This graph explains why Tennessee Titans should let Marcus Mariota pass more
By Will Lomas
Tennessee Titans should pass the ball more.
The debate has been raging about who is most to blame for the Tennessee Titans offensive issues.
To be fair the list of people to blame isn’t short. You have Marcus Mariota, A.J. Brown (drops), Jamil Douglas, Rodger Saffold, Dion Lewis, Arthur Smith, and I’m sure that I am missing someone.
Ultimately it all seems to boil down to three things which is play calling, the offensive line, and how well Mariota can hit his receivers.
So what should the offense look like? In an ideal world, what should this team be doing more and what should they be doing less?
Well, first you need to know what they are best at and wouldn’t you know it, there just so happens to be this extremely helpful graph from Lee Sharpe that helps illustrate that.
I liked this analysis from @benbbaldwin but wanted to visualize it in a different way:
— Lee Sharpe (@LeeSharpeNFL) September 26, 2019
This compares the delta of pass and run efficiencies vs. how often passing and running plays are called.
WOW at the Chiefs. https://t.co/LVkltvYLYe pic.twitter.com/0qlbfzC0Bb
In case that graph (represented two different ways) isn’t really clear, what that says is that:
-The Tennessee Titans offense is more efficient passing than running, but they are running the ball way too much.
The simple answer to this is that the Tennessee Titans are actually good at passing the ball and they need to embrace that. For all the hate for Marcus Mariota, the fact is that right now with a decent sample size he is on pace for 4,250 all purpose yards, 22 TDs and 0 INTs.
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No obviously that will change, but for a team that is tied for the 3rd fewest pass attempts in the NFL, that is a very good stat line.
Regardless of who is at QB right now, the fact is that with Nate Davis in for Jamil Douglas, the offense is probably better off passing the ball to Corey Davis, A.J. Brown, Adam Humphries, and Delanie Walker than you are running behind an offensive line with two backups and with a struggling Rodger Saffold.
I can’t tell you whether or not the offensive coaching staff identified that during this long week (that seems to be going on forever) but I can tell you that the numbers show that that is how the offense should be run going forward.