Ghosts of 2022 come back to haunt the Tennessee Titans in Week 3 loss
By Will Lomas
Stop me if you have heard this one before, but bad playcalling on offense and an EDGE absolutely dominating the Tennessee Titans' left tackle, led to an embarrassing 27-3 loss to the Cleveland Browns.
There were a small handful of players that did their jobs well today, but just like in 2022, it doesn't matter if most of the players do their jobs well when there are such glaring issues being exposed.
Cleveland Browns EDGE (and potential DPOY after this game) Myles Garrett finished the day with 3.5 sacks, but it felt like 305 when you look at how many times he pressured Ryan Tannehill and the lack of answers that the Tennessee Titans offense had for him.
At one point in the fourth quarter, the Titans were so scared of Garrett that he was moving around on defense and the offense chased him until finally, Mike Vrabel had to call a time out...only for Garrett to get a sack on the very next play.
Ryan Tannehill made a few plays to DeAndre Hopkins and Treylon Burks would have had another explosive play down the field if not for a DPI, but the Tennessee Titans couldn't capitalize on any of that because of the negative plays.
Andre Dillard wasn't the Tennessee Titans only problem
To be fair, it wasn't all on Andre Dillard. Tim Kelly found ways to hurt the Titans himself. Not only did he call too many plays out of empty, but called three pitch plays for Derrick Henry, all of which lost yards. This isn't a bad play because it didn't work, it was a bad play because it has never worked and the end result was one of the worst days in Derrick Henry's worst day.
Another remnant of the 2022 Tennessee Titans popped up, and that was devastating penalties. In 2022 the Titans were the fourth-most penalized team in the NFL and today they had a whopping 75 yards worth of penalties.
Week 2 was a great vacation from the issues that had plagued the team since the eight-game losing streak started in November last season, but Week 3 was a reminder that this team still has major problems and that includes coaching.