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Tennessee Titans will face the Indianapolis Colts without Ryan Kelly

By Will Lomas

NASHVILLE, TN - DECEMBER 03: DaQuan Jones #90 of the Tennessee Titans reacts against the Houston Texans during the first half at Nissan Stadium on December 3, 2017 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Wesley Hitt/Getty Images)
NASHVILLE, TN - DECEMBER 03: DaQuan Jones #90 of the Tennessee Titans reacts against the Houston Texans during the first half at Nissan Stadium on December 3, 2017 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Wesley Hitt/Getty Images) /
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Tennessee Titans finally catch a break on injuries.

Usually the Tennessee Titans have a worse injury report than the team they are facing.

Sure, sometimes the other team is missing one big player but the Titans usually are missing several key pieces all across the field. Guys like Jack Conklin, Logan Ryan, Bryan Orakpo, Taywan Taylor, etc. have all hurt the Titans in ways that one big injury might not.

While the fear was that the Titans would have the worst injury list this week, it turns out that may not be true. With Marcus Mariota looking like he will play, the Titans biggest concern shifts to the EDGEs where it also looks like Sharif Finch will play and Brian Orakpo will have a chance too.

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So then when you look at Indianapolis, the biggest names are Eric Ebron and Ryan Kelly.

In case you don’t spend way too much studying and diving into the NFL Draft like I do, you may not be familiar with Kelly. In case you weren’t, he was a better IOL prospect (for my money) than Quenton Nelson and was one of the best centers I have seen come out in a long time.

From Alabama, Kelly has been very good to great since he entered the league but injury issues have really made him an inconsistency in that Colts offense. However, when he is in there is no doubt that he makes an impact.

I had seen this tweet (or something like it) before and went looking on Twitter to show you how important Kelly is to that team.

https://twitter.com/DBro_FFB/status/1075025351489871873

A good way to read that is to just look at the run success rate. When Kelly is out, the team’s consistency running the ball goes from solid to bad quickly.

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It isn’t just that either, this affects Andrew Luck’s ability to stay off the ground. In the 3 games that Kelly has missed this season, the Colts have allowed 6 sacks. While that may not sound like a lot, that is actually more than a third of the sacks allowed by the Colts this year.

Just to illustrate it further. That OL without Kelly averages 2 sacks per game. That line would put them in the bottom-12 of the NFL, a far cry from where they are with him in.

With Jurrell Casey out for Tennessee, the Titans had to be struggling to come up with ways to get interior pressure. With Kelly out, that just became a lot easier on paper.

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