The Titans and third downs

In case you haven’t heard, the Titans are currently last in the league in third-down conversion percentage. I ended up writing about third downs separately this week, so I thought it was worth taking a look at some of what’s going on with the Titans’ terrible third-down performance.

1. The Titans are facing more third-and-long situations. All third downs are not created equal. Teams are much more likely to convert third-and-1 than they are third-and-10 (about twice as likely, based on 2013 data). The best way to convert third downs is to do better on first and second downs. The Titans are not doing well on first and second downs, so even if they were completely average on third downs, they would be worse than the average team on third-down conversion percentage. Is this just “bad offense is bad”? Well, that’s definitely part of it.

2. Third-and-short has not been a big problem. The Titans have had 10 plays of third-and-short (one to three yards to go). They’ve converted half of them. That’s close enough to league average, and a respectable performance. The problem is not Shonn Greene.

3. The Titans have been really bad on third-and-medium. Four to six yards to go, teams normally convert almost half of the time (about 44% in 2013). The Titans are converting half of that.

4. This is partly a product in small sample size theater. That third-and-medium conversion stat? Two conversions on nine attempts. Especially at this point in the season, one or two plays is the difference between an average performance and dismal numbers when you slice up many play-by-play datasets, and that’s particularly true here.

5. The Titans are bad in third-and-long. But if there is a dataset that’s more reliable, it’s that 60% of the time the Titans have been in third-and-long. They’ve converted less than 20% of the time on those, which is not very good.

6. The Titans have an above-average number of third-and-11+, where conversions are particularly unlikely. Third-and-10 converts 30% of the time, 11-15 converts 20% of the time, 16+ converts 10% of the time. Those are rough numbers, but they’re useful guidelines-as you go past third-and-10, the likely conversion rate drops off precipitously. Well, the Titans have been in those bad situations more often than most. Twenty-four percent of their third down attempts (11 of 47) have come in third-and-11+ compared to 18% leaguewide in 2013. And how many conversions to the Titans have on those? Absolutely zero.

7. The Titans aren’t running the ball on third-and-more than one. Titans runs on third down: McCluster for 0 on third-and-1, Greene for 3 on third-and-1, Greene for 6 on third-and-12, Washington for 7 on third-and-17, Washington for 16 on third-and-20. I count that as two runs on third-and-1 and three give-up runs. That’s 93% pass on third-and-more than one, including 100% pass with 2-10 yards to go. It reminds me of 2011, when the Titans were 94% pass in similar situations. The difference is, back then Matt Hasselbeck was pretty darn efficient on third downs, so throwing that much made sense. Jake Locker and Charlie Whitehurst have been not very good at all, so running so infrequently doesn’t seem to make much sense. Yes, I’m having a hard time believing I’m writing the Titans should run the ball more often after what we’ve seen most of the Tennessee era, but that does in fact seem to be what they should do.