The Titans’ season ended abruptly on Saturday. The team that was clearly better than the Bengals except for at one vital position: Quarterback. Joe Burrow will provide the Bengals a big advantage on the majority of QBs in the NFL. Tannehill is better than a lot of QBs, but he’s also not elite, which Burrow is fast becoming. Burrow was sacked 9 times and still found a way to put up 348 yards and get enough points to win. If Tannehill was the one sacked 9 times, I don’t know if the Titans score a point.
Jim Wyatt writes that the turnovers from Tannehill really stood out. Ryan was terrible on Saturday, even beyond the turnovers. He forced all three throws that turned into interceptions and bad decision making was on display almost the entire night. On 3rd and 1, the almost unstoppable option play was called, but Tannehill kept the ball instead of handing it off the Henry. An obvious mistake as Hubbard was waiting on the EDGE the entire play. Henry likely converts and the Titans win the ball game. Instead, they failed on 4th down and later Tannehill sealed the Titans fate with his third and final INT.
With Saturday’s loss, the Titans have now had the #1 seed 3 times in their history and lost in their first game all three times. I’m not sure I see things changing unless there’s significant personnel and coaching changes on that side of the ball.
Tannehill was unable to move the ball on early downs and was also poor on third down, converting just one all game. That’s not going to cut it. The end of the game almost felt like the end of a window, barring a miracle QB trade. Because it’s going to be near impossible to make up for the deficiency at QB against the best teams in the NFL.
It’s draft season now, and the Titans hold the 26th pick in the draft. They need to go offense, either a WR or TE to try and either raise Tannehill up or get ready for the next QB.
