Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Meck
A reasonable fan has come to our board. Welcome!
Henry is scary. He's always a problem, and while we've been better against the run the last few weeks, we haven't been playing...Derrick Henry. We'll see. The problem for the Titans I think is just that their defense isn't very good, is down a couple corners, and Mahomes is...well, Mahomes. IF we don't turn the ball over, (which is a BIG IF this season) I don't see how Tennessee can score enough to hang. But if we get a couple of keystone cops moments, we could easily lose.
I don't understand Tennessee's defensive problems. Your head coach is Vrabel. You've had a couple of seasons now to fix it. What the hell?
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The Titans have learned to be very very patient with the run game. Most teams that fall behind early tend to abandon it quickly. If that happens to us, conventional wisdom is that pounding the rock is still better that having Tannehill throw the ball 40 times. Not that Tannehill is bad at it, but as time goes on, Henry doesn't lose much strength or speed where the defenses always run down, allowing more yards per carry and the big chunk plays or home run.
The Titans defense has actually been playing better this year, but that's not hard considering that last year we were league leading bad in so many places. This season the front D-line is playing a LOT better. Harold Landry has been getting to the QB a lot more....it's taken three years for him to come into his own but it looks like its happening. Jeffery Simmons in the middle is really good, especially against the run and was the immovable force that Josh Allen faced when he tried to sneak it at the end of the Bills game last week. And free agent acquisition Bud Dupree is still not 100%, trying to come back from injury but he's a lot closer than he has been.
The secondary has been a bigger problem, mainly due to injury. Last week we literally ran out of spare corners as the game progressed at the end. But Janoris "Jackrabbit" Jenkins was a hopeful free agent signing and has not lived up to the hype. Our first round pick Chris Farley tore his ACL last week after spending much of this season nursing shoulder injuries. The bright spot in the secondary is as usual, Kevin Byard, who after a lackluster season seems to be back to his Pro Bowl ways. If there's an interception to be made, he's the one usually near the ball.
As for why we've been struggling on defense in the recent Vrabel era, it's hard to say for certain. Our defensive coordinator Shawn Bowen only got the official job this year and last year he was in a weird no man's land sharing it with Vrabel himself. Whatever they were doing, it wasn't working. Things were a lot better when we had defensive legend Dean Pees leading the charge. He retired two years ago, then un-retired when former Titans OC Arthur Smith took the HC job at Atlanta this season.