The Tennessee Titans are in a heap of trouble after starting out the season 0-2 following their Week 2 shellacking at the hands of the Buffalo Bills on “Monday Night Football”.
The Titans didn’t do one good thing as a team against the Bills. They couldn’t move the ball on offense, couldn’t stop a nosebleed on defense, and even special teams let them down.
All in all, it might have been the worst showing of the Mike Vrabel era and, in our opinion, heads need to roll. Whether or not that happens remains to be seen, but I’m not holding my breath for anything significant.
With the loss, the Titans have already hit rock-bottom and sit in the cellar of what might be the worst division in football. However, the ineptitude of that division is why Titans fans shouldn’t lose hope for the playoffs yet.
Cue Jim Mora:
Here’s a look at six takeaways from Tennessee’s Week 2 loss to Buffalo.
The offense is in trouble
Not only does Tennessee’s offense have to overcome a terrible play-caller in offensive coordinator Todd Downing, but now the offensive line is now an obstacle, also.
The Titans’ group upfront got eaten alive by the Bills, both in pass protection and run-blocking. It’s shocking the Bills didn’t have more than two sacks, and Derrick Henry was only able to muster up 13 carries for 26 yards, a horrific 1.9 yards per carry. After two games, Henry has 3.1 yards per carry.
Making matters worse, Taylor Lewan got hurt again on the first play and was done for the night after that. He had to be helped off the field and was later carted to the locker room. If he misses time, it’ll be a disaster.
Ryan Tannehill actually wasn’t bad when he had time to throw prior to tossing that ugly pick-six, which came when the game was already out of reach.
Getting back to Downing: he made better decisions on third-and-short situations, but his play-calling remains predictable, and not only are the personnel decisions awful, they’re telegraphing what the Titans are doing.
This offense is first-six-weeks-of-2019 bad and there’s little reason to hope that things will get drastically better.
The defense is in trouble
Once thought to be the rock of the team, the Titans’ defense has not been good through two games.
On Monday night, the Bills did whatever they wanted through the air. The Titans got beat in the short-to-intermediate area, and Buffalo was able to dial up big plays, giving Tennessee zero chance to win this game.
The coverage in the secondary was awful, as Caleb Farley, Roger McCreary and Tre Avery all struggled. And, an already overmatched group got no help from the pass-rush, which notched just one sack and two QB hits.
Injuries are now an issue, also. Kristian Fulton was already sidelined with an injury, but now there is concern about outside linebacker Bud Dupree, who exited early with his own ailment.
The Titans may have been able to overcome the loss of Harold Landry with a group effort in the pass-rush, but there’s no way they can overcome the loss of both Dupree and Landry.
Things will get better in the secondary once Kristian Fulton returns, but without a pass-rush this team will be in big trouble. Hopefully Dupree’s injury isn’t serious, but even if it isn’t, it’s hard to trust he’ll stay healthy.
Side note: Jackrabbit Jenkins has offered his services, and the Titans should take him up on that offer. They should be doing anything they can to try and figure things out all over this team.
Treylon Burks looked good
One of the few very small bright spots for the Titans in Week 2 was rookie wide receiver Treylon Burks, who finished tied with the most receptions (four) on the team, and had the most targets (six) and receiving yards (47).
Of course, nobody is getting excited about that kind of production, but his impressive performance was more than just about raw totals.
What we did see was a receiver who showed promise as a big-play threat after the catch, something this team desperately needs after losing A.J. Brown, and we saw the growing connection he and Ryan Tannehill have.
Unfortunately, Burks didn’t get any action after his excellent first half, as the Titans pulled their key players early.
If Burks was in a better situation right now, chances are he’d have better numbers. That said, we’re seeing great signs of progress from the rookie, which is all we can ask for at this point.
Titans need a new punt returner
Kyle Philips wasn’t just a non-factor in the passing game, he also muffed a punt, which was recovered by Buffalo and turned into three points. It was Philips’ second muffed punt in as many games.
Amani Hooker took the reins after that, and even he fumbled but the Bills didn’t recover. Then, Robert Woods took a shot at it and successfully reeled in his attempt for a fair catch.
Just when we thought the Titans had an exciting new returner after a 46-yard return by Philips in Week 1, the rug was pulled out from under us before we could blink. Time for new blood at punt returner moving forward.
Caleb Farley looks like a bust
Granted, it was a tough challenge for every member of Tennessee’s secondary on Monday night, but Farley, who the Titans spent a first-round pick on in 2019, didn’t look close to ready for prime time.
Farley took a beating all night long. Two examples were his getting burned by Jake Kumerow for a big play, and he covered literally nobody on one of Josh Allen’s touchdown passes.
We get Farley hasn’t had a lot of playing time after missing almost all of his rookie campaign, but we expected to see better from him at this point. I guess we should’ve known it would go poorly based on the simple fact he couldn’t beat out a rookie for the starting job when everyone expected him to.
There is still time to rebound, but Farley looks like the latest first-round bust drafted by general manager Jon Robinson — and he looked and sounded defeated after the game, also.
Now for some good news
With all this negativity, how about a little good news? The rest of the AFC South sucks.
The team expected to win the division over the Titans, the Indianapolis Colts, are terrible. They tied the Houston Texans in Week 1 and were shutout by the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 2.
The Jaguars have looked the best out of the four teams and should be 2-0 if not for their blowing the Week 1 game against the Washington Commanders.
Despite the poor start and Tennessee sitting in the cellar, this division is still very much in reach for the Titans — and they better win in because grabbing a wild card spot looks like a pipe dream right now.
