Tennessee Titans: 2 Major Differences Between the Titans and the Super Bowl Teams
There are two major differences between the 2021 Tennessee Titans and the two teams set to play in the Super Bowl on Sunday. GET HIM THE BALL! First, the Rams and Bengals consistently make a concerted effort to give their best pass-catchers the ball in a way that the Titans don't. In the NFC Championship, […]
There are two major differences between the 2021 Tennessee Titans and the two teams set to play in the Super Bowl on Sunday.
GET HIM THE BALL!
First, the Rams and Bengals consistently make a concerted effort to give their best pass-catchers the ball in a way that the Titans don't.
In the NFC Championship, both of the Rams' top offensive playmakers, WRs Cooper Kupp and Odell Beckham Jr., were highly involved.
Kupp turned 14 targets into 11 catches for 142 yards and two touchdowns. Beckham turned 11 targets into nine catches for 113 yards.
While WR Ja'Marr Chase didn't put up huge numbers in the AFC Championship or the divisional round, he certainly did in Cincinatti's wildcard game, when he turned 12 targets into 116 yards.
The Bengals also featured Chase prominently throughout the regular season, averaging nearly eight touches per game.
Tennessee, on the other hand, doesn't give their best receiver, A.J. Brown, enough chances to possess the ball.
There is certainly the occasional game when the Titans can't seem to get the ball to Brown enough, such as when he set a record for third-down receptions against the 49ers in Week 15.
Overall, though, the Titans don't give Brown enough chances to touch the ball.
Luckily, he consistently makes big plays when given the opportunity. But he just doesn't get enough of those opportunities.
While Brown's targets-per-game rate was higher than Chase's in the 2021 regular season, far too many of those targets came on long-developing or other difficult plays that didn't work out.
Brown is such a lethal threat with the ball in his hands that the Titans have to do a better job of not just targeting him but getting him the football. Five catches, Brown's total in the Titans' lone playoff game of the 2021 season, isn't going to cut it.
THE DIFFERENCE UNDER CENTER
Second, Los Angeles and Cincinnati both have quarterbacks who have seized the moment in the postseason, whereas the Titans have one who never really has.
QBs Matthew Stafford and Joe Burrow haven't exactly been savants for their respective teams throughout the playoffs, but each has made key plays when their team most needed them.
The best example comes from Burrow, whose tackle-breaking, 8-yard scramble on a third-and-7 during the fourth quarter of the AFC Championship kept the Bengals' go-ahead drive alive.
Most importantly, though, Burrow and Stafford have been safe with the football. They've combined for just two turnovers in six playoff games, not including Titans safety Amani Hooker's acrobatic interception of a deflected Burrow pass in the divisional round.
Titans QB Ryan Tannehill was neither safe nor reliable in big moments in the Titans' playoff loss to the Bengals.
He threw three interceptions and, when the team needed him most, fell short.
Falling short in the playoffs has become a theme with Tannehill; it's happened three years in a row.
And while the shortcomings certainly aren't all his fault, he's the quarterback⏤the most important position on the field. A lot of responsibility rests on his shoulders.
So far in the postseason, he hasn't carried that responsibility terribly well.
The Rams' and Bengals' signal callers, on the other hand, have. That's why they're still playing.
- Burrow image: Denny Medley
- Kupp image: Gary A. Vasquez/USA Today
- Brown image: Christopher Hanewinckel/USA Today
