The Tennessee Titans went nowhere in the year and a-half in which Will Levis was their starting quarterback.
And while Levis was an easy scapegoat, putting the ball in harm’s way at inopportune times, he had plenty of help in the Titans’ unraveling. A big problem was offensive line play with too many penalties and sacks.
Cam Ward’s first two weeks as the Titans new starting quarterback look fairly promising, but he too is experiencing what Levis went through.
Through two games, the Titans have allowed Ward to be sacked 11 times. And just like with Levis, a few of those can be pinned on the quarterback. Also like last year, there are far too many times when the quarterback simply has no time to do anything other than try to protect himself and the football.
An offensive line that has been remade yet again has yet to find its footing, and injuries aren’t helping. Right tackle JC Latham is out with a hip injury, and right guard Kevin Zeitler exited Sunday’s game in the second half with an elbow issue.
Latham’s injury left John Ojukwu as the right tackle choice Sunday, and he struggled with two false starts. He got the nod over Oli Udoh, who immediately surrendered a sack upon replacing Latham in Denver.
“I think part of that is we’re playing with a backup tackle for the fourth quarter last week and another one again this week,” Coach Brian Callahan says. “And it’s not an excuse. We’ve got to play better. But we’re playing against some good teams, and this is what playoff teams look like in this league.
“That’s what the defenses look like. That’s what the pass rush looks like. If we want to be in that mix at some point, we’ve got to be able to block those guys.”
Of course, the penalties seem to go hand in hand with the sacks. In two games, the Titans have been flagged for 23 accepted penalties for 193 yards lost.
Left guard Peter Skoronski is getting tired of all the penalty issues.
“It’s not complicated, in my opinion. We can’t have them, especially pre-snap with the false starts,” Skoronski says. “We can’t do it. We’ve got to be disciplined. There’s not tricks or anything to not having them. We’ve just got to be disciplined and don’t do that. It’s pretty simple.”
But apparently difficult to solve.