Perhaps the worst part about the Titans’ loss Sunday to the Los Angeles Chargers is this: We have just now crossed the halfway point of the NFL season.
The Titans are 2-7 with eight more games left to endure in what has become a rinse-and-repeat season thus far for Tennessee.
A quick glance at the schedule doesn’t look favorable, either, as other than a few AFC South matchups – the annual home and home with Jacksonville and a trip to Indianapolis – the remaining teams on the Titans’ schedule are all at least marginal, if not bona fide playoff contenders.
First up are the Minnesota Vikings, who are cruising at 7-2 in the stout NFC North (Side note: Could the Titans and the AFC South have had a worse nonconference division to face this year?).
Beyond the tough schedule, coaches usually will say you try and go back to your basics when a team is struggling. Find what you do well, let that be your foundation and then try to build from there.
What do the Titans do well? Not much.
Offensive shift a work in progress
Coming into the season, the Titans wanted to change their way of doing things, switching to a pass offense that could gain chunk plays through the air on offense and then complement that with the run game. That hasn’t really happened for a number of reasons, which have been discussed at length here in this column space and by pretty much any media outlet that covers the team.
Whether you want to blame Will Levis, Brian Callahan, the offensive line or whomever you feel is culpable, it has not been working the way it was advertised. The Titans entered Sunday’s loss to the Chargers 31st in the league in passing. Throwing for 175 gross yards with 18 more yards lost in sacks is not going to improve that ranking.
We’ve been there before with Titans teams that can’t throw the ball consistently. Some teams in the past with the Titans seemed to all but ignore the forward pass and still found a way to be competitive (and sometimes even contend) with a ground-and-pound attack.
But as the Titans have pivoted away from that, parting ways with Derrick Henry, the run game has been mostly ordinary. The Titans entered last week ranked 18th in running the football. Not bad, but hardly the thing to build your foundation on.
The explosive plays? The Titans have had just 26 explosive plays this season between runs and passes that have gone for 20 or more yards. They had one of each Sunday and are averaging less than three a game.
Defensive ‘success’ misleading
Well, what about the defense? It came into Sunday ranked first in the league. But again, that’s a bit of a misnomer. The NFL ranks the teams by yards – offenses by yards gained; defenses by yards allowed.
The bigger and more important statistics of sacks, turnovers and points allowed all find the Titans lacking. In terms of sacks, the Titans – after getting zero against the Chargers – still have 18 sacks for the season, which puts them 27th in the NFL currently.
They are 24th in points allowed with 240 through nine games (26 points per game). They have just six all year through nine games – three fumble recoveries and three interceptions, all by Amani Hooker.
Whatever good work the defense might be doing by not giving up yards is more than being offset by its failure to consistently pressure the quarterback and cause mistakes that can turn momentum and help jump-start a struggling offense.
The Titans can’t find an identity on offense or defense, meaning this team really has nothing it can truly depend on to try to win football games.
In fact, the offense and defense are each doing well to tread water, given the porous play of the coverage units on special teams.
So, with the Titans playing out the string and hoping for the best, the only real things to watch for are whether Levis and the offense and/or the defense can improve enough to establish a future identity for this team going forward.