According to the NFL's official player participation information, here's how the Titans lined up in Week 9's 28-21 win in St. Louis against the Rams.
Offense (62 total)
QB: Jake Locker 62
RB/FB: Chris Johnson 47, Collin Mooney 28, Shonn Greene 15
TE: Craig Stevens 43, Delanie Walker 29, Taylor Thompson 11
WR: Nate Washington 48, Kendall Wright 47, Justin Hunter 17, Kenny Britt 11, Damian Williams 10
OL: Andy Levitre 62, Mike Otto 62, Michael Roos 62, Brian Schwenke 62, Chance Warmack 62
Defense (70 total)
DE: Derrick Morgan 65, Ropati Pitoitua 40, Kamerion Wimbley 29, Karl Klug 11
DT: Jurrell Casey 61, Sammie Lee Hill 30, Mike Martin 25, Antonio Johnson 14
LB: Akeem Ayers 70, Zach Brown 68, Colin McCarthy 42
CB: Jason McCourty 70, Alterraun Verner 70, Coty Sensabaugh 33
S: Bernard Pollard 70, George Wilson 70
Patrick Bailey, Jackie Battle, Beau Brinkley, Tommie Campbell, Zaviar Gooden, Corey Lynch, Chris Spencer, Daimion Stafford, and Byron Stingily each only appeared on special teams. Ryan Fitzpatrick was active but did not appear in the game.
After the jump, the normal collection of thoughts, observations, and the like.
1. 62 offensive plays still a below-average amount. Some of that was for good reasons, like the one play touchdown drive for the game-winning score. But the only drives in the game the Titans had multiple first downs on were the other three touchdown drives. Other than that possession, it was no first downs or one and punt. When you talk "wasted" yardage that doesn't occur on scoring drives, the Titans didn't have many of those. The Rams didn't either, granted.
2. A season-high in snap for Mooney, who previously topped out at 21 in Week 4 against the Jets. This was also the first game since then he was on the field on offense more than 6 times. Yes, this was a game where the Titans could run the ball, in terms of both blocking and the game situations.
3. Craig Stevens 43 snaps, second-most in any game. Delanie Walker 29 snaps, 47% of the time, after playing at least 2/3 of the time in every previous game. Related to injury? Nope, Stevens was the one listed as questionable on the OIR while Walker was healthy. In-game injury? Not that I've heard of. This may be partly a function of the game situation, but this feels like the result of self-scouting to me.
4. I expected Damian Williams' role on offense to diminish a lot now that he's the return man, and we saw precisely that, with a season-low 10 snaps. From what I saw, Justin Hunter is now the single receiver on the field in 22 personnel packages, which means I'm now expecting the Titans to pull out that play-action bomb the Packers like to run from that look.
5. Rob Turner's benching for Brian Schwenke kind of ruined the streak, so Mike Otto playing for David Stewart just meant less line continuity, but the Titans still have not had to deal with any in-game offensive line changes yet this year.
6. Lavar Edwards: from 54 snaps to healthy inactive. I get it, since he's Derrick Morgan's backup, more or less, and Morgan was healthy enough to play a lot, but at the same time I don't get it at such a rotational position.
7. With Akeem Ayers playing the MLB role in sub packages, Jerry Gray now gets to note the Titans have played three Mike linebackers this year. Just for the record, I don't mind playing Zach Brown at WLB in sub, especially since he was still on the field this week. To me, playing Ayers there says plenty about Colin McCarthy.
8. Coty Sensabaugh 33 snaps, Rams WR3 (in terms of usage) Tavon Austin 29 snaps. Close enough for me. The Rams did plenty of receiver rotation, plus they also played a lot of 2TE sets, with Jared Cook flexed wide.
9. In base situations, George Wilson lined up plenty in the same deep single-high look we've gotten used to seeing from Michael Griffin.
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