The bye week couldn’t come at a more perfect time for the Tennessee Titans, a team that fell further into the abyss after dropping its Week 6 contest against the Baltimore Ravens.
It would be easy to blame the lackluster performance on both sides of the ball on Tennessee’s decision to leave for London on Thursday if this showing was an outlier, but we’ve seen the Titans throw up more than enough stinkers to know better. In fact, that has been the team’s most consistent trait.
Big changes need to be made moving forward if the Titans want to turn their season around, but Tennessee may simply not have the horses to get it done.
With the trade deadline rapidly approaching in Week 9 (Oct. 31), the Titans have to decide if they are even capable of making a run, otherwise they need to pivot to looking ahead to 2024, which could include giving Will Levis a look and trading away some veteran players.
The problem, however, is that I just don’t see Vrabel giving up on this season that early, especially when there isn’t an insurmountable deficit to overcome in the division as of right now (the Titans are two games back).
But we’ll have plenty of time to talk about that over the next few weeks. For now, here are the biggest takeaways from the Week 6 loss to Baltimore.
An opening for Will Levis to start
Ryan Tannehill wasn’t very good in Week 6. However, I still don’t think that would be enough for the Titans to move on from him at this stage in the season. The Titans will stick with Tannehill as long as he’s healthy and they’re still in a divisional or wild card race.
But Tennessee may have no choice but to start someone else in Week 8 after Tannehill suffered an ankle injury that had him on crutches following the game.
Malik Willis is the next man up on the depth chart, but he didn’t instill any confidence after looking as lost in his relief appearance as he did when he was a rookie. Perhaps the Titans give him another shot, but I don’t think Willis’ leash will be long if they do.
It’s also possible they skip over Willis entirely and let 2023 second-round pick Will Levis get a chance. At least there’s hope for the rookie, which is more than I can say for the Liberty product — and this is coming from someone who has staunchly defended Willis.
Whatever the Titans decide to do, there’s no doubt Levis is as close to seeing the field as he’s been over the first six weeks of 2023.
The Andre Dillard experiment appears to be over
After giving up a sack in the third quarter, the Titans promptly removed left tackle Andre Dillard from the game and inserted fellow tackle Nicholas Petit-Frere in his place. Petit-Frere was solid in his half of play and earned the right to get another look moving forward.
The writing has been on the wall for awhile now that the Titans wasted money on Dillard. If they want to part ways with him in 2024, it’ll cost a dead-cap hit of $7.7 million.
Kristian Fulton temporarily benched
Kristian Fulton started but was removed for a bit in favor of Tre Avery. No injury was announced for the LSU product, so clearly he was benched.
However, Fulton later returned and played 77 percent of the game’s snaps in total.
Vrabel definitely needed to send the struggling Fulton a message in some form or fashion, but I’m not sure sitting him for a brief period of time before putting him back in is enough to get anything across.
If anything, the move only showed the Titans don’t have the horses to replace him.
Kyle Philips should be done with returns
If he isn’t getting hurt fielding punts, Kyle Philips is muffing them.
But the muff was made even worse by the fact that the UCLA product did not need to even go near the ball with the first half set to expire. In fact, the Ravens recovered the fumble with one stinkin’ second left.
Let the second-year receiver focus on the position he was drafted to play and let someone else handle punts moving forward. He’s clearly not equipped to handle the job.
Where's the pass-rush?
The Titans’ defensive front was easily the most hyped-up part of this team going into the season. But in the last two games, the group has struggled mightily, especially in the pass-rush.
Pressure has been few and far between the last two weeks and the Titans have notched just two sacks in that span. Denico Autry has been the most consistent player, but he can’t do it all by himself.
Arden Key has barely existed since Week 1, Harold Landry had a better game in Week 6 but clearly still isn’t himself yet, and Jeffery Simmons hasn’t made quite the impact we expected he would make.
And, the Titans apparently refuse to give Trevis Gipson any semblance of a chance, as he hasn’t played more than nine snaps in a single game this season.
The performance of the pass-rush has been completely unacceptable of late, and that’s even more troublesome when you consider the secondary isn’t capable of holding its own.
A season on the brink
We have a head coach admitting he doesn’t know if some of his team’s issues are fixable, and a team captain questioning the effort of some of his teammates.
As if all that wasn’t enough, the starting quarterback is dealing with an ankle injury that has the potential to lead to missed games. Granted, he hasn’t been all that great this year, but he still gives Tennessee the best chance to win.
The Titans are at a crossroads and things couldn’t look more bleak for the second half of the season. As much the Titans are spiraling out of control through six games, this has the potential to get a lot worse moving forward.
I don’t think there’s going to be any middle ground with this team over the next 11 games. Either Tennessee is going to make a run or it’s going to be a you-know-what show the rest of the way.
Based on what we’ve seen, the latter scenario is far more likely.
