FanPost

Statement Win

Now I know I’m late on this but I wanted to take some time to talk about the Titans win last week against the Rams.

Last week’s win was a statement win for our Tennessee Titans. Not only did they beat the Rams, they beat up the Rams in the process on Sunday Night Football in Los Angeles California. Wow! What a performance. I am still utterly speechless about this game. After losing Derrick Henry to injury everybody seemed to have completely written us off. However, the resiliency of this team carried us to a victory last Sunday night.

First and foremost, the defense played absolutely beautifully. The defensive line had five totaled sacks yesterday keeping Matthew Stafford uncomfortable all night long. Jeffrey Simmons was an absolute tear racking up three of the five sacks. Simmons looked like the best interior defensive lineman in all of football and that is saying something as in that game he shared the field with Aaron Donald. Harold Landry added half a sack to bring his total to nine sacks this season. Denico Autry, my favorite free agent signing continues to play so well. Bud Dupree although didn’t show up much in the stat sheet continues to get pressure. Kevin Byard is continuing a really good season, his best since 2017 probably. David Long continues his amazing play. So many players on defense deserve credit aside from the ones name notably Amani Hooker, Chris Jackson, even Janoris Jenkins played fairly well. All in all, it was an amazing all-around performance from the defense. Shane Bowen deserves credit as well for having this defense ready to play a formidable Rams offense. Not to mention as well that the defense is missing Caleb Farley (who has been up and down but still) and Kristian Fulton our best cornerback by far. Coach Vrabel also deserves a lot of praise for having this team ready to play on primetime against a quality opponent with their best player out.

On the offensive side of the ball it was a decent showing at best. Considering that the defense played lights out the offense did not need to match the defense in play. All they had to do was score when they were supposed to (which they did) and not make mistakes and turn the ball over. Now obviously with King Henry sidelined it was not a surprised that the offense struggled to run the ball and move the chains. Ryan Tannehill threw yet another interception during the game. I don’t know why Tannehill has been throwing so many interceptions lately, since becoming the starter he has thrown very few interceptions. He made the mistake of throwing late to AJ Brown and Jalen Ramsay picked it off. Luckily, Tannehill learned from this and managed the game until victory. AJ Brown had two costly drops that would’ve moved the chains. We can all agree that Brown is our WR1 but from time to time he has these games where he just has concentrated drops like Sunday and like back in week 2 in Seattle. Hopefully as the season moves on he can learn from these performances and get back to form to the AJ Brown we all know. Julio Jones had a big third down conversion and did what he could when the ball came his way. I hope to see more utilizing of Brown and Jones going forward. The Rams have a very good defense and although we didn’t throw the ball much to Brown and Jones I would’ve liked to see one or two deep balls to Brown and Jones to stretch the field more seeing how the Rams bit hard on many of the play-action movements. The running back committee didn’t do anything too spectacular. There is no replacing Derrick Henry but I hope to see more out of this committee going forward. If we can get 15 plus solid runs from this committee for 60-80 yards I’ll be happy with it.

Although Randy Bullock didn’t attempt a field goal in this game aside from extra points, I think that with his performance this season I’m fine moving forward with him at the helm. Although I still am really disappointed in his missed field to tie the game with the Jets, I think that his performance outside of that has garner my trust in him this season.

Okay, the Titans sure shut me up. However, we Titans fans have seen this team fail when riding high too many times, like against the Jets. However, I wrote not too long ago that if this Titans team can compete against one of the NFC’s best teams I’ll forget about the Jets game altogether. Although I’ll forget the Jets game as a fluke I am not ready to crown this team as a superbowl favorite just yet. Will they be in contention? I absolutely think so, but let’s not be haste. This is their first game without Derrick Henry and the Titans have lost games in the past to teams they shouldn’t have. I want to see more continual success before I crown them a superbowl favorite. Titans up!