On the Titans defense winning day 1 of training camp

Yesterday all of the reports out of St. Thomas Sports Park were about how the defense won the day. I am sure you saw the video 1,000 times,

where Maclolm Butler jumps the route against Corey Davis, picks the ball off, and punts it in the air (of course remember that Davis got Butler for 2 touchdowns in the playoffs last year). There were also interceptions by Logan Ryan and Dane Cruikshank.

There are a couple of things you need to keep in mind:

1. The Titans’ defensive scheme this year is much more similar to the Titans’ defensive scheme last year than this year’s offensive scheme vs. last year’s offensive scheme. That’s a good thing because the Titans defense was pretty good last year and the offense was, well the offense was led by Terry Robiskie.
2. With that being the case, it makes sense that the defense would be ahead of the offense. It is also a pretty normal thing around the NFL for the defense to win early in camp. I bet if you toured around the other 31 NFL SB Nation blogs, you would read a lot of posts about the defense winning the first day of training camp.
3. This offense is new to pretty much everyone on that side of the ball. You have the offensive line switching from power-blocking scheme to a zone-blocking scheme (not to mention missing their formal All-Pro right tackle and practicing yesterday in the team periods without their Pro Bowl left tackle). In addition to that, if you have listened to Dan Orlovsky* at all, he has said that things will look bad for the offense early in camp. They break everything down to build it up, but he said there will be a day where it clicks and then you will see it take off. That probably won’t come until sometime in the middle of the preseason.

So all of that to say, keep the faith! Anyone who has watched Marcus Mariota play over the first 3 years of his career know that the sky is the limit for him. He just needs to be in a system that plays to his strengths. He finally has that, and it is going to be really fun to watch!

*You really should be listening to Orlovsky (You can follow him here). He is a rising star in the analyst field, and was with Matt LaFleur with the Rams last summer in training camp. You aren’t going to find anyone that knows more about this offense in the media than Dan.