Tim Kelly will elevate Tennessee Titans offense in 2023

Earlier this week the Tennessee Titans Offensive Coordinator search officially wrapped up when they promoted 2022 Passing Game Coordinator Tim Kelly.

The move comes as a bit of a surprise, and the fact that Mike Vrabel yet again elevated one of his own guys from within is especially frustrating for some of the team’s fans.

The organization dragged out the search for so long only to hire an in-house candidate, which was strange to many Tennessee Titans fans. That certainly does not mean they did not do their due diligence throughout the process, but for the team to spend a month “searching” for the best candidate only to end up with the guy that Mike Vrabel wanted to hire for the OC job two years ago, is strange.

Try to treat the Tennessee Titans hire with an open mind

All of that being said, those who are critical of the move very well might end up being surprised, because Kelly is a proven offensive mind who has been successful in the NFL.

Again, this isn’t just promoting from within for the sake of continuity, when the Tennessee Titans lost Arthur Smith, the team reached out to Houston to see if they could talk to Kelly for the job, but the Texans blocked them from interviewing him at the time.

We are about to look at what makes Tim Kelly an exciting candidate, but take a second to think about what Kelly did with the Titans last year. Outside of being a sounding board for Todd Downing, he was essentially the TE coach for Tennessee.

What the offense ended up looking like while he was the TE coach isn’t a reflection of his ability as an OC. Ask yourself, was Todd Downing a great coach just because he was the TE coach underneath Arthur Smith? Both times the OC was the author of the offense.

Let’s take a deep dive into Kelly’s track record and why it should excite those who are uninspired about the hire.

Tim Kelly consistently overachieved with the Houston Texans’ offense

When you look at some of the base statistics of the Texans’ offense under Kelly, you might be less than excited about what he is going to bring to the Titans.

Don’t let those numbers freak you out. When you dig deeper and look at what he was given to work with, you will realize that he consistently got the best out of what he had.

The best roster Kelly ever had at his disposal with the Texans was Deshaun Watson, prime DeAndre Hopkins, and not much else. Their only other receiving threat was often injured Will Fuller, they had a subpar offensive line, and they had virtually no threat in the running game.

It would get even worse for their offense, as Hopkins was traded in 2020 and pretty much replaced by Brandin Cooks. Watson would not even play the next season, and it forced the Texans to go into 2021 with an uninspiring quarterback duo of Tyrod Taylor and Davis Mills.

Despite the deficiencies Kelly faced, he would only succeed in maximizing the talent in his offense. In fact, you could argue that as the Texans got worse from a personnel standpoint, he got better as an offensive coordinator.

In all three seasons that Kelly had on the Texans, they were in the top half of the league in third down conversion rate.

From a purely statistical standpoint, Watson had his best season in 2020, which was of course without Hopkins. He led the entire league in passing yards, had a 33 to 7 touchdown to interception ratio, just over a 70% completion rate, and just over a 112 passer rating.

All of that was good enough to leave the Texans at first in net yards per pass attempt, fourth in passing yards, and eighth in passing touchdowns. Once again, just astounding given that they had a subpar roster and were an overall disaster in 2020.

Tennessee Titans fans should look at 2021 for optimism

In 2021, when the Texans once again got even worse as a roster, Kelly once again got the most out of everyone, including his rookie third-round quarterback.

Davis Mills that year had 2664 passing yards, 16 touchdowns, 10 interceptions, a 66.8% completion rate, and looked like someone who, with time, had the potential to develop into a starting-caliber quarterback in the NFL.

Without Kelly, Mills regressed in every way, and not only is his future with the Texans all but over, he was being used as part of a two-quarterback system with Jeff Driskel.

Let’s also talk more about Brandin Cooks, who has constantly flipped from team to team throughout his career. He recorded two of his very best seasons on the Texans, including a career-high in receptions in 2021 as Kelly did a tremendous job utilizing his speed, which is his best quality.

As you could probably guess, Cooks regressed wildly in 2022, and his season was more notable for him wanting out of Huston than anything else. Now that he is likely to be released, the Titans could take advantage of the opportunity to reunite him with Kelly since they have been very successful together.

One thing Mike Vrabel harped on in his press conference following the Kelly hire was familiarity mainly in terms of the scheme. While he acknowledged that they would incorporate some newer ones, Kelly proved in Houston that he can design and run plays to help the Titans stay true to what they do best.

This is largely going to depend on the moves the Titans make in the offseason, but as long as they address the most important areas, which looks likely with what has been regarded as a great GM hire, Kelly will have the most amount of talent he has ever had in 2023. There is a very good chance that their offense will look similar to the way they did in 2020 when they ran the plays they were best at and had one of the best units in the league.

It is tough to judge Kelly’s performance with Tennessee Titans in 2022

Just looking at the Tennessee Titans’ passing game on the surface in 2022 with Kelly in charge of it, you would be very underwhelmed. But when you actually look at the contributions he was actually able to make in games, you might not be that concerned anymore.

The Titans built their first down identity on running the ball down the middle, which was of course Todd Downing’s decision and put the team into second-and-long situations so many times. Not only that, but based on the formation they would line up in from play to play, which was also on Downing, it would only give the defenses a better idea of whether they were running or passing the ball.

All of it just doomed the Titans to further predictable play-calling, and there is a reason why they had such a high percentage of three-and-outs and such a low third-down conversion percentage. Not to mention, with the absurd talent deficiencies and injuries that they had in the passing game for most of the season, Kelly’s ability to make a positive impact on the offense was strangle-held in just about every game.

Now, Mike Vrabel offered some information in his recent press conference which gives us some opportunity to evaluate Kelly’s role with the Titans in 2022.

The most concerning thing about that quote is Kelly’s role in the first down plays, considering that the Titans ran the ball so many times. But once again, the decision to run the ball on those plays was ultimately Downing’s call, and many of the times the Titans passed the ball on first down, especially off of play action, they did well.

As mentioned, the team constantly found themselves in seconds-and-long situations due to disastrous first-down decisions, so it was hard for them to do much of anything there either since opposing defenses knew what they were doing almost every time.

Now we were actually able to see Kelly’s impact in the red zone, where the Titans scored most of their touchdowns — mostly passing — and were one of the best teams all year. They finished with the sixth-best red zone touchdown percentage at 64.3%, which is quite good considering the lack of talent they had for most of the year.

Yes, many will be mad about Kelly being an internal hire, and those people will also ask the question of why he did not take over in 2022 when Downing was so bad. But let’s face it, teams that look playoff bound (which the Titans were for the majority of the year) rarely if ever change play-callers, especially when the talent level on offense is as far from complete as theirs was.

You have to remember that Shane Bowen was promoted from within and did very well, and also ask yourself if you would be as mad if Kelly was hired as an outside candidate. Unlike most times that the Titans have promoted from within, this guy has an actual track record of being successful with a team that was average at best in terms of talent.

All of the evidence we have shows that not only will Kelly be a much better offensive coordinator than Downing, but he also has a better chance of outperforming expectations than anything else.