According to the NFL’s official player participation information, here’s how the Tennessee Titans lined up in yesterday’s 42-14 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers:
Offense (59 total)
QB: Marcus Mariota 48, Zach Mettenberger 11
RB/FB: Jalston Fowler 27, Bishop Sankey 23, Terrance West 23, Dexter McCluster 14
WR: Justin Hunter 34, Harry Douglas 29, Kendall Wright 25, Dorial Green-Beckham 9
TE: Craig Stevens 41, Delanie Walker 36, Anthony Fasano 30, Phillip Supernaw 4
OL: Jeremiah Poutasi 59, Chance Warmack 59, Byron Bell 55, Brian Schwenke 52, Taylor Lewan 48, Andy Gallik 11, Jamon Meredith 11
Defense (74 total)
DL: Jurrell Casey 37, DaQuan Jones 30, Karl Klug 35, Angelo Blackson 22, Mike Martin 20, Al Woods 17
OLB: Derrick Morgan 47, Brian Orakpo 46, Deiontrez Mount 30, David Bass 25
ILB: Zach Brown 53, Avery Williamson 45, Wesley Woodyard 29, Steven Johnson 21
CB: Coty Sensabaugh 74, Blidi Wreh-Wilson 55, Perrish Cox 53, Cody Riggs 21
S: Michael Griffin 53, Da’Norris Searcy 53, Marqueston Huff 21, Daimion Stafford 21
Except for special teamers Beau Brinkley, Brett Kern, and Ryan Succop, everybody else on the 53-man roster played at least 4 snaps on either offense or defense.
Notes:
1. The Titans’ player participation was obviously heavily influenced by the game script. I could make this entire post about “stuff that happened in Week 1 that I don’t expect to see happen again unless the Titans are up 42-7 by the middle of the third quarter.” Don’t over-read too much into this because I’m not sure how much of it will hold true when the Titans play a game that’s competitive for four quarters. If I develop extra energy, I’ll track solely first half participation
2. My broad scale expectation is the Titans will have two-back weeks, where Jalston Fowler gets a lot of snaps, and one-back weeks, where Fowler doesn’t get many snaps. That pattern has held true for fullbacks in a Ken Whisenhunt offense for multiple seasons, not just 2014.
3. The Titans averaged 1.88 tight ends on the field per snap compared to just 1.64 wide receivers. This is the first game under Ken Whisenhunt the Titans gave tight ends more snaps than they gave wide receivers.
4. I don’t track participation live and don’t trust anything I don’t formally track, but Justin Hunter seemed to be the receiver in a lot of the 1-receiver sets (13/22 personnel). I would expect Wright and Douglas to lead the Titans in snaps at receiver.
5. It was kind of a goofy game. Most of the time teams have a dominating lead they run many more plays than their opponent does. In last year’s season-opening win in Kansas City, the Titans ran 79 plays to the Chiefs’ 59. This game, though, the Titans were up 42-7 and had only run 35 plays in 36-plus minutes. (Pedantic note: snaps are not the same thing as plays. Every play is a snap, but snaps also include, to use examples from the Titans’ second possession, Poutasi’s false start penalty and the Bucs’ neutral zone infraction. The NFL’s count, and therefore these posts, use snaps.) For that reason, I was a bit surprised to see the Titans go to subs on offense as much and as quickly as they did, just so the starters would get more work. But I get why the Titans did what they did.
6. Nothing unusual from the Titans’ personnel-wise on defense, at least on net. The sub package throughout was nickel, with both inside linebackers remaining on the field. Two and precisely two outside linebackers played on pretty much every play.
7. Defensive line rotation was influenced by the large amounts of nickel, or at least that and the game script is why I assume Karl Klug got so many snaps. DaQuan Jones, we’ll see in future weeks just how much of this was game script.
8. Regular feature: nickel CB Blidi Wreh-Wilson 55 snaps, opposing WR3 Russell Shepard 40 snaps. Well, it normally matches up more closely than that. I’ll pay more attention on rewatch how the Titans responded defensively when the Buccaneers lined up in 2 TE (their tight ends played 58, 28, and 6 snaps).
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