Browns @ Titans Game Reaction

The Return of Kendall Wright as Sack City Rolls On.

The Tennessee Titans earned a hard fought 28–26 victory against the Cleveland Browns to take themselves to 3-3 on the season. Below is reaction on the game looking at the performance of all 3 phases of the Titans team, offense, Defence and Special teams. We’ll also look at the good, the bad and the ugly points of the Titans performance this past Sunday. 

Offense

Let’s start today with the receivers who won this game for the Titans (it’s a while since that could be said). Kendall Wright has returned ladies and gentlemen, 8 receptions for 133 yards and 1 TD, highlighted by a 48 yard diving touchdown catch in which he managed to get off his knees just in time to be shoved in to the endzone by a Browns DB. For the first 5 weeks of the season everyone has been asking where the deep threat is going to come from for this Titans team and Wright went some way to answering that question in this game. Not to be outshone too much though, Rishard Matthews was also on the receiving end of a 43 yard pass, diving to make the catch similarly to Wright. Matthews again showed his ability to make the big plays when needed, as shown by his stat line of 3 receptions, 70 yards & 1 TD. Matthews’ 3 receptions were second behind Wrights 8, with Supernaw & Henry next with 2 and Walker & Fasano with 1 each. Kendall Wright showed his ability in this game constantly creating separation from defenders to allow Mariota to hit him and move the chains. Let’s hope for more to come from this partnership which showed promise early on in 2015 before Wright’s injury troubles began. On a lower note, Tajae Sharpe struggled once again, not recording a single reception and his only involvement being a trick run play which resulting in him gaining 1 yard. Sharpe’s struggles early on this season have resulted in the coaches dialling down his reps as they say he’s just struggling at the moment with the speed of the game. I’ve no doubt that Sharpe will develop in to a great, reliable receiver in this league, but he just needs time to learn and progress. He shouldn’t have been put in the position where he was a starter out of the gate but the issues with Justin Hunter and DGB resulted in Sharpe being thrown in to the deep end, and although in the preseason he seemed to be coping well with it, as soon as the season started and the games got serious he’s begun to drown, struggling to adjust to the speed of the game. What Sharpe needs is time to learn behind the experienced veterans on the team, just like Derrick Henry is learning behind DeMarco Murray. Although the offense struggled for large portions of this game, Kendall Wright, and Rishard Matthews are giving encouragement that they can improve throughout the course of this season and develop in to a good, reliable receiving corps which compliments the run game.

Speaking of the run game, it disappeared somewhat this week. It’s obvious the Browns main aim was to put a stop to the Titans “Smashmouth” run attack, and they did a good job of it for the most part, holding DeMarco Murray to 65 yards on 21 carries, an average of 3.1 yards per carry. Mularkey and Robiski still persisted with the run game though despite early struggles (Murray running for -3 yards in the first quarter) and it paid off with Murray getting in to the Endzone for a TD. It was good to see this persistence against a lot of friction from the Browns front seven. When the coaches are preaching a “smashmouth”, run first attack for months leading in to the season teams are going to come with an aim to stop that. It’s important that the team shows they can run the ball even when the opposing defence knows they are going to, and they did that against the Browns. A big positive in the run game also was Mariota using his legs once again, causing the defence loads of issues. The Browns were focused so much on stopping Murray that Mariota was able to take full advantage of this, running 7 times for a total of 64 yards, 41 of which coming on the first play of the game. Derrick Henry had 2 rushes on the day for a total of 7 yards. This stat line probably angers a lot of fans who are not happy about the lack of work Henry is currently being given but the best thing for the rookie right now is to learn and develop. He’s currently learning from one of the best running backs in the league and Murray won’t be around forever. Henry will be the feature back for this franchise for years to come but right now he and the Titans need to get as much out of Murray as they can. Henry will then be all the more better for it in the future.

