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Titans @ Jaguars: A First Look At the Thursday Night Game

By Les Bailey

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Before I get started talking about the Tennessee Titans Thursday Night matchup with the Jacksonville Jaguars, I need to correct a mistake I made in a post yesterday. I reported the final score in Sunday’s loss to the Panthers as 29-10 and the actual score was 27-10.

More at Titan Sized: Dorial Green-Beckham must grow up quick!

I apologize, as I have been fighting a case of walking pneumonia and it just became a typo that I have since corrected.

So let’s get down to talking about this short week and the Titans first game of the year with the divisional foe Jaguars on Thursday night.

Interim head coach Mike Mularkey is going to have to deal with his former boss’s desire to keep five tight ends on the roster this year.

With the loss of Justin Hunter at the end of the Carolina Panthers game for the rest of the year, and the team’s number one wide receiver, Kendall Wright being questionable for this game, he is going to need to depend on rookie wide out Dorial Green-Beckham and a banged up Harry Douglas.

Mularkey said in his Monday presser that they will be bringing seventh-round draft pick, Tre McBride off the practice squad and adding him to the roster.

McBride saw some time in the preseason but hasn’t seen any action in the regular season. The youngster is 6 feet tall and 210 pounds. The reports on him are that he is a smooth athlete who can get in and out of his break and can provide some sorely-needed outside speed for this team.

"Mularkey said McBride could help in the return game as well."

With Hunter being out and even if Kendall Wright comes back, he’s not going to be at full speed and will unlikely be able to provide a deep threat this team needs.

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That will have to fall to Green-Beckham and possibly Tre McBride.

My collegue here at Titan Sized, Will Lomas pointed out in his post on Monday: Two Starters headed for the IR that Hakeem Nicks had not been picked up by another team since being cut at the end of training camp and could be a possibility.

Even with the loss of veteran cornerback Jason McCourty for the rest of the season, this team showed on Sunday that although they will miss his leadership on and off the field, they have been able to survive in the secondary.

During the period in the third quarter when Dick LeBeau sent the dogs after Cam Newton and the secondary had to go into man coverage, they did a good job. They let tight end Greg Olsen catch a lot of chain moving passes in the first half, but shut him down in the second half.

Other than a terrific one-handed grab in the fourth quarter.

Although rookie running back David Cobb was taken off the IR, he wasn’t active for the Panthers game because they were worried about Dexter McCluster‘s health and Bishop Sankey had looked good in practice.

We won’t know how the lineup will pan out until Wednesday, so be prepared for some surprises in this short week.

Mularkey also said in his presser that the team approached this 10-day schedule differently than they handle normal weeks and didn’t practice as long last week and will depend on the players to manage their bodies during this short turn-around.

"“We have to be smart about how we go about this week,’’ Mularkey said, “because it was a physical game (against the Panthers).”"

As for the Jaguars, they got a little luck on a couple of calls and picked up a third win on Sunday against the Baltimore Ravens 22-20.

Next: 7-round Tennessee Titans 2016 Mock Draft

At 3-6 on the season, and the surprise Monday Night win by the Houston Texans over the Cincinnati Bengals leaving them tied with the Indianapolis Colts at 4-5  for the division lead, this is a must-win for the Titans if they have any hope for the playoffs.

We will try to get up with the editors at the FanSided Black and Teal site for a quick Q&A on this week’s game.

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