Oh, did you know that the Tennessee Titans had an offense?
In a week full of talk about Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens offense vs the Tennessee Titans defense, you can almost be forgiven for forgetting about the Titans offense.
Sure, we have heard a lot about the running game on both sides, but the intricate details on what the Ravens like to do and why Lamar Jackson is so dangerous have been described ad nauseam.
It is fair to talk about it because after the first round bye, you have to remind people why they need to be excited to see Baltimore again but it isn’t the only thing to talk about for an entire week despite the coverage.
So, in what could and should be a shootout the likes that the 2019 NFL playoffs haven’t seen so far, I wanted to break down why the Titans offense isn’t that easy to stop even though they don’t take elements of the read option and use them to a high degree.
Derrick Henry
The best way to begin a conversation about the Tennessee Titans offense is to start with the king himself, Derrick Henry.
So much of the Titans offense revolves around #22, but not necessarily in the way that you think. The general consensus is that the Titans dream is to run the ball 40 times per game, but that isn’t quite right.
What Tennessee wants to do to start off a game is one thing: see if the defense is capable of dealing with this offensive line and Derrick Henry while playing sound football.
Rarely do we see a team that can come out in what they consider their base defense and handle Henry like they can 90% of the running backs in the NFL. Instead, they end up committing more players to the box or playing safeties at a shallower depth.
If you are the team that can handle Henry with your base defense, then congratulations you are the one team in the NFL that can. However, if you aren’t then (like everyone else) you are going to be forced to make some decisions on whether you want to let Henry beat you or if you are going to ask the Titans to beat you in another way.
Bill Belichick won a Super Bowl by letting the Buffalo Bills run it whenever they wanted to with Hall of Fame running back Thurman Thomas, knowing that the key to winning was to take the passing game away.
The GOAT coach tried that against the Tennessee Titans and Derrick Henry, and now he is watching the game at home like 24 other teams.
So, if you take option two this is what you have to contend with now.
A.J. Brown
Not only has the rookie receiver set NFL records and rewritten the history books, but he has turned out to be the perfect opportunist on the Titans offense.
What I mean by that, is that when a team decides to send pressure or play specifically to stop Derrick Henry, it doesn’t take him five or six catches to show up. Instead, Brown has shown the freakish ability to be able to attack a defense horizontally or vertically in order to win and get big plays.
Whether you want him to do it before or after the catch, unless you have one of the best cornerbacks in the NFL shadowing him, you are in for a long day playing defense short handed against A.J. Brown.
In fact, the Titans have even shown looks with him getting the ball on screens, jet sweeps, reverses, or even lining up in the backfield as a running back behind Derrick Henry lining up at fullback.
The point is, if you dedicate yourself to stopping Henry then you better have outstanding tacklers on defense because even if you match your best cornerback on defense the Titans have still found ways to manufacture touches for Brown when they want to get him involved.
But, let’s say that you have an elite group of DBs that are excellent tacklers and can manage to pay attention to both Derrick Henry in the running game AND successfully cover A.J. Brown. What is the third option in this rock-paper-scissors game?
Ryan Tannehill
There are players you could single out by name like Jonnu Smith, Khalif Raymond and Corey Davis, but the fact is that if you take out those two options then this ball game turns into Ryan Tannehill making plays.
The best example of this is the New Orleans Saints game.
Derrick Henry rested that game and the Titans had a skeleton crew available due to injuries and guys that they wanted to rest for an all-important Week 17 matchup with the Houston Texans.
Despite this, the Titans probably should have won that game if the referee had called the clear penalty on the Saints hit that ended up concussing Khalif Raymond who missed the next two games. (This isn’t opinion, this is something that the NFL has said was a mistake and it was essentially a 14 point play).
In this game, Tannehill passed for three touchdowns including a well designed play to Jonnu Smith for a 41-yard TD, an off script play to Tajae Sharpe for a 36-yard TD and an impressive play where he held onto the ball until the last minute to find Sharpe in the back of the endzone.
Tannehill carved that defense up and he did it without any threat of the running game and with Marshon Lattimore locking down A.J. Brown for the most part.
He has been incredibly impressive this season and despite throwing the ball only 15 times against the Patriots (because the decided to risk it all on Henry not being great) he managed to convert some key third downs and score the first touchdown of the game with a great pass under pressure to Anthony Firkser.
So, what does that mean for the game today?
Conclusion
To wrap it all up, the Tennessee Titans are a multiple offense that requires a DC to pick his poison on any given drive.
Unless you happen to have an elite front seven that can stop the run while also defending this dangerous play action attack, you aren’t going to be able to just play “your defense”. Much like the Baltimore Ravens can take what you give them, the Titans offense isn’t so limited or simple that you can ignore the major elements.
How will the Ravens choose to defend the Titans? Well, my guy tells me that they are going to take away Henry by using heavy personnel and loading the box.
If that is the case, then it is up to Ryan Tannehill to be able to identify what the defense is trying to do and attack it with play action passes.
The Ravens DBs are very good, so I don’t expect them to pay huge respect to A.J. Brown until the Titans make them so that is something to keep an eye on. For the most part though, I think this is a game where Derrick Henry makes the Ravens defense pay attention to him or he is going to make some big plays.
If that is stopped then it could fall on the shoulders of Arthur Smith and Ryan Tannehill to find the weakness and attack it like they did so many times this year.
Either way, this should be a really fun matchup between two great offenses.