Trends we hate to see - Titans' offensive struggles vs. Cardinals

Yahoo Sports' Matt Harmon and Dalton Del Don discuss the Titans' week 1 struggles vs. AZ, Chandler Jones' epic performance.

Video Transcript

- Trends we hate to see, Ryan Tannehill play action rate on Sunday was 11.6%. In 2020, it was 36.4%, the highest among starting quarterbacks last year. I know the immediate temptation is, well, they fell behind. You know, the Arizona Cardinals were giving it to them. It shouldn't matter that much, OK? That's a bad sign.

I feel-- I have-- I feel really weird about the Titans after week one. I mean, it just was-- it was about as bad of a debut as you can get and, like, to see them go so hard away from the one thing, like play action, that made them so efficient, that is a little disturbing, especially since they changed offensive coordinators to Todd Downing, who has been a coordinator before and does not have, like, a great history.

- Yeah, I'm very concerned. I was concerned end of the year with the move from Arthur Smith to Todd Downey, not that Arthur Smith balled in his debut. But being a head coach has other responsibilities, and I'm not totally going to totally write him off, but this is the concern in Tennessee, for sure. The play action was just so reliant on their success and playing with the lead, obviously, for Derrick Henry.

So Corey Davis last year was top five in yards per route run and top 25 in target share. I mean, the odds were extremely slim that Julio Jones was going to match Tennessee's wide receiver two production from last year, let alone exceed it, like many people were projecting because he's Julio Jones, you know, inner circle Hall of Famer.

They also lost Jonnu Smith. I mean, and their defense stinks, I mean, maybe bottom five units, so, I mean, yeah, there's zero pass rush. So I don't know why-- I mean, the reason teams are-- everyone's picking them to win the division is just because of a battle of attrition.

You know, it's a bad division. This is not a good football team, and I worry about-- obviously, better fantasy days ahead for Tannehill and the receivers and Derrick Henry, but, yeah, man. You can-- you're very concerned about the play caller because the play caller switch is not going to go back suddenly.

- If they don't come out and have, like, a, you know, a huge play action rate, that would be very disturbing in week two. Thing is, too, like, I mean, there is some, like, fluke-y-ness to their week one performance, mostly because of how much Taylor Lewan got his ass kicked by Chandler Jones. And I mean, Chandler Jones, like-- I think I said this on Chris Harris' podcast this morning. Like, Chandler Jones didn't just, like-- you know how, like, Hassan Reddick had, like, a five sack game for the Cardinals last year, but that was one of those, like, he just speed rushed around like a bad tackle.

Chandler Jones was out there, like, doing it every which way. Like, you know, it was like teaching tape, basically, what he was putting on out there. I mean, it was about as good as you could get to the point that he's like-- you can see him on the broadcast copy, like, strutting up and down the sideline because he wants he wants to get paid after they paid JJ Watt all that money.

So good timing for a five sack performance, but you would assume Taylor Lewan at some point is going to get a little more comfortable coming back from an ACL injury. Although Seattle's pass rush looked really good in week one. Seattle, Tennessee, they meet in week two, so I'm not panicking on the Titans yet, but, like, my alarm bells are a little, like-- there's at least-- they're at least spinning.

We're not, like, full siren yet, but they're at least spinning after that week one performance. I don't really know what to think. Hopefully we see these guys just crush it in week two, and we can move on from that. But we shall see.