Titans-Bengals: Recapping a dominant win for Tennessee
The Tennessee Titans are an entirely different team at home in the Music City than they are on the road. The team lost in Week 1 at New Orleans when Ryan Tannehill decided to forget how to play football. Then, the team had a great bounce-back performance in Week 2 at home against the Chargers.
The team was then on the road again, this time against Cleveland. Want to guess what happened? The Titans got absolutely blown out. The offense looked anemic, pathetic, lackluster, embarrassing, etc. But then, the Titans returned home for Week 4 and became the good Titans again.
The Titans blew the doors off of the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday, winning 27-3. It was nice, for once, to see a team OTHER than the Titans look completely inept on offense. Without further ado, let’s get to our takeaways for this week.
Tannehill was efficient albeit not spectacular
Tannehill has not had another stinker like he did in Week 1, and the team is 2-1 since as a result. Nothing Tannehill did will jump off of the page, but that’s okay when the defense and run game are working.
RT finished the day 18/25 for 240 yards with 1 TD and 1 INT. The INT was in garbage time and didn’t matter. Other than that, Tannehill played perfectly and there’s nothing to complain about. This is exactly what we need from RT.
This defense is very good
The Titans held the mighty Joe Burrow to just 165 passing yards with 0 TDs. On paper, it would’ve been easy to assume Ja’Marr Chase would have a monster day, but he did not. Chase ended with 7 catches for 73 yards, which is a huge win for the Titans.
Burrow’s life was a living hell thanks to the Titans’ defensive line. There’s not one player we can point to on the Titan defense who didn’t play well. Even Kristian Fulton had a nice bounce-back, which was good to see.
If the Titans can continue to play defense like this, they will be a tough out all season.
This team believes in Vrabel
After getting thoroughly demolished last Sunday, it would’ve been easy for the players to check out. Instead, the Titans stuck together and came out and dominated. No matter how much crap we give Vrabel for his coach-speak nonsense, obviously, the players buy into it.
The players looked disheveled against the Browns and completely looked like a different team against the Bengals. I’m not saying we won’t have more low points in the season, but this team seems to always bounce back eventually.
Now, let’s see what our buddy Code Orange thought about the game:
Joe Burrow may not be at 100% and that could be a factor in yesterday’s offensive struggles for the Bengals. But let’s not discredit our defense for deciding to show up on Sunday. We already know the offense flows smoother when Henry gets more touches especially when he carries the ball 20 or more times. He might need to throw his name into the discussion of throwing a few more TDs because all in all, it helps take the pressure off Tannehill. (Pure sarcasm) There is a lot of season left to be played we are currently 2-2 along with everyone else in our division. Let’s continue to grow in key areas, for one the offensive line took a step forward in my opinion. The receiving core while missing Treylon Burks looked ready to go, could be a sense of urgency, or maybe the Bengals’ secondary is not that great. Our running game speaks for itself. I do love the addition of Tyjae Spears in the passing game. Listen we all know Ryan Tannehill is not going to throw for 400 yards and 5 touchdowns every single game. But if he can manage more games the way yesterday was handled, I believe we have a solid chance to take this division.