Defence

A couple of 4th quarter touchdowns a side and a couple of couple of big plays given up by the secondary on 4^th down towards the end of the game, which could have ended the game with a stop on one of them, the Titans defence again played excellent this week. For the second game in a row the unit recorded 6 sacks and they were shared around even more this week with Williamson, Spence and Woodyard getting in on the act along with Morgan, Casey and Orakpo recording another sack each. There was also great play again from the backs with McCourty and Cox putting in great performances with 3 pass deflections each and a combined 10 tackles, the secondary did give up a few big plays this week though which can be concerning but overall the coverage is improving week on week. This defensive unit is by far the most underrated defence in the league and they don’t get the credit they deserve among NFL analysts. Dick Labeau has done a great job so far of getting the best out of every player at his disposal and they are improving week on week. One issue in previous weeks this season has been 1-on-1 tackling on the outside, with numerous missed tackles leading to giving up big gains. This has obviously been worked on during practice and there was a notable difference this week with some great tackles straight after the catch. The Browns went all out in the 4^th quarter to try and get the win in this game and they managed to get 2 TDs in a period of the game were the Titans haven’t given up any points at all since the teams implosion against the Vikings in week 1. Since that week 1 game the Titans defence has only given up 6 points in the 2nd half of games and they have come on 2 field goals. The only touchdown surrendered by the Titans in the second half of games since week 1 came on special teams with the Texans punt return.

Special Teams

Although the offence had their struggles in this game, constantly squandering great field position in which they could have sealed this game long before the final drive, special teams was once again the biggest issue on this team. Punt returns are a huge issue still, even 2 games after the Bobby April sacking, and needs a lot of work. Considering Mularkey takes great pride in special teams work, he and the other coaches just don’t seem to have an answer to this problem at the moment. Worse than the punt coverage this week though was the onside kick recovery attempts at the end of the game. With the Titans 2 scores (15 points) ahead and time running out for the Browns in the 4^th quarter, they manage to score the first of 2 required TDs. Luckily for the Titans, for some reason, Hue Jackson elected to go for 2 points on this occasion rather than kicking the 1 point and bringing the game within 1 score and they failed, similar to the Vikings game in week 1 when Mularkey made the same decision, only for the 2 point conversion to fail. At this point, the Titans just need to recover the onside kick and they can then run the clock down to complete a 9 point victory. Then the kick comes and what do you know, there’s an awful attempt to catch the ball and the Browns recover. The Browns then manage to get in to the endzone once again, this time they kick the conversion to bring them to 2 points behind. Then comes onside kick attempt no.2. Recovering 1 onside kick is rare in the NFL, recovering 2 in a row is practically unheard of. With the way the Titans special teams unit is playing this season though anything is possible. The ball is kicked and Andre Johnson manages to get his hands on the ball to then fumble it, but just before a Browns player can get his hands on the ball it bounces out of bounds, finally the Titans can take a knee and record a home victory.

The Good, the Bad & the Ugly

The good - The defence once again was a huge positive but the biggest plus this week in my opinion has to be the resurgence of Kendall Wright, which coincided with the first successful 40+ yard passes of the year from Mariota to Wide Recievers, which I don’t think is a coincidence. Hopefully this is just the beginning of a great season for Wright and a great Mariota/Wright partnership.

The Bad – The Defence constantly put the offense in great field position and they struggled on multiple occasions to even get in to field goal range, on one occasion they had to settle for a 58 yard FG attempt which, with a great attempt form Succop, flew just right of the uprights. If the Titans are going to have any success over the next few weeks, the offense is going to have to find a way of converting good field position in to points. This week it almost came back to bite them and in future games, against better opponents, it will.

The ugly – Special teams is definitely the biggest issue on this team at the moment. Bobby April was fired due to the issues and since then the same issues have persisted. It may be difficult to make huge change during the season but Mularkey and Hoffman must find a way to stop the bleeding before this phase of the game kills the Titans season.

Summary

This game was a must win for both teams so there’s no surprise that it came down to the wire in the end. As a Titans fan it’s easy to say the team should have wiped the floor with the Browns, but that would be insulting to say about a team that will be more and more desperate for a victory with every defeat they have, and they threw everything they had at the Titans in this game. The most important thing is the Titans held on and managed to close a game out, rather than snatching defeat from the claws of victory, which they’ve done all too often over the past couple of years. The Titans now sit at 3-3, with a .500 record and a home victory, against a team who are not the Jaguars, for the first time in what seems like forever. Next up is another huge test in the Indianapolis Colts. According to many, this is one of the games the Titans should be able to win, however the Titans have not recorded a victory over the colts since 2011, and that is the only victory over the Colts since 2008. If the Titans want to develop in to a team capable of winning the division, firstly they need learn how to defeat all 3 divisional rivals. They came close against the Texans but couldn’t force themselves over the line. The Colts may be struggling at the moment but they cannot be underestimated in this game. The record shows that in recent times the Titans cannot win against the colts and this will stay the belief until proven otherwise.

On a bright note, the Titans only need 1 more victory in the next 10 games to achieve their best record in 3 years. Progress is a process.

#TITANUP