Tennessee Titans vs Carolina Panthers quick hits

The Tennessee Titans faced off against the Carolina Panthers today, and these are the quick notes and news from that game.

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-Antwon Blake got the start today along with Brice McCain with Jason McCourty dealing with a mild hip flexor. He did not do well, he looked very reluctant to match up with the big receivers of the Panthers and Cam easily picked him a part going right at him ending up 3 FOR 3 FOR 90 YARDS ON ONE DRIVE.

-DaQuan Jones had a nice pass deflection to force a 3rd down early in the game. I really like Jones and think he can be a good starter in the NFL.

-Tre McBride was the kick returner early and looked good going north/south.

-Tajae Sharpe again caught Marcus Mariota’s first pass of the game for a first down. Good chemistry there. Later he caught another nice pass from Mariota for about 20 yards. Showed very nice hands in traffic.

Watching him, he just looks like he is always in the right place at the right time. I don’t know how dynamic he is after the catch, but he is going to get a lot of attention from Marcus Mariota if he is healthy.

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-Mike Mularkey and Terry Robiskie had a very bad play call on 1st and 5 after a jump from the defense running a reverse to Tajae Sharpe. The play went for huge negative yards, but why take that risk when you are ahead of the sticks?

They also abandoned the run on the first drive of the game for passing plays. I don’t like that given how this team is built, they only ran one real RB run on that entire drive.

-Delanie Walker had back to back interesting plays running a statue of liberty play and then catching a nice out route for a first down.

-Marcus Mariota had a great drive going, but threw and interception looking towards Harry Douglas. It is a shame because it was inside the redzone where Mariota is generally very good. That pass is his only incompletion/interception of the year, so far he is 14 of 15 for 149, a TD and an INT.

-Brian Orakpo may be one of the best 3-4 OLBs in the league against the run. He does a great job knowing his gap and setting the edge for his ILBs. He had a great back to back series where he forced a tackle for very little yard and then tackled Cam Newton short of the sticks to force a punt.

-I am generally anti Dexter McCluster, but man he made a beautiful spin move on a kick return with a guy right in his face. That McCluster can be a starter at PR for the Titans.

-Brice McCain made a nice play on a pass that led to a third down vs the starters. The ball was off target, but he jumped the route and would have knocked it down if it was.

-These linebackers are killing me. Sean Spence completely kills a good defensive drive by not following his man the RB. The Titans were subsequently killed on a wheel route. Again, I am assuming it is him based off of last week. This can not happen during the regular season.

-Titans fans should be praying that this defense is completely vanilla. If not, they are going to be in a shootout every week because they just can’t cover for more than two seconds.

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-Sean Spence and DaQuan Jones did an excellent job getting pressure on a 3rd and 3 blitz to force a field goal. This team has to send pressure like this if they want to alleviate the pressure on this weak DB group.

-While Tajae Sharpe was absolute carrying the offense with Marcus Mariota, it was Harry Douglas that ran a crisp route and caught a 23-yard touchdown off of a beautiful play action pass where DeMarco Murray did a great job taking out a pass rusher with his run fake.

-Did I mention that Tajae Sharpe and Marcus Mariota were carrying this offense, because on multiple plays on the third drive Marcus Mariota made audibles at the line of scrimmage with Sharpe in mind. So much so, that Sharpe ended up with 4 receptions for 38 yards on that scoring drive.

-Curtis Grant had outstanding closing speed on a play where Cam Newton tried to scramble for a 1st down on 3rd and 1. That is an extremely rare thing, to be able to track down Newton from behind and finish with a tackle for loss or no gain.

-Kevin Byard maybe shouldn’t be returning punts. Despite being 1 for 1 for a touchdown in college (as far as I can tell) he fumbled on his first return in the NFL, though he did fall on it. He should however, see a lot of time at safety this year. Throughout the game he was making tackles that other CBs had missed to prevent touchdowns.

-David Bass has been making plays in practice and is always around the ball, and that was no different today when he made a pretty shoe string tackle to force a punt.

-Dennis Kelly had a nice day today. He consistently got push with his run blocking and kept defenders at bay with his long arms. He doesn’t have a great anchor, but he does well enough to stop pass rushers from really closing down the pocket.

-I’ll end with a thought on Derrick Henry. He has looked great this season for the Titans and I don’t expect that to change. He is outrunning linebackers to the edge and knocking out defensive back’s teeth. He is averaging 7 yards per carry and I wouldn’t be surprised if he averages north of 5 during the year.

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