COLUMN: Titans' Bye Week Rest Yields Positive Results in Shutout Win Over Jaguars
NASHVILLE, Tenn. ⏤ Coming off their much-needed Week 13 bye, several Tennessee Titans players spoke of feeling rejuvenated from the time off, including QB Ryan Tannehill. "I know that guys are excited to get going again," Tannehill said. "Mentally refreshed, physically refreshed, and excited to get playing." That refreshment was evident in the Titans' shutout […]
NASHVILLE, Tenn. ⏤ Coming off their much-needed Week 13 bye, several Tennessee Titans players spoke of feeling rejuvenated from the time off, including QB Ryan Tannehill.
"I know that guys are excited to get going again," Tannehill said. "Mentally refreshed, physically refreshed, and excited to get playing."
That refreshment was evident in the Titans' shutout win over the Jaguars on Sunday, a game Tennessee controlled from start to finish.
RUNNING OUT OF JUICE
The Titans' performances in their two games ahead of their bye, both disappointing losses, were out-of-character; the team looked nothing like the version of itself that began the 2021 season 8-2.
In those two games, Tennessee turned the ball over an embarrassing nine times offensively while getting none on defense. They made life entirely too easy for opposing quarterbacks, looked generally lethargic, and their pileup of injuries began to mount in a fairly concerning way.
In short: the team was running out of juice.
Against Jacksonville on Sunday, after a week off, virtually all was well for Tennessee.
"We kind of got back to our brand of football a little bit," Tannehill said.
Not only did the Titans' offense keep the ball to itself for the entire game, but the defense intercepted Jacksonville QB Trevor Lawrence a whopping four times.
One of the major factors behind the influx of turnovers, as Vrabel highlighted after the game, was the re-emergence of Tennessee's pass rush, which kept Lawrence under duress all game long.
"You put the guy under pressure and he makes mistakes, and you can only throw it out of bounds so many times," Vrabel said.
"It's about the ability to be able to affect the quarterback and make them make bad decisions."
In addition to the accomplishments that show up in a box score or play-by-play summary, the Titans also looked generally faster and more explosive against Jacksonville than in their two games ahead of the bye.
Safety Kevin Byard, who made multiple nice plays in the Titans' 20-0 win, agreed with that assessment.
"Coming out of the bye week, guys were able to get away and kind of came in refreshed, reenergized," Byard said. "Guys just wanted to have fun today."
READY FOR THE STRETCH RUN
It's important to clarify that Tennessee's performance against Jacksonville wasn't an indication that the team has, in some way, reached savant status.
After all, the Jaguars are one of the NFL's worst teams and entered Sunday's game mired in controversy thanks to the questionable leadership tactics of head coach Urban Meyer.
The Titans also didn't deliver a perfect performance by any stretch, particularly on offense. They scored just three points off Jacksonville's four turnovers, and their running backs averaged just 2.81 yards per carry.
The Titans' effort against Jacksonville did prove, however, that the team is in a generally good place entering the homestretch of the regular season.
Perhaps most importantly, they're getting healthier. WR Julio Jones and LB Rashaan Evans returned from lengthy absences on Sunday, and both made sizable impacts on the win.
RB Jeremy McNichols and RG Nate Davis also resurfaced following time in the NFL concussion protocol.
With A.J. Brown just one week away from being eligible to return and RB Derrick Henry reportedly on track to return before the season's end, the Titans' once dire injury situation seems to be reaching a pleasant and well-timed resolution.
The Titans are more than capable of competing in each of their four remaining games, locking up a second-straight AFC South title and, potentially, grabbing the AFC's No. 1 seed, especially as the AFC's other top teams continue to stumble.
They appear primed and ready for the stretch run, and that wasn't the case two weeks ago.
"We still have some guys that are coming back off of IR and other things," Evans said.
"If we can get everybody back, then these next four games, we've got a good outcome coming up."
Cover image: Andrew Nelles/The Tennessean
