Drexel has already shared his thoughts on the Titans’ 17-3 loss to the Falcons yesterday, and I’ll do the same. Not much rhyme or reason to these, but they’re mostly chronological.
1. The Titans’ struggles in the passing game are not limited to Vince Young-it’s not like Kerry Collins was any better, and Ingle Martin wasn’t much better in his limited action.
2. The Titans’ struggles in the passing game are not limited to the quarterback position-none of the wide receivers impressed last night, and several-Gage, McCareins, and Paul Williams-failed to impress.
3. The offensive line, particularly the starting offensive line, was shakier than I expected them to be.
4. Daniel Loper is only a good offensive lineman if he’s able to easily identify who he’s supposed to be blocking. He absolutely whiffed on a player when on the move, which was very reminiscent of letting Shaun Phillips run right past him in the wild card game.
5. Chris Johnson is a boom-and-bust runner. And, like I said last week, when boom-and-bust runners don’t go boom often enough, they’re awful.
6. At least early in the game, the Falcons seemed to frequently be bringing an 8th player into the box late. Expect to continue to see a lot of this until the Titans prove they can hit long passes with any degree of reliability.
7. The Falcons were using a lot of 3- and 5-step drops and immediately throwing against the Titans’ first string defensive line. This means they didn’t trust their offensive line to give Ryan more time. I wouldn’t if I were them, either.
8. Reynaldo Hill was targeted a lot. I know, you’re all surprised.
9. Chris Johnson looked very tentative and not very elusive on kickoff returns. He even looked slow, which is something you don’t really expect. Some guys just don’t seem to be very good returners, and he looks like one of them.
10. The problems in punt coverage speak to the lack of quality depth. Yeah, some of this is probably playing everybody to see who might be worth keeping, but the Titans are not one of the best teams when it comes to players 35-53. You don’t have to be elite here to win a Super Bowl-see the Colts-but it helps.
The big thing to keep in mind, though, is that it’s still a preseason game. Ultimately, big freakin’ whoop.
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