Look at the film, the numbers, the Tennessee Titans‘ record, or anything else you want, but it is clear that Ryan Tannehill is a franchise quarterback.
That is something that people might need to be reminded of right now since he has thrown some interceptions in training camp so far.
There are some clear reasons why this is happening right now, but first, it should be pointed out that the Tennessee Titans defense is finally living up to the resources spent there. Over the course of training camp, Jackrabbit Jenkins and Amani Hooker have been proving why the pre-camp buzz about them was worth the attention it was getting.
Today, Kristian Fulton added his name to the list of defensive backs with standout days. Remember, this is Fulton’s first real NFL training camp since he was drafted in 2020 and he is reminding everyone why he was a 2nd round steal for the Tennessee Titans.
Ryan Tannehill has thrown 5 INTs in camp through 5 practices
— AtoZ Sports Nashville (@AtoZSports) August 2, 2021
- Hooker (2)
- Jenkins (2)
- Fulton (could have had 3 today)#Titans
So why is this happening to the Tennessee Titans?
There are two reasons why this shouldn’t concern Ryan Tannehill and the Tennessee Titans offense. The first is that Julio Jones and Josh Reynolds are being brought along slowly and they haven’t even been on the field together during team drills in 2021.
When your quarterback is spending the majority of his offensive snaps without a Hall of Fame receiver and the biggest free-agent addition at the position, you can understand why there might be some hiccups.
Secondly and most importantly, the offense that the Titans are running in camp…isn’t really their offense.
To this point, the Titans haven’t had pads on and Derrick Henry hasn’t been involved in team drills. This offense revolves around running the ball and then running play-action off of those runs. So when you ask this offense to just pass, it isn’t like they have a lot of plays in formations where they put four or five receivers onto the field to stress a defense.
This offense just isn’t suited for scenarios where the defense doesn’t have to pay attention to the running threats in the backfield. Combine defenses cheating their assignments and the fact that two-thirds of the receivers in team drills have been backups, and you can see why those interceptions have been happening.
At the end of the day, this is what Tennessee Titans fans should have been wanting to see during training camp. Fans know that this offense is going to be fine and in all likelihood, they will be one of the five highest-scoring offenses in the NFL this year.
The only thing that held the Titans back from being a Super Bowl contender was their defense, and seeing a defense feast on favorable matchups is exactly what everyone needed to see to take this team seriously in 2021.