The Titans and Jaguars made a visit to Monday Night Football, or at least that’s the way the schedule read. Whether or not the Jaguars really bothered to show up was another question, as the Titans took an early lead they never relinquished en route to an easy 30-3 triumph in a game marred only by an injury to Vince Young.
The beatdown started early, as Young moved the ball easily through the air, hitting Bo Scaife for a 28-yard gain and Kenny Britt for the second time in the drive for a 23-yard touchdown. Kerry Collins would double the lead midway through the second quarter after Michael Griffin intercepted David Garrard and gave the Titans good field position inside the Jaguars 40. After that, the Jaguars occasionally looked like they might close the gap, but never actually did.
For more on the game, see the liveblog I did. Some more thoughts on the game after the jump.
Young went down with an injury on the second play of the Titans’ second possession after he had trouble holding on to a snap under center from Eugene Amano. His left leg appeared to bend awkwardly under him, and he left and did not return with what was reported to be a left knee injury. Fisher said at halftime he could have played in the shotgun, but given the game situation, there was no need.
Kerry Collins was, well, Kerry Collins. He completed all of his second half passes, four of them, and finished 11-16 for 110 yards and that one TD to Bo Scaife. He did about what I expected he’d do, only rarely making plays despite the Jaguars’ generally porous pass defense and normally bailing at the first sign of pressure. He’d need to do better if called upon for full-time duty.
Chris Johnson ended up with superficially decent statistics, 26 carries for 111 yards and a score, but that was definitely padded by a 35-yard TD in the last two minutes after the Jaguars decided to finally use their timeouts. Javon Ringer had 10 carries for 42 yards, getting some extended work in the second and third quarters, and generally looked pretty good.
Scaife and Damian Williams tied for the team lead with 4 catches each. Williams really seems to have emerged as the Titans’ no. 3 wideouts with Gage out of the lineup, and I don’t recall seeing Hawkins take any snaps on offense. Britt didn’t have a catch after the opening drive, though I bet the QB change had a lot to do with that.
The run defense was pretty impressive-Jones-Drew had 17 carries for only 57 yards and did some of his damage late, after the game was effectively decided. They sometimes struggled tackling him one-on-one, but did a good job of flowing to the ball so one man didn’t regularly have to tackle him.
After 22 sacks in the first 5 games, to only have 2 sacks against a lousy offensive line like the Jaguars is unimpressive, but the defense, specifically Will Witherspoon did knock David Garrard out of the game with a hard hit in the second quarter. Trent Edwards came in, and played like Trent Edwards, occasionally finding space against soft coverage but generally not threatening the defense downfield and throwing two interceptions. I could pick a few nits here and there, but the Jaguars averaged 5.25 yards per attempt and threw 3 interceptions, and that’s a pretty darn good performance.
Similarly, I could find a few other nits here and there, but any time the Jaguars looked like they might get close, the defense stepped up and made a big play, taking the ball away twice in the red zone. I was kind of worried about this game, but the Titans came out strong early and the game was never really in doubt. The Titans are 4-2, same as the Texans and Colts, and have a chance to continue their winning ways in inter-conference play when the Eagles visit LP Field next week.
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