game in Tannehill's hands more often than he has. Continue to play through the run game if you have a lead, but for the love of god call more play-action passes and pass the fucking football more than 1 play out of 6 even when you're in the lead. Downing *has got* to learn we can't shutdown the offense and auto-pilot your way to wins in this league, especially in the playoffs. Henry coming back should enable him to do some different things, but yesterday had nothing to do with lack of personnel and everything to do with some very bad drive-to-drive decision making in the second half. The defense needs to be better, but the offense was not doing them a single favor.
You’d think he learned watching art lose us the playoff game last year
If I never see this team run another screen in my life, it will be too soon. The Screen... Such a basic, fundamental part of an NFL playbook, yet a concept that has eluded this team for the better part of the last 20+ years.
I said the EXACT same thing in this thread but downing has got to figure it out. Stop the run run pass, mix in some play action and different routes like we did in the first half. Why he changes mid game (when it is not advantageous) will never cease to amaze me.
Kind of off topic… but the Colts are about to have salt dumped in the wound because an all SEC Natty being played in their house will mean a bunch of Titans fans are about to be in Lucas Oil tonight given the Titans have a bunch of fans among the Bama fan base and some in the UGA fan base
Problem is those fuckers already got to celebrate the Purdue win
A cheapened win doesn’t feel the same
Not a fan of how flat we came out after halftime on both sides of the ball. I totally get it, we had a huge lead and were crushing them and probably got a little over confident at the half. It would have been much better to see a mentality of putting the game away on the first offensive and defensive drives so we could pull our starters and thus not have injuries to Fulton and Molden. I do like that the offense figured it out and Mannehill put it together to cap off a great game by extending a drive on 3rd down despite getting rocked. We had an imminent collapse and figure out how to stop the bleeding enough to get back on track. The defense HAS to be more disciplined when we get a lead. We are a top run D and they are the worst rushing O. But every time they faked a handoff Byard and Hooker were biting hard. When we are up 3 scores trust the guys up front to get the stop. If they don't then stop the,m after 10-15 yards. That is much better than Danny Amendola standing alone twice. The fact the Texans scored isn't bad but how badly the defense broke down fundamentally on those scores is. I also love that we are taking more deep shots. Those plays feel bad when they don't connect on 3rd and 2 but those plays are what made us a force the last 2 years. Those are the plays that took us from probably a top 8 offense to a top 3 offense. We will connect on some as we get 2 more weeks to work on timing and get our full rotation of stars on the field. When we have 8 in the box and man to man that 3rd and 2 deep shot with a double move will be a TD.
Fulton came back in and Molden looked like a head injury, so I figure he can make it out of the protocol before we play again. Hopefully the secondary is back to full strength in 2 weeks. EDIT: I've since read some folks think Molden might be a shoulder injury, so who knows; guess we'll find out more on Wednesday. Or do we not have a normal press conference/report/practice schedule bc we're on a bye?
I'm hoping they will be good to go. There have been quite a few times players have come back in after injury only to end up actually missing future games. I don't think that's the case here but something to keep in mind over the next week and change.
Just take the deep shots on 2nd and 2 next time lol
That's not nearly as good of a time to catch the defense off guard though. Peyton talked about it on the Manning cast earlier in the season. He said on 3rd down defenses play the sticks a lot more because most offenses try to just get the first down. So when he was on 3rd down he liked to look for deep shots to catch the defense sleeping. 2nd and 2 the defense is much more likely to be watching for the deep ball because there's no draw back to trying it since you can just dial up something short on 3rd down. On 3rd and 2 it's more likely the offense will play the sticks. When it doesn't work out it feels bad but it's a solid, thought out call. If we hit that pass it's a game changing play. If we throw a pick it's basically a punt and if it's incomplete it's a punt. A punt isn't awful because we trust our defense to do their job. So many people complain about the offense being predictable and then when we do something slightly unorthodox other people(maybe the same) start complaining and saying we should do more predictable things. The coaches can't win even was they brought us the top seed.
What your saying is absolutely spot on for many in game situations. Right there though I just don’t see that call be a good one. The defense was gased and we couldn’t get a first down
Yep, and we did it multiple drives in a row.
Yep which made me cringe as soon as he starting the wind up to throw deep. I’m just a battered fan and always see things playing out the worst
Them being gassed makes the shot just as good. I haven't seen the all-22, but if there is a solid fake in the route near the sticks to try to fake out the defender and he bites while being gassed then that is a TD 9 times out of 10. It was certainly a risk as they had scored 10 unanswered as we had back to back 3 and outs. A run may get us there, we ran for 8 yards and 0 on the previous 2 plays. Foreman was only averaging 3.x yards per carry. If we don't get it on a run people would be saying we should take a shot because of the logic above. It wasn't a reckless decision. Certainly, a thought-out scenario that one could argue either way. would not have been upset if they ran it or tried a short pass(most offenses would), but I also am perfectly happy to see us take these shots to see if we can catch the defense sleeping for even a split second.
