The Tennessee Titans finally get to enjoy their bye week and I wanted to take a look at where the Titans stand relative to the rest of the league. First, we'll take a look at the standings and playoff possibilities, followed by some team stats. None of this looks too pretty, but you probably already knew that, seeing as how the Titans haven't looked too good for most of the year.
Last week's win over the Dolphins keeps the Titans' slim playoff chances alive, at least mathematically. Here's the picture in the AFC as we head into Sunday's games.
Division leaders:
Texans (8-1)
Ratbirds (7-2)
Patriots (6-3)
Broncos (6-3)
Wildcard race:
Colts (6-3)
Steelers (6-3)
Chargers (4-5)
Bengals (4-5)
Titans (4-6)
Bills (4-6)
The Colts and Steelers each enjoy a two-game lead over the rest of the field in the wildcard race but each has a tough matchup this week, against the Patriots and Ratbirds, respectively. It seems likely the Titans will have to win out to make up that two-game deficit and leapfrog the Chargers and Bengals as well. Tough to do with the Texans and Packers games looming.
Now, to take a look at the stats, I wanted to look at both some standard stats and some advanced metrics from Football Outsiders.
First, the NFL stats. As you might suspect, the 37-3 win last week improved the Titans' team stats a little in most defensive categories. I've listed last week's rank first, followed by the rankings after week 10. (All stats are ranked on a per game basis.)
Offense:
scoring – 23rd last week, 19th this week
yards – 24th, 25th
passing – 17th, 22nd
rushing – 24th, 17th
Defense:
scoring – 32nd, 30th
yards – 30th, 29th
passing – 27th, 27th
rushing – 30th, 28th
And now, where the Titans stand in a few stats from Football Outsiders.
FO stats:
team efficiency – 31st last week, 29th after week 10
team offense – 28th, 26th
team defense – 29th, 28th
special teams – 22nd, 20th
I thought I'd throw in special teams there because I wanted to see something that looked at least semi-respectable. The offense and defense still suck, but you didn't need to see any stats to know that. Perhaps you just had a morbid curiousity to know how bad the stats say it was.
If you want to look at the bright side, you could say that the Titans are very fortunate to be 4-6. They very nearly lost to the Lions and Bills, and probably should have lost both games, which would mean they'd now be sitting at 2-8. Considering how poorly the Titans have played at times, 4-6 looks pretty good.
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