Around this time of the year, NFL teams in the playoff hunt begin to find out what their true identity will be come playoff time.
For example, if you’re a team with a good offense and a bad defense, you go through the month of December looking to see if your defense can tighten things up and make life easier for your offense, or if you’ll have to rely on your offense to give you a chance.
For the Tennessee Titans, they fall into that exact category, an explosive offense that more or less has to hold the defense’s hand, and keep them out of harms way as much as possible. That was the case earlier on in the year, and it continued to be the case today during the Titans’ blowout win over the Detroit Lions.
The Titans’ defense was simply bad today, aside from the few stops they got in the 2nd half. Matthew Stafford picked this defense apart in the passing game, finishing 22/32 for 252 yards along with a touchdown. He killed this team through the air, connecting with multiple receivers throughout the day without the necessary amount of resistance from the Titans’ secondary.
The #Titans defense is still in fact bad.
— TreJean Watkins (@TreWatkins099) December 20, 2020
But that wasn’t the only issue the Titans’ defense had trouble with today.
Detroit was 7-12 on 3rd down today, with most of the 3rd down damage coming in the 1st half. It signaled another step back in terms of getting off the field for this defense, a step backwards that will hurt the Titans badly if the problem isn’t fixed in time for the postseason.
The Titans sat back in a soft zone coverage most of the time when a 3rd down passing situation arose, and Matthew Stafford picked it apart time after time.
You’d think with previous troubles on 3rd and long earlier on in the year, this coaching staff would begin to experiment with some blitzing on 3rd and long, while easing out the all too familiar soft zone call.
But that didn’t occur today, which isn’t encouraging in the slightest when it comes to confidence in this staff to make adjustments, and put this defense in the best possible position to succeed.
Halftime #Titans thoughts:
-the offense looks good, aerial and ground attacks are both doing a lot of damage. Only negative is that safety though.
-defensively, bleh. 3rd down is a problem again, zero pass rush, it’s just been one big amount of bleh.
— TreJean Watkins (@TreWatkins099) December 20, 2020
If this Titans offense was bad today, which luckily for them they weren’t, the big story would’ve been how this defense doesn’t look like it’ll find itself in time for playoff football. But like I said, the offense did its job, so the defense can sit back and quietly work on the many issues that are currently plaguing the entire unit.
It’s not ideal, but a win was acquired, so at this time that’s all that matters.
I think we can finally say who this football team is and what they’ll be for the rest of the year, which is a team that’ll put up the points on offense, but will fail to give you any consistent help on defense.
It’s full of problems, most of which you can’t completely fix this late in the year.
The pass rush can’t going, there’s an overwhelming amount of lapses on 3rd down, it’s simply a game of trying to patch up the holes and hope that’ll be enough to put you in a position to win a Super Bowl title.
Quarterbacks, enjoy a 60 minute distraction free experience against the Titans’ pass rush! https://t.co/a4jtmKyQpa
— TreJean Watkins (@TreWatkins099) December 20, 2020
Now some of the problems can still be fixed somewhat, including the historically bad 3rd down defense. But for the most part, you’ll have to wait until next season to truly witness any sort of improvement from this defense.
The Titans at this point have only one option.
Hope your offense can score a lot of points, and pray your defense can come up with crucial stops during the game.
If those 2 things don’t happen, then the Titans will be hit with an early exit from the playoffs, something you wouldn’t expect from this team considering the talent that resides on both sides of the ball.
