The Impact of Reinforcements

The Tennessee Titans are expected to get some offensive reinforcements before the bye week. How do they shape the offense?

Get 20% off forever by clicking the button below.

Yesterday, the NFL found itself losing named players to injuries all across the Sunday games. Mike Evans, Tre White, Kenny Pickett, are just a few of the players that saw an early exit. While we don’t know the full extent of every injury that happened yesterday, the Titans came away relatively unscathed.

in fact, knock on wood, the Titans have had a healthy season overall. While this hasn’t amounted to massive success compared to prior years, it is a good sign their injury luck is changing. In fact, while many teams are losing players, this week the Titans should be adding around three to four players back to their squad: Treylon Burks, Kyle Philips, Peter Skoronski, and Nicholas Petit-Frere.

This means that week five could be the first game where the full complement of weapons are available. What all does this mean?

Treylon Burks

Treylon Burks has only missed one game in 2023, but he did disappear versus the Browns. While it was an overall team let down versus that week three game, Burks was a momentum killer when targeted. Contrary to the over-reactions by fans, he is still the second most talented wide receiver on this team. Getting him back would be a boost, but only if he is healthy.

The Titans don’t truly need him for their upcoming game versus the Indianapolis Colts. So, I am perfectly fine with them being overly cautious and letting him rest an additional week if they think that helps him long-term.

Burks is off to a rough start in what should be his breakout campaign. Through the first three games in 2023, when Burks is targeted, he ranks last among wide receivers in Points Earned Per Route, with a -1.78 PE/r. The next worse wide receiver in that metric is Nick Westbrook-Ikhine at 0.092. For those that want the quick math done for you. That is a 1.688 different in points earned per route. that is not great. In 2022, Burks was the second highest WR on the team with 0.30. (AJ Brown’s best season was 0.69 in 2020).

So, as a player drafted in the first round, Burks is not living up to that expectation. As I’ve said from the get go, the comparison to A.J. Brown or the idea he was a one-for-one replacement, are both unfair and lazy. I said it the night he was drafted, but Burks wasn’t the talent Brown was and thus he was never going to live up to the lofty expectations of Brown.

It’s fair to criticize Burks for his current play without giving up on him. There is a vast gap between the two. In fact, Burks still has plenty of time to show everyone that he is worthy of being a first round pick. As I stated on Thursday, the Rule of Three is in full effect for Burks.

While the advanced stats don’t show it currently, common sense and logic does dictate that this team is better with Burks on the field. He is a talented enough wide receiver that can generate explosive plays and needs to be accounted for. So, his return will boost this offense, even though I will sarcastically say otherwise throughout the week.

Kyle Philips

There’s some people who have already declared the fifth round wide receiver a bust. I am not sure how a fifth round receiver can be a bust, but yet here we are. Some even declared with enough bluster to recharge a Mustang Mach-E that KP’s biggest value to the team is through the return game. They even go as far to say that there won’t be enough snaps on this team for him. As the kids would say: “wut?”

This made no sense whatsoever even before we saw this new style of offense. KP’s value comes in the form of short-area explosiveness and reliability when targeted. Sure, he’s not some massive deep threat nor is he big-body in the run blocking game, but there is a place and a need for his presence in this offense. Here’s why: