Mike McCoy’s cowardly decision in Colts beatdown is everything wrong with this listless Titans team trying to build up Cam Ward

Tennessee Titans interim head coach Mike McCoy will catch some heat after the beatdown his team just suffered in Indianapolis. No, it won’t be because they got throttled by the red-hot Colts. Everybody in the world saw that one coming.

But a big part of what got former head coach Brian Callahan in hot water with this fanbase was his decision-making on Sundays. “Cowardice” is a word that’s been thrown around a lot for this coaching staff during what has been a painful, listless season. And for the most part, it’s been a fair description.

In the third quarter of Week 8, Callahan’s replacement did something more scared and conservative than anything his predecessor did. And his young quarterback was caught on the broadcast, extremely upset over it.

Mike McCoy’s decision to punt is everything wrong with the Titans

The Titans came out of halftime with a 5% win probability, according to NFL Pro, despite only trailing by 10 points. Decisions like the one McCoy made in the third quarter helped back that idea up. On fourth and 3, from the enemy’s 42-yard line, trailing by double digits, McCoy sent out the punt team.

After the punt cleared the goal line for a touchback, it saved the Titans’ defense a whopping 22 yards of field position. Everything available to us says this is an incredibly foolish decision; analytics, manalytics, logic, and in this case, even the Titans’ rookie quarterback, whom McCoy elected to take off the field.

Cam Ward was caught on the TV broadcast shouting what appeared to be some choice words in the direction of his coaching staff. The internet’s ability to crowdsource lip-reading thinks Ward said something to the effect of “The [expletive] we doing, Mike? Go for it!”.

Whatever it is that he said, everybody watching this thrashing of a “game” generally felt the same way that Ward clearly did. Oh, and on the first play of the Colts’ next drive, Jonathan Taylor took it to the house on an 80-yard rushing touchdown. So much for winning the field position game!

This team, specifically the decision-makers on the coaching staff, has to open up the offense. I am begging them to lean into going down swinging. I understand that when you’re a bad football team, taking risks is a good way to let the game get out of hand quickly.

But if you’re going to get crushed every weekend anyway, what good do these slow, boring deaths do for you? You aren’t good enough to beat most of the teams on your schedule by simply playing good, clean football. You have to be aggressive if you want to stand a chance; that’s your current reality. I hope that McCoy realizes this for all of our sakes.