Titans head coach Mike Vrabel pulled Marcus Mariota out of the lineup midway through a Week 6 loss to the Broncos. This may be the smartest decision he’s ever made.
Ryan Tannehill, freed from the Dolphins in exchange for a pair of Day 3 draft picks, has put his Miami past behind him while rallying the Titans into the thick of the playoff race. A 2-4 start has blossomed into a 7-5 record with four weeks left in the season. Tannehill is 5-1 as the starter and the offense has only gotten better; the Titans’ last two wins, over the Colts and Jaguars, came by a combined 36 points.
Tannehill’s been the spark, but the rest of the Titans’ roster provided plenty of combustible material to fuel this midseason explosion. Derrick Henry has become a rare combination of bruising and big-play threat out of the backfield. The defense is giving up lots of yards, but not lots of points.
Those are all reasons Tennessee looks capable of earning a playoff spot — it’s currently a tiebreaker behind the Steelers for the sixth seed — and then making noise this winter. None of them seem totally, 100 percent reliable. So let’s look at each of the team’s three major high points over the course of this hot streak and see how likely these big performances are to continue.
Ryan Tannehill has been playing inspired football
You cannot separate Tennessee’s surge from Tannehill’s presence behind center. In Week 12, he destroyed the Jaguars so thoroughly that Big Cat Country published a game recap lamenting the end of Jacksonville’s playoff hopes midway through the third quarter. Tannehill had four touchdowns against the Jags — two passing and two rushing, including one where he basically exploded into the end zone.
PUT THE TEAM ON YOUR BACK, 17! @ryantannehill1 | #JAXvsTEN pic.twitter.com/cyZilqbjp4
— Tennessee Titans (@Titans) November 24, 2019
Through eight games and six starts, Tannehill leads the league in passing efficiency (9.1 yards per attempt) and passer rating (113.9) despite getting sacked on approximately one in every eight dropbacks. He’s mitigated that pressure with an underrated scrambling game en route to career highs in both rushing attempts per game (3.8) and rushing touchdowns (three). He’s scored multiple touchdowns in each of his last six games.
More importantly, he’s come up big in pressure situations. With his back against the wall against the Chiefs, he delivered three completions of 18+ yards to turn a 32-27 deficit with less than a minute to play into a 35-32 statement win. That’s only one of three game-winning drives he’s dialed up for the Titans.
Can Tannehill continue to play like an MVP? His advanced stats suggest there’s some hope, but that a regression is coming. Per SIS, the veteran’s 2019 explosion has been a function of more accurate passing, more opportunities downfield, and a booming mid-range passing game.
Ryan Tannehill’s passing accuracy and throw distance, 2017-2019
Ryan Tannehill | Comp% | Catchable pass % | Air Yards/pass | Adj. Yards/att |
---|---|---|---|---|
Ryan Tannehill | Comp% | Catchable pass % | Air Yards/pass | Adj. Yards/att |
2017 | 67.1 | 77.5 | 7.6 | 7.3 |
2018 | 64.2 | 72.6 | 7.8 | 7 |
2019 (through Week 13) | 72.2 | 78.4 | 8.6 | 9.4 |
His big gain in air yards per pass (the distance his throws travel beyond the line of scrimmage) is a major part of his 2019 breakthrough. He’s completed 33 of his 43 passes that have gone between 10 and 19 yards downfield. That 76.7 percent completion rate is significantly (and, to be honest, suspiciously) higher than the 58.6 percent rate he had on similar passes in his last three seasons as a Dolphin. No other starting quarterback in the league has cracked the 70 percent barrier.
Maintaining that rate would make the Titans’ offense a juggernaut come January, but it’s not especially realistic to hope it’ll happen. A.J. Brown has been a borderline 1,000-yard wideout alongside Tannehill, Adam Humphries has been a sure-handed slot target, and Jonnu Smith has been quietly steady in injured tight end Delanie Walker’s stead.
That’s the top of the team’s receiving/tight end corps, however, and none of those guys are proven entities. It’s a lower-profile group than Tannehill had worked with over eight years in Miami — guys like Jarvis Landry, Kenny Stills, and DeVante Parker, for example — but the veteran QB is putting up (waaaaay) better numbers with lesser-known guys. A late-season breakout from former No. 5 overall pick Corey Davis would certainly help, but he’s been nothing if not frustratingly inconsistent as a pro.
Then you get to the offensive line, which has struggled in protection this fall. Taylor Lewan made the Pro Bowl in each of the past three seasons, then started 2019 with a four-game suspension due to a violation of the league’s PED code. Since his return, he’s blown more blocks than ever before and responsible for more than a penalty per game. Jack Conklin has failed to live up to the All-Pro standard he set as a rookie in 2016. Rookie Nate Davis has been overwhelmed along the line’s interior, and Rodger Saffold hasn’t been as good as he’d been with the Rams last season.
Add that all up, and you’ve got a quarterback with an unsustainable 12 percent sack rate. The fact Tannehill is playing at such a high level despite getting crushed by (and occasionally straight-up running into) traffic in the pocket is amazing. The numbers say his efficiency is due for a drop, but they don’t also factor in his awesomely clutch play for a guy who’d been a backup for the first six weeks of the season.
Tannehill has been legitimately impressive to watch over the middle of the 2019 season. While it’s unlikely to last it’s been so, so fun to witness (unless you’re a Chiefs fan).
Derrick Henry has jumped from good to great
Here is what Henry did in the three-game span between Weeks 11 and 13:
- 496 rushing yards
- 7.3 yards per carry
- 5 rushing TDs
That’s a full season pace of 2,645 yards and 27 touchdowns. Good. Lord.
The question isn’t whether Henry can keep that up — as good as he’s been, those are superhuman numbers. Instead, it’s whether he can approach this level of greatness on a regular basis.
