3 Titans defenders playing their best football heading into the playoffs
By Will Lomas
Jack Crawford, DL
The gold standard for Titans defensive linemen is Daquan Jones and Jeffery Simmons. That duo has been effective all year and who have taken turns making big plays. Sometimes they get the attention they deserve, but when you look at how the linebackers and most of the EDGEs have played this season, every time the Titans force a punt you can bet that one of those DTs recently made a big play.
However, the player on the defensive line that doesn’t get the respect that he deserves is Jack Crawford.
If he was allowed to play a true defensive tackle spot inside the guards, he would be someone that fans talk about like they talked about Karl Klug. He is a high effort guy who can make splash plays as a pass rusher or as a run stopper.
Unfortunately, Mike Vrabel and Shane Bowen want to run that heavy three defensive linemen look with an elephant end, Crawford is asked to do something that he isn’t as comfortable with.
But, more snaps isn’t a bad thing for Crawford. If you take what Crawford did against the Houston Texans and add it to the 7 games where he has had 50% of more of the snaps, here is his stat line: 14 solo tackles, 3 TFLs, 2 sacks, 6 QB hits, and 1 forced fumble.
Playing around a little bit, if he was given that sort of volume all year then those numbers would all be doubled then Crawford would have ranked:
-10th in solo tackles
-2nd in TFLs
-2nd in sacks
-3rd in QB hits (where he actually is already)
-1st in forced fumbles
Crawford is quietly very good and he is starting to heat up at the right time.