Titans, please learn from the Super Bowl.
Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are the Super Bowl champions, and they just showed the Tennessee Titans the blueprint for how they should spend this offseason.
Even with all of the success that the Bucs had throughout the season and postseason, most people expected the Kansas City Chiefs to run away with this game. After all, the Bucs seemed to have no plan on how to deal with Tyreek Hill earlier in the season and the receiver went for 200 yards in the first quarter of that game.
With Hill and Travis Kelce becoming the first tandem to have back-to-back playoff games with 100+ yards each, it seemed like Tampa was going to have to win a shootout if they were going to make this a tough game.
But that isn’t what happened at all, thanks to a few things that the Titans should pay VERY close attention to as they head into the offseason.
While there isn’t time to salvage the Titans coaching situation, maybe Jon Robinson can continue to build this roster in a way that makes them competitive and Super Bowl ready despite the self-imposed hurdles of Mike Vrabel and company.
Before we get to the lessons they should have learned, let’s go over the worst take from this game.
The Tom Brady argument
No matter what, please don’t be one of those people that says “See, the Titans should have signed Tom Brady this offseason!”.
Not only would Brady have been a poor fit for what the Titans wanted to do, but he is a poor fit for what the Titans have on the roster.
The linemen, receivers, and Derrick Henry are all extremely comfortable with running a zone-blocking scheme that threatens every level of the defense. Part of that means that your quarterback has to be able to run bootlegs and he has to be willing to tuck it and run when the defense gives you free yardage.
That is NOT what would have happened if Tom Brady was the quarterback.
In Tampa, he inherited a team and an offense that had used more traditional drop-back passes and less deception. That included offensive linemen, receivers, everything.
The Bucs also had great injury luck and got 16 games out of Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski, Mike Evans, Scotty Miller, Cameron Brate, Tristan Wirfs, and Ryan Jensen. That is basically every above-average player on the Bucs offense coming into the season with the exception of Ali Marpet and Chris Godwin.
For a comparison, here are the Titans offensive players who played all 16 games last year: Ryan Tannehill, Ben Jones, Dennis Kelly, Derrick Henry, and Nate Davis.
Even with the great scheme fit and incredible injury luck, Tom Brady’s Bucs only scored 1 more point this season than the Titans. That can quickly be attributed to the abysmal special teams where Gostkowski missed 8 field goals and 2 extra points.
The offense was never the problem with the Titans last year so don’t make a fool of yourself and say that Brady would have taken Tennessee to the Super Bowl. Unless he was going to bring that Bucs defense with him, then this team was headed in the same direction (or maybe worse).
Defense wins championships
In the NFL now, you must have a great offense to be competitive. No defense is good enough to drag a bad offense to a Super Bowl.
However, a great offense with a defense that can get to the quarterback, is a recipe for a ring.
The one thing that the Titans have to take away from this Super Bowl is: pass rush>coverage.
It isn’t close, it isn’t a debate, these are just facts. Great defenses are built on teams that are able to get to the quarterback with four rushers or who understand when they are outmatched and they get aggressive enough to make up the difference.
Sure, coverage helps, but this is the same coverage that let the Tyreek Hill rack up 200 receiving yards in a quarter against them earlier in the year. The difference was that the front of the Bucs absolutely thumped the banged-up offensive line of the Chiefs.
All year we watched the Titans defense rush for half a second and then either completely give up, or watch helplessly as the opposing QB threw it to a wide-open receiver thanks to the Bowen “scheme”. Last night, we saw a defense that was forcing Patrick Mahomes to run around as soon as the ball was snapped.
At this point, maybe that is the only way to survive in this scheme.
So, now the big question is what should the Tennessee Titans do with this information and why is it so crucial that they learn it now?
Looming threat
The Kansas City Chiefs are still the kings of the AFC, so building your defense in a way that should put you in a position to beat them is a smart thing to do. However, that isn’t the only reason why the Titans need to get aggressive this offseason.
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Jacksonville is about to draft Trevor Lawrence and everyone can’t stop talking about how he is the greatest quarterback prospect of all time. Fine, let them talk.
This should be a challenge to the Titans front office and coaching staff to prove them wrong. The Titans should channel Ivan Drago over the next 6 months and should live by the phrase, “I must break you.”
The best way to stop a quarterback from becoming a threat is to beat him up and confuse him early. Look at Sam Darnold who hasn’t been the same since his comment about seeing ghosts on the field. The Bills, Dolphins, and Patriots made it a priority to stop his growth before it started.
Not only would rebuilding the Titans defensive front help their chances in the playoffs, but it would help them eliminate the looming threat of Lawrence and whatever other new quarterbacks are being added to the AFC South this season.
With plenty of flexibility in cap space to get a deal done, this has to be the first, second, and third priority for the Tennessee Titans.