Henry’s three-plus seasons as an NFL running back have been marred by inconsistency. The former Alabama star has 11 games in his career with 90+ rushing yards and 19 with fewer than 30. He’d been stuffed repeatedly in low-wattage losses to the Jaguars and Broncos under Mariota’s care earlier this season.
That’s concerning, but you could argue this is the arrival he’d been primed for after years of slow build. Henry spent his rookie and sophomore seasons as part of a platoon with DeMarco Murray, averaging only nine carries per game. Although Murray’s retirement led to more starts, the addition of Dion Lewis kept Henry from being a bellwether back — he got 13.4 rushes per game in a 1,059-yard season last year.
Lewis has been mostly ineffective as a runner this year (98 rushing yards in 12 games), leaving the powerful young back to pick up the slack. Henry’s 19.3 rushes per game are third-most in the league behind Nick Chubb and Christian McCaffrey, That’s a big jump, but Henry, if anything, has been getting stronger as he’s piled up mileage.
Derrick Henry’s first 6 games vs. his last 6
Derrick Henry | Att | Yds | Y/A | TD |
---|---|---|---|---|
Derrick Henry | Att | Yds | Y/A | TD |
Games 1-6 | 113 | 416 | 3.7 | 4 |
Games 7-12 | 119 | 724 | 6.1 | 7 |
What’s more, he’s been able to do this behind the same offensive line that’s struggled to keep Tannehill’s jersey clean. The Titans are significantly better when it comes to clearing lanes for their runners than they’ve been in pass protection. While the club ranks dead last in Football Outsiders’ adjusted sack rate, it also ranks first in power rush rate.
This all indicates Henry should be able to approach (though not maintain, because like I said before, crazy) this pace as the season wears on. He’s thrived playing alongside his new quarterback. They’ve kept opponents from selling out against either the run or the pass, which been the rising tide that’s lifted Tennessee into the playoff race. Henry *probably* won’t average 120 yards per game to finish out 2019, but he’ll still be pretty dang good.
Plus, his ability to turn mundane plays into monster gains means every handoff he takes is worth watching.
players with multiple 70+ yard runs since 2016
— Christian D'Andrea (@TrainIsland) November 25, 2019
Derrick Henry: 4
Leonard Fournette: 3
Nick Chubb, Dalvin Cook, DeMarco Murray, Christian McCaffrey, Mark Ingram, Isaiah Crowell (??): 2
The defense still has major questions to answer
Tennessee can point to one major statistic when arguing it can ride this rally to the playoffs. The Titans rank seventh in the league by allowing only 19.5 points per game. That’s good! It also doesn’t tell the whole story of the team’s tenuous defense. These figures are much more in line with the defense Tannehill and Henry have had to overcome through late October and November:
- 21st in yards allowed (362)
- 16th in yards allowed per play (5.4)
- 18th in sack rate (6.7 percent)
- 17th in yards allowed per pass attempt (6.8)
The Titans have been outgained in 2019 by more than 30 yards per game. If you limit their performances only to games started by Tannehill that scoring average jumps to 23.7 points allowed per game — 22nd-best in that span. Though the dissonance between their overall scoring defense and total defense suggests that unit slams shut near the goal line, Tennessee has allowed touchdowns on nearly 65 percent of opponents’ trips to the red zone — a ratio that ranks 30th in the league.
A strong turnover game (19 in 12 games, though four came against the turnover-machine Buccaneers) has been a boon, though isn’t necessarily something on which the team can rely.
Most of the numbers point to this unit being more average than good. Harold Landry’s had a breakout second season, but the team’s second-leading sacker has been Logan Ryan ... who is a cornerback. There’s also evidence that Landry is due for a downturn as the season wears on.
The average league pass rusher turns a QB hit into a sack 45 percent of the time. Landry, with nine sacks from 12 hits, is an outlier at 75 percent. Teammate Cameron Wake, for comparison, had 11 QB hits but just 2.5 sacks.
Injuries have played a role as well. Only six players have started all 12 of the team’s games on the defensive side of the ball. Malcolm Butler and Wake, two notable free agent signings in recent years, are both on injured reserve. The addition of veteran cornerback Tramaine Brock — released by Arizona after Week 13 — will help shore up the team’s secondary, but major questions about the defense’s postseason seaworthiness remain.
The mounting challenge for that unit is that Tannehill and Henry may be too efficient. The Titans have won the time of possession battle just once in their last six games. The Tennessee defense spent 15 more minutes on the field than Kansas City’s did in Week 11. Jacksonville dominated time of possession by more than 14 minutes. The Titans’ offense has worked so quickly it has limited the recovery time for its defense.
There’s a chance that group continues to hold up its end of the bargain, but like with Tannehill, the Tennessee defense seems likely to slip — at least slightly — as the regular season gives way to the playoffs.
The Titans are 7-5 after a 2-4 start and in position to make a run at the AFC South crown, even in a year when the Texans — a team Tennessee will face twice in the final three weeks of the season — look like a Super Bowl contender. That wouldn’t be possible without Tannehill playing like a superstar, Henry breaking through to the league’s top tier of tailbacks, and its defense coming up with big, timely stops.
If they can keep that up, they’ll not only make it to the postseason, but also be a force with whom teams like the Chiefs, Patriots, and Ravens must reckon. The odds of that aren’t great, especially when it comes to Tannehill’s MVP-caliber passing and a defense that’s looked decent in box scores but fallible on the field. Still, this franchise is giving its fans a reason to believe.
This 2019 Tennessee team have made it a point to flip expectations. They’ve turned Tannehill from a backup into the league’s most efficient quarterback. After pulling off that minor miracle, a run to the playoffs should be no big deal.