The Tennessee Titans continued their winning ways in the 2008 preseason, beating the Oakland Raiders, 17-16, on a 33 yard field goal by John Vaughn as time expired. Despite the good result, though, the Titans have a lot of work left to do as neither Vince Young nor Kerry Collins completed as many as 33% of their passes. For a real-time look at the game as it happened, please take a look at the liveblog I did.
After running the ball very effectively against the Rams the previous week, the Titans began tonight’s game with a concerted effort to throw the ball. In fact 5 of the first 6 plays from scrimmage were passes. Alas, those 6 plays encompassed the entirety of the Titans’ first two offensive possessions, as they weren’t able to achieve a single first down. Vince Young played the first 5 possessions, leaving the game midway through the second quarter. Stats? 4 of 13, 37 yards, 1 sack, and 1 rush for 4 yards. Um, that’s not very good.
The “good” news, if you want to think of it that way, is Kerry Collins completed even fewer of his throws than VY did. The former Nittany Lion completed 4 of his 15 throws, but one of those was a 51 yard touchdown pass to Lavelle Hawkins early in the third quarter. Hawkins got and maintained separation from ex-Titan Michael Waddell, then dodged a potential tackler at the 10 to clear his way into the end zone. That was one of two receptions for Hawkins for a total of 70 yards. Lavelle also had two kickoff returns for 24 yards each and a couple punt returns where he outperformed Chris Carr.
When they did get the ball, the running backs were less impressive than the previous week, and tended to the same boom-and-bust pattern we’ve seen from Titans running backs in recent years. Chris Johnson started with 2 caries for 15 yards each, then had 16 yards on 6 carries. White had 22 yards on one carry, but 17 on his other 7. Henry started out with a 20 yard gain, then toted the ball 4 more times for a whopping 8 yards. Of them, I thought Johnson looked the best-dangerous and shifty, even without particularly good results. White showed excellent burst on his big gain, but less so on his other runs. Henry’s a lesser Chris Johnson.
Other than Hawkins, none of the wide receivers particularly good out to me in a positive way. Coming out of the backfield, there were a couple balls I thought Chris Johnson should have caught but didn’t. Paul Williams failed to make catches. Brandon Jones missed a chance to make a spectacular chance. Biren Ealy tied for the team lead in receptions with 3, and was second in yards behind Hawkins with 50; most of his damage came on the last drive. Chris Davis had a nice slant pattern for 26 yards to set up the game-winning field goal, but hardly seemed to play the first two and a half or three quarters.
The defense? An excellent start, giving the Raiders one first down on their first three drives, but Russell was able to find a rhythm on the fourth drive and completed 5 of 6 for 61 yards and a TE to Zach Miller past a leaping Keith Bulluck. The non-first team defense was less impressive, giving up a number of sustained drives before coming up with a couple key plays late. First, Marquice Cole ran down RB Echemandu after 71 yards to tackle him at the 7. Then, FA rookie Tony Joiner forced a fumble on 3rd and goal which the Titans were able to recover, preventing the Raiders from going up 23-14 and kick-starting the go-ahead drive. The sacks both came from the secondary, Joiner on an Andrew Walters gift and Reynaldo Hill on a corner blitz. The front 4 got pressure, or at least the starters did, but Russell was able to move around and showed better escapability than I expected or remembered from him.
Special teams? Before he hit the game winner, Vaughn had missed from 49. I thought he was better on kickoffs than last week, but who cares because it’s Bironas’s job. Hentrich and Miller got a lot of work, combining for 8 punts in all. They were ok, and the coverage was generally excellent. Kickoff coverage was also good, surprisingly enough. On the flip side, Chris Carr was less impressive returning punts this week, and Chris Johnson had a kickoff bounce off his hands in the end zone, forcing a touchback. The best special teams play of the night belonged to Vinny Fuller and Ahmard Hall. After Johnnie Lee Higgins foolishly fielded a punt at his own 5, Fuller forced him to fumble, a fumble Hall recovered in the end zone for the Titans’ first touchdown of the game. You can’t always count on a player doing something that stupid in the regular season, but it’s nice to take advantage when you do.
Stock reports?
Eric King: Started for Nick Harper. Had one good tackle, but a couple bad missed ones as well. I’m not feeling confident in him if either starter goes down for a period of time.
William Hayes: Got what seemed to be a lot of reps tonight, from late in the first quarter through the 4th. Didn’t seem to show up the first game, but was much more active tonight. Clearly better than Dave Ball or Sean Conover.
Cary Williams: Came up lame chasing Echemandu, as I mentioned in the liveblog.
Stephen Tulloch: He must have seen the field as much or more than any other Titan, from starting in place of David Thornton to being in on the goalline stand that resulted in the forced fumble at the end. I’ll have to re-watch the game to see how he did in coverage.
Daniel Loper: I was highly critical of his performance at right guard when I re-watched the San Diego game, but I thought he acquitted himself well at right tackle in this game.
What did you think of tonight’s preseason performance? Are there any players that particularly impressed you, either favorably or non-favorably?
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