Titans-Jaguars inactives, gameday thread

The inactives are out for today’s game at EverBank Stadium between the Tennessee Titans and the Jacksonville Jaguars, and here they are:

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS: DE Andre Branch, S Matt Daniels, CB Jeremy Harris, DT Roy Miller, G Tyler Shatley, WR Tommy Streeter, CB Teddy Williams

TENNESSEE TITANS: ILB Zaviar Gooden, OT Terren Jones, OT Taylor Lewan, DL Mike Martin, OLB Dontay Moch, QB Zach Mettenberger, DB Jemea Thomas

For the Titans, Lewan and Mettenberger were doubtful and were not expected to play. Dexter McCluster went to injured reserve, creating a roster space for practice squad receiver Rico Richardson. With Kendall Wright back in the lineup, they’ll have a couple more wide receivers up than they did last week. Commentary on Kris Durham and Derek Hagan, who did not catch any of the five passes officially thrown in his direction last week? Martin is a healthy inactive again, after Ken Whisenhunt praised DaQuan Jones’ play last week in his press conference on Monday.

For the Jaguars, the big question was whether Blake Bortles, questionable with a foot injury, would play. He’s active and reportedly starting, so that question is answered. Miller and Streeter are the questionable players down for them.

When it comes to tonight’s game, the first question is how the Titans choose to play. Do they think they’re good enough to beat Jacksonville straight up? They might. Defensively, the Jaguars have been solid outside of some shaky safety play, particularly by Josh Evans. How do the Titans take advantage of that? Through the air, I’d guess, possibly targeting Delanie Walker in particular. By DVOA, though, their weaknesses have been particularly again opposing #1 wide receivers and #3 wide receivers, which would suggest more of a Kendall Wright in the slot gameplan. Ken Whisenhunt and Jason Michael will do what they do, though, so I do not expect this to be a “97 shallow crosses to Kendall Wright for a 17-14 win” game.

For the people who wanted to see a “Bishop Sankey gets all the touches” game, doing it this week makes a lot more sense than doing it last week would have; I contest the premise of that question, though, since the primary reason Sankey doesn’t have 20 carries in a game yet is he hasn’t been effective enough to give him the ball 20 times a game. With McCluster on IR, though, there is a bit of a void at pass-catching back, and they could give those snaps to Sankey instead of Leon Washington.

On the other side of the ball, Ray Horton mentioned in his weekly press conference the Jaguars tend to run a lot of the same plays over a lot of the same formation. Especially on a short week, that probably won’t change. From that, I think Horton thinks he and the coaching staff have a very good grasp of what the Jaguars are likely to try to do on offense, which would mean it’s up to the players to execute. Notwithstanding a positive performance last week, even considering it’s the Jets, I don’t think this defense can do it.  The Jaguars were more consistently successful than the Titans were in the previous game, and that Titans defense was in better shape. The challenge for Jacksonville will be staying out of their own way, not shooting themselves in the foot, and to take avoid game-losing mistakes. Nobody expects this to be a high-scoring game (over/under of 39), and a defensive score on either side could easily be the difference.

I’ll be yapping about the game on Twitter, so follow and yell at me there if you so desire. Recap up after the game, snap report Monday, list of notable Titans who may be playing their final game at home before next week’s game, and more other content as time, interest in writing about a bad team closing out the season, and desire to get away from Adorable Short People suggest.