Stop making excuses for Tennessee Titans DC Shane Bowen
By Will Lomas
Stop blaming personnel
This one is very easy to disprove. If you are blaming the players on the field let me show you the starting defense in 2019 vs the starting defense in 2020 based on which players got the most snaps.
2019
EDGEs (2): Harold Landry, Kamalei Correa
DL (2): Jurrell Casey, DaQuan Jones
LB (2): Rashaan Evans, Jayon Brown
CB (3): Logan Ryan, Adoree Jackson, Malcolm Butler
S (2): Kevin Byard, Kenny Vaccaro
2020:
EDGEs (2): Harold Landry, Jadeveon Clowney
DL (2): DaQuan Jones, Jeffery Simmons
LB (2): Rashaan Evans, Jayon Brown
CB (3): Malcolm Butler, Desmond King, Johnathan Joseph
S (2): Kevin Byard, Kenny Vaccaro
Even if you think Joseph was the worst cornerback in the NFL last year, it is hard to argue from a pure talent perspective that Kamalei Correa, Jurrell Casey, Logan Ryan, and Adoree Jackson, are significantly better than Jadeveon Clowney, Jeffery Simmons, Desmond King, and Joseph.
Still. Even if you think that group is worse, look at the drop off in two of the most telling stats for a defense:
2019 points per game: 20.6
2019 sacks: 42
2020 points per game: 27.0 (6.4 points worse, 4th worst drop off of any team from 2019 to 2020)
2020 sack: 19 (5th worst drop off of any team from 2019 to 2020)
The fact is, this defense had plenty of talent to put up a fight, but they were constantly misused and conceded easy conversions. It looks like the scheme was broken from Week 1 and teams quickly realized that the Titans were going to give them a soft cushion all day long which neutered this pass rush.