Tennessee Titans September report card: Defense

Final Takeaways

As you may have noticed, not a single defensive position group received an exemplary grade from me. By almost any metric you would like to use, the Titans defense has regressed from 2019, and even from 2018 and ’17.

It is still early in the season, but this begs the question: Did Vrabel make a mistake in not hiring a defensive coordinator?

The loss of Dean Pees and Kerry Coombs has undoubtedly hurt this team, and it’s fair to question if Vrabel adequately prepared for this. The Titans are 3-0, but that’s no thanks to the defense. The offense has hard to score 30 points to win games, save for Week 1 against a bad Broncos offense.

Vrabel deserves some benefit of the doubt due to the tremendous amount of adversity faced this year, with COVID-19 and injuries greatly affecting the defense. But if this level of play continues, one has to wonder if a DC will be added after this season.

Lack of depth could also be blamed for the Titans defensive woes. Simmons and Jones are missing from the line due to COVID-19, and are being replaced by 2 UDFA’s. I’m sorry, but that seems like poor planning.

I believe in Vrabel, and actually think he’s a good head coach. Unfortunately, he needs to be a good DC at the same time.