As the Tennessee Titans continue to stockpile wins, their defense, which has been sensational, simply hasn’t gotten the credit deserves from the national media as a whole.
Tell me where you’ve heard this story before…
The ONLY reason the Titans are 4-2 is because of their defense, which has had to be almost perfect in order to make the offense’s poor showings stand up on a weekly basis.
Granted, the Titans have seen their fair share of struggles in the secondary, but even that group is coming off its best game of 2022 after the Week 7 victory over the Indianapolis Colts.
It’s also important to note that the Titans have been without their starting slot cornerback, Elijah Molden, for the entire season thus far, although he has been eligible to return from injured reserve since last week.
The pass-rush has been sensational, which is made more impressive by the fact that it doesn’t have one of its best players, outside linebacker Harold Landry, who was lost for the season with a torn ACL.
In all, the Titans own a top-five run defense (No. 4), and when you remove the shellacking at the hands of the Buffalo Bills in Week 2, Tennessee’s unit is giving up just 17.4 points per contest, which would rank fourth.
While Tennessee’s effort on defense has gone largely unnoticed by the rest of the football world outside of Nashville, former NFL defensive back and NBC analyst Rodney Harrison rightly gave the group a shoutout on Sunday night.
.@Rodney_Harrison on @SNFonNBC: “Mike Vrabel has done a great job as a coach…He had these guys ready to play…This is the best defense that you haven’t heard of – the Tennessee #Titans.”
— Jim Wyatt (@jwyattsports) October 24, 2022
We fully expected Tennessee’s defense to be elite this season, but that notion was curbed briefly when Landry was lost for the year. However, after six games, this defense is chugging right along without him and other key starters, like Molden and Zach Cunningham.
If the Titans can just get their offense going at a respectable level, this defense will give them a legit chance to compete come playoff time.
