The inactives are out for today’s game at MetLife Stadium as the Tennessee Titans travel to the New York Jets, and here they are:
NEW YORK JETS: SS Dion Bailey, OL Dakota Dozier, OL Ben Ijalana, LB Josh Martin, QB Bryce Petty, WR Kenbrell Thompkins, CB Marcus Williams
TENNESSEE TITANS: DE Mike Martin, T/G Jamon Meredith, OLB Derrick Morgan, DE Ropati Pitoitua, RB Bishop Sankey, CB Blidi Wreh-Wilson, WR Kendall Wright
For the Titans, Martin, Morgan, and Wright were out. Yannik Cudjoe-Virgil was declared so as well on Friday, then he went to injured reserve Saturday and J.R. Tavai was promoted to take his place. He’s up and will take on YCV’s role of playing whenever David Bass and/or Brian Orakpo absolutely has to have a rest. Like YCV, we barely got a chance to see Tavai in the preseason; Justin Staples is likely the emergency option if they’re not confident in him. Sankey and Wreh-Wilson are both healthy scratches, which really reminds me I have a couple of posts about Ruston Webster in the planning stages I really need to sit down and crank out.
The Jets had a zillion players (actual number: 11) listed as probable, most of them starters and all of whom except Bailey dress. Williams was questionable with a knee injury. For December, that’s a pretty healthy 53. Darrelle Revis was expected to play after returning to practice from his concussion, and he’s up.
Jets scouting report? Ryan Fitzpatrick is the quarterback. We know him. Eric Decker and Brandon Marshall are the starting receivers, and they’re both good fits for what he does. They’re 11th in passing offense DVOA and 23rd in rushing offense. Chris Ivory is a good power back, but he hasn’t been consistently successful this season. Today will be a good test for the Titans run defense. I mentioned on Twitter a couple days ago the Titans in the five games of the Mike Mularkey era are 15th in offensive DVOA and 27th in defensive DVOA. Reversing the trend of the start of the season, the run defense has actually been okay (16th), while the pass defense has been problematic (29th).
The Jets’ pass defense, at least the last three games, has taken the same sort of swan dive the Titans’ has, though not quite as extreme. Still, it’s hard for me to see the Titans have much success offensively today. They won’t be able to run the ball at all; they haven’t against even some pretty favorable matchups, and New York is a pretty unfavorable one. They’ll probably look to Delanie Walker a lot, and hope Dorial Green-Beckham and company (which may or may not include Andrew Turzilli, making his NFL debut, and Tre McBride on offense) can make a couple plays. I don’t like that matchup for the Titans most weeks, and New York is not one of those there either. Add in Todd Bowles’ blitzes, and any Titans win is a likely to be a low-scoring affair.
The current line is Jets -8, up a point from when I checked it around last weekend. My intuition said it should’ve gone up from the touchdown it was, maybe even more than it should have. I may be overrating New York, and this is apparently the first time they’ve been favored by 7 or more since 2011 or so, but I feel like this could be a very ugly game. The biggest saving grace for the Titans’ is the weather, in the upper 60’s at last check. But at -8, Hypothetical Tom Who Bets is still happy to take the Jets.
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