The Tennessee Titans had every opportunity to hang with the Baltimore Ravens in Week 4.

Cam Ward has been a big story nationally for how much he has struggled, but Sunday felt different. If you ask A to Z Sports’ Austin Stanley, the most disappointing aspect of the week wasn’t the young quarterback at all. It was Brian Daboll’s situational play calling.

Ward was good against Baltimore. The Titans piled up over 200 yards of offense in the first half, and they should have been in that game. Instead, Tennessee found itself down 24-7 because of three big mistakes. None of them were made by Ward.

The first came on the second offensive play of the game, when a pass went off running back Tony Pollard’s hands and turned into an interception. The Ravens went up 7-0, and the Titans answered with a solid drive of their own.

That is where things went sideways.

Brian Daboll’s Wildcat call on fourth-and-goal

Daboll was supposed to come in and elevate Ward. He was billed as the quarterback guru who helped Josh Allen become the player everyone knows today. That’s the book on Daboll right now.

Instead, Daboll has botched two big situations inside the 10-yard line in his first four games calling plays for Ward. Stanley just can’t defend either of them.

The one in Week 4 came on fourth-and-goal from the 2-yard line with Tennessee trailing 14-7. He was fine with the decision to go for it there and try to tie the game. He was also fine with running the ball.

You cannot, however, put Pollard in a Wildcat look in that spot. It removes any threat of a pass and telegraphs everything about the play. The Ravens stuffed it.

That was a chance to tie the game at 14 on the road against a better team with Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry on the other sideline. The Titans walked away with nothing.

It’s the 2nd time in 4 games

This wasn’t an isolated misstep. Two weeks ago against the Philadelphia Eagles, Daboll made a bad play call inside the 10 with the clock winding down and timeouts in play. Tennessee had a chance to score a touchdown with roughly two minutes left, and that sequence fell apart.

Overall, Stanley doesn’t hate the offense as a whole from a play-calling standpoint. He thought Sunday was fine outside of that moment. These high-leverage situations, though, are exactly where Daboll is supposed to be better for his young quarterback.

He has failed him twice in four games, according to Stanley.

The case for giving Daboll a pass

Easton Freeze pushed back hard on this take. He went back and watched the tape and came away impressed with what Daboll did against the Ravens on the whole. He liked how Daboll sequenced his calls, set up plays to succeed later in drives, and leaned on the quick game early to get Ward easy looks.

Freeze also believes Daboll doesn’t fully trust Ward yet, and he thinks the red zone approach showed it. Tennessee ran three times to get down to the 1- or 2-yard line before dialing up what he called an overthought, overdesigned Wildcat play.

He agrees it was a bad call. His argument is that two missed high-leverage moments in four games is simply what an average NFL play caller looks like, and that the recent criticism of Daboll feels like classic fan scapegoating in hindsight.

He understands the point. He just doesn’t buy the hindsight argument.

Even if that Wildcat had worked, Stanley still wouldn’t like it. It was the most obvious thing not to do in that spot, according to Stanley. It is a coach’s job to put his players in the best situation to win any given snap, and Daboll didn’t do that on fourth-and-goal at the 2 on the road in Baltimore.

He’s not blaming him for the Ravens marching 97 yards down the field. He also isn’t pinning the entire loss on one call. Daboll has one job in those moments, and he’s supposed to be better than this.

Stanley hold him to a higher standard because of the reputation he brought to Tennessee. Right now, he isn’t meeting it when it matters most in his estimation.