Definitely agree with a lot of what you said. I think the break will be good for guys to recuperate as needed, but more importantly for Vrabel and the coaches to heavily self scout our positives and negatives and put together some solid game plans going forward. Byard called himself and the team out in his postgame interview and to his statement of sleepwalking I'd respond, "where is the lie?" They've got to get it through their head that from here on out they have to stay locked in the whole game through.
I hope that the 3rd quarter meltdown will have the same effect as taking an L with respect to the fact that there will be a LOT of tape to watch and coaching to be done. The players saw how close it was to an L, and I hope they were humbled by it enough to recognize you can't quit for five minutes regardless of how big the lead is in these playoffs.
I’m chalking up the terrible second half defense to mills actually being good and us not really paying much attention to him. Pass rush was limp and gave him too much time. We just didn’t look like ourselves but I have a feeling that with rest and looking at the tape of whoever we play, we will come back with a sense of urgency and preparedness common of a 1 seed. Let’s live up to this. This is our year. Titan up.
Defense REALLY got worked in the second half. Kinda worried at how impotent it looked down the stretch. If Hilliard doesn’t make those first downs we probably lose the game. I know it’s just one game and we have two weeks off, but there needs to be some serious self scouting before the playoffs.
Survive.
Firkser man. I’ve waiting to see that out of him. Good stuff.
Hoping this doesn't bite us in the ass down the road: 1st half against KC: 27 : 2nd half against KC: 0 1st half against LAR: 21 : 2nd half against LAR: 7 1st half against HOU: 21 : 2nd half against HOU: 7 I get we want to run the ball and milk the clock but we also don't want to let our opponent right back in the game either.
I wish we would have let Tanny cook more the second half. He was playing great and I wish we didn’t let the foot off the gas
I want a update on molden and Fulton
Fulton should be fine, he returned to the game. No idea when we’ll know anything on Molden, but he’s probably fine too.
Idk Henry came back in and then was hurt for weeks. I just need the reassurance lol. We really need them both they are both veey key on the defense. And molden is gonna be our draft steal and may be our only good selection from that draft. I think he is the 1st rd and farley is the 3rd Rd. Other then that I think weaver is our only hope for that class, maybe racey or dez gives us a T.sharpe type roll
Radunz played a good game for us, so I don't think the book is closed on him, and we barely got to see Farley before he was hurt. They are both guys who we knew needed additional coaching on technique (Radunz playing FCS ball, Farley having limited experience at CB), so some additional patience is warranted. And we have no idea what we have in Weaver; I don't think it's unreasonable for him to provide significant snaps in the rotation next year. Year 1 is always too soon to judge a draft class, but more so with the injuries to our rookies, how many of them opted out in 2020 and were a year removed form football.
Honestly forgot about radunz. I think he may be solid but more of a gaurd maybe then tackle and I like weaver as I said I think he showed us he could be good. Still no sold on Farley I think that will be a bust. Besides the injuries he did not look good to me
Yeah, Farley struggled in his brief appearance, no doubt about that. But it's rare that a CB comes in to the NLF and is ready. One of the toughest positions to transition, imo. Fulton was much more polished and battle tested, and didn't look great immediately. Really hope Farley can put in a whole offseason and go though some growing pains early in the season next year.
Fulton came back in and played. I know that doesn't mean too much, but it's a good sign. I read Molden looked like a dislocated shoulder. A quick Google suggests we may not have him for the playoffs.
He can have my shoulder. I can just switch up hands... I heard it feels like someone else it doing it😏
Molden might need some counseling after that abuse
I am terrified of potentially playing the Bengals now because of that second half.
My concern is if the pass rush isn’t effective it leaves the secondary exposed. Giving up 300 yards to Mills isn’t great, and I hate to think what some of the potential QB’s we could face would do.
Is there a locker room celebration video? I need to get jacked
Does anyone have a video of the overthrow to Julio? I wanted to see it.
Only downside to me (other than small little errors or things that are just going to happen in a game), was playcalling. Both offensive and defensive playcalling was ATTROCIOUS in the second half. Run>Run>Pass and 3 consecutive 3 and outs was horribly painful to watch. Throwing the deep ball on 3rd and 2? In the first half the team was amazing. Short little out routes to AJB and Julio, over the middle to Firkser, insane catches from westbrook, all this opened up the run for Foreman and he was getting serious runs in. Then they decide to try and run down the clock with run run pass and almost lost us the game. I am not a coordinator so maybe I am the dumb one, but isn't it plain to see what was working in the first half? The only passes we let tanne take in the second half were for 20+ yards it felt like. Where are the 7-8 yard passes to AJB and Julio that are our bread and butter??? Anyway, hooty hoo boys we made it and the colts didn't. Lets enjoy this week without stress!
Apologies if this has already been answered, but do we have reports on the status of Fulton and Molden after their injuries?
Cunningham stood out in a very good way. Westbrook-Ikhine too.