At 8-3, coming off arguably their 2 biggest wins of the season, there was a reasonable sense of confidence and swagger within this Tennessee Titans team.
The offense had finally gotten out of its slump, scoring over 30 points in back to back weeks, and looking efficient and crisp while doing so. Defensively, this unit started to see more success on 3rd down, and the secondary covered much better than they had earlier on in the year.
Things were looking good for this Titans team….until they weren’t.
Tennessee got completely outclassed by the Cleveland Browns, there’s no other way to put it.
Baker Mayfield picked this Titans defense apart, and he did it by abusing the one concept that’s given this Browns offense so much success this season, play action.
Breon Borders got completely sucked in by that double move by Peoples-Jones.
— TreJean Watkins (@TreWatkins099) December 6, 2020
The Titans’ corners got sucked in a number of times by play fakes, leading to pass catchers running wide open all over the field as the game went on. Play action didn’t just aid the usual pass catchers either, even an offensive linemen bore the fruits of play action for the Browns, catching one of the many touchdowns the Browns scored today.
All this success came as the run game didn’t get a lot of traction either.
Early on there were some big runs by Nick Chubb, but overall, the Titans did a great job at bottling up the Browns’ potent run game. Albeit there wasn’t much need for the Browns to emphasize the run game, since points were being scored through the air, but it was still a great effort today by this Titans run defense.
Back to the negative though, since there was plenty of it today.
It was another miserable time defending on 3rd down for this Titans’ defense, something that hadn’t been the case over the last couple of games.
With the #Titans’ 3rd down defense, you have to call it like it is now.
It’s one full of problems, not just one.
— TreJean Watkins (@TreWatkins099) December 6, 2020
They fell back into their old ways of creating wide open holes in the back end of their defense, and Baker Mayfield took advantage of that and them some.
All in all, it was a disastrous defensive performance for the Titans today. One you didn’t expect to see coming after the improvements that unit made over the last couple of weeks, along with Baker Mayfield’s up and down year so far when it came to throwing the football down the field.
It all comes down to consistency and execution, two things the Titans have failed to sustain for most of the season. You can’t struggle with those two things this late in the year, especially if you want to contend.
We saw what happened when Tennessee struggled with them during the stretch where they lost 2 out 3 before their win against Baltimore. Problems started to arise on both sides of the ball, and ultimately led to the Titans having to drag their selves through the mud until they found a way out.
If you have those same problems during the playoffs, you’re not only going to struggle, you’re going to watch your season crumble blissfully to ashes early.
Luckily for the Titans, they’ll have 2 chances to get back on track before their big week 16 game against Green Bay. A road game against the Jacksonville Jaguars should serve as a start, before rounding this stretch out with a home game against the Detroit Lions.
Those 2 teams are nothing like the Browns, and pose minimal threat to the Titans. But we know that Tennessee has problems with staying consistent as soon as they find success, so neither of these games can be labeled as walks in the park.
We’ll see what this team is made of though over the last 4 games of the season.
Odds are they’ll rebound and put their selves in a good position to slide into the playoffs, either as a wild card team or as a division winner.
But with how inconsistent this team has been at various points of the year, anything can happen at this point.