Lack of numbers, not lack of production for Titans.

For the past offseason, the Titans have built toward one goal offensively: running the football effectively. On Thursday night QB Jake Locker was asked to play a controlled style of offense do to what the defense was trying to do to him. This sort of offense included very little passing action, and when it was time to pass no deep plays were called.

The defense was playing in a middling coverage used to prevent big plays (except I guess for the runs by CJ and Shonn Greene) to force the Titans to play a conservative offense. While Locker had a few chances to force the ball down the field, why would he?

Locker was as good as anyone could have expected, his statline says he only completed seven of 11 passes, but that isn't the whole story. Twice, Kenny Britt failed to come back to the pass and he let defenders make a break on the ball resulting in invcompletions. Locker also had a ball go right through the hands of the trustworthy Michael Preston. Finally (and the most upsetting drop of the night) Kendall Wright just let the ball bounce off his hands on what could have been a 20-yard catch and run even without him making tacklers miss. This happens to WRs all the time, but for someone Titans fans thought had a rhythm and connection with Locker to drop something that easy on third down was really disconcerting.

So all in all if Locker's receivers had played well in those instances he could have easily beein 10-11 or 9-11 with 20-30 more yards. Locker also managed to keep the ball away from defenders, and didn't sail any passes so he should be commended on his improvement there as well.