10 things from Titans-Chargers, including Ryan Tannehill telling us all to hush | Estes

Spending some extra quality time with the Tennessee Titans’ 27-24 overtime victory over the Los Angeles Chargers:

1. Be honest now: Did you lose faith in quarterback Ryan Tannehill? It’s OK if you did. That opener in New Orleans was bad enough. Consider yourself reminded, however, that it was an outlier in Tannehill’s Titans tenure, which more often has resembled what he did Sunday.

Basically, Tannehill told everyone to hush. He completed 20 of 24 passes – an 83.3% completion percentage was the second-best mark of all games in his NFL career – despite being under way too much pressure from the Chargers. They hit him hard. They sacked him five times.

Thus the following critique of Tannehill from Titans coach Mike Vrabel: “One of the toughest players on our team.”

“I know we got a bunch of tough guys,” Vrabel said, “but he stood in there and got the (expletive) knocked out of him a couple times late. And I respect the heck out of it.”

2. One play stands out to illustrate Vrabel’s thoughts. With 3:50 remaining and the Titans trailing 21-17, Tannehill stood in there on a critical third-and-4 and completed a pass to DeAndre Hopkins while getting crunched by Kenneth Murray Jr., who was flagged for roughing the passer. Three plays later, Tannehill found Nick Westbrook-Ikhine in the end zone – also on third down – for a go-ahead score.

3. The Titans were 6-of-13 on third down Sunday. The Chargers were 2-of-14. In locating the difference in a game in which neither team turned the ball over and only 1 yard separated them (LA 342, Tennessee 341) on the stat sheet, third down is a good place to start.

4. The Chargers were also 2-of-5 in scoring TDs in the red zone. To that point, here's a sample of what LA's team had to say about the Titans' defense:

Coach Brandon Staley: “Their front is really good, tough to block and we just didn't do a good enough job for that.”

Quarterback Justin Herbert: “They're very good. They’re a good defense. They have a good front seven.”

Defensive star Joey Bosa: “They have a hell of a defense, obviously.”

I'd say the Chargers came away impressed with the Titans’ defensive front.

5. It’s still early, but kicker Nick Folk is proving to be quite the last-minute pickup. Folk has 24 of the Titans’ 42 points thus far. Not only did he boot the game-winning field goal from 41 yards Sunday, but he also sent four of his five kickoffs into the end zone for a touchback.

One of those touchbacks was to start overtime, and the one kickoff that didn’t reach the end zone was fielded at the 1-yard line. That’s shooting down the “Folk can’t kick it far enough” gripes that accompanied his arrival.

6. Sticking with special teams, Titans punter Ryan Stonehouse ended up with a 61.2-yard average on Sunday's five punts. Read that last sentence again.

It’s incredible.

Ray Guy, who is generally considered the best punter ever, never had a game with an average better than 57.6. Michael Dickson is the NFL's all-time leader at 47.7 yards per punt (with a minimum number of attempts). Stonehouse’s average last season was 53.1 yards.

Now I know what you’re thinking: What’s the net? Stonehouse’s net average was 44.6, more than 7 yards better Sunday than the Chargers’ JK Scott.

7. In case anyone needs to hear this, Titans safety Kevin Byard is still good, y’all.

Byard totaled 12 combined tackles in Sunday’s game (seven were solo), matching his career high. He has now reached 12 tackles in four games, all of them in the past three seasons. On a third-and-4 in the fourth quarter, Byard instantly diagnosed a run play and sprinted into the gap to deliver a big lick, standing up the runner and forcing a punt. It was a heck of a downhill stop by a heck of a Titans player.

8. Derrick Henry got 25 carries on Sunday, while Tyjae Spears only got eight. But I wouldn't pay attention to that – or snap counts, for that matter – as much as the fact that Spears averaged 6.1 yards. Henry averaged 3.2. That's not a knock on Henry. It’s indicative of the roles the Titans envision for these two running backs.

Here’s what the Titans think of Spears: A rookie in his second NFL game was handed the football on the first offensive snap of overtime. Spears rewarded the decision by running 14 yards. You need to involve someone who’s capable of doing that for an offense. You also need to feature a player like Henry. The Titans, so far, have shown they are committed to doing both. And I like it.

9. Afterward, for a column I wrote on Dillon Radunz’s return, I asked Titans defensive lineman Jeffery Simmons about the pressure of being picked high in the draft.

“That doesn't matter anymore,” Simmons told me, pointing to the locker next to him, where Teair Tart was seated. “This guy right here right beside me was undrafted. He's doing a lot of things for our defense. It doesn't matter if you got picked high.”

Simmons is right. With about eight minutes remaining in regulation, Tart whipped an offensive lineman for an impressive TFL.

10. After two games, the biggest concern about the Titans is what it was expected to be: The pass protection. Against the Saints and the Chargers, it got better as the game progressed, but no team wants a quarterback getting hit the way Tannehill has been so far this season.

REPORT CARD: Tennessee Titans grades vs. L.A. Chargers:

“It's a bunch of different guys that have never played together,” left tackle Andre Dillard said, “but we're a bunch of guys that we know how to work. We give it our best every single day. It's not always pretty up to this point, but we're getting it done. …

“As the game went along, we started to find our groove a little bit better. There's little hiccups here and there, but we're going to get it fixed.”

Reach Tennessean sports columnist Gentry Estes at gestes@tennessean.com and on the X platform (formerly known as Twitter) @Gentry_Estes.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Ryan Tannehill leads the list of Titans-Chargers takeaways