Game Balls: Congratulations, You Played Yourselves

Mistakes, drops, and poor defense led to the Titans getting a mudhole stomped in 'em in Washington.

Everything that is wrong with the 2024 Tennessee Titans showed up in the first three minutes of this God forsaken football game. False starts on JC Latham and Nicholas Petit-Frere paired with a -3-yard pass to Tony Pollard put the Titans at 3rd & 22 on the opening drive. That resulted in a punt. Three plays later, Brian Robinson took the ball 40 yards on a counter play that looked like a well-executed Bill Callahan design. The pursuit of that play made Robinson actually look fast, highlighting the depleted Titans defense and yet another questionable game plan from defensive coordinator Dennard Wilson.

So much for “defend the run with pride.” The Titans allowed a whopping 267 rushing yards and three rushing touchdowns. As always, I reserve the right to change my mind once the all-22 drops, but this game plan felt a lot like Wilson being afraid of getting beat deep, dropping a lot of guys into zone, and expecting Kliff Kingsbury to simply call plays through it. That wasn’t the case. Kingsbury attacked the weaknesses with tempo, quick throws to slants, and plenty of zone runs to shake that Titans defensive front lose, understanding that if his guys could get to the second level, there wouldn’t be a lot of traffic to navigate that. It was mind-blowing to see the second level wide open so much.