Raiders @ Titans

[Vin+ 3,121]

STATS LLC Associated Press

Sep 21, 2016

 

To the Tennessee Titans, it mattered little that they spent the first three quarters of last week's game in Detroit flailing and failing like the team that's gone 5-27 the previous two years.

 

What mattered most at the end of a decidedly inelegant game was this: In the fourth quarter, Tennessee put together two touchdown drives, came up with the big stop in the last minute and left Ford Field with a 16-15 win.

 

"Being around here, we haven't won many games like that," cornerback Jason McCourty said. "Hopefully, that will turn stuff around. I think the one thing this year is that we honestly believed and we thought throughout that whole game that we'd be able to pull it out. Then to do it, now we know we can."

 

Tennessee (1-1) will try for its first back-to-back wins since 2013 Sunday when it hosts the Oakland Raiders at Nissan Stadium. Coincidentally, that was also the last year the Titans sniffed any kind of playoff contention, although they turned a 3-1 start into a 7-9 finish that resulted in the firing of coach Mike Munchak.

 

Oakland (1-1) followed up a dramatic 35-34 win in Week 1 at New Orleans with a come-from-ahead 35-28 loss last week to Atlanta. The Raiders' defense has allowed more than 1,000 yards in the two games, leading to some serious questions.

 

In fact, coach Jack Del Rio took over the defense in the fourth quarter from coordinator Ken Norton, Jr., then said Monday that changes were coming. But Del Rio said he isn't planning to run the defense this week.

 

"I think for us, it's about us," he said. "It's a collective effort. We all share in it so I'm not going to throw any one person under the bus. It's not any one person that's at fault here. Collectively, as a group, we have to pick it up."

 

Tennessee would seem to be an ideal foe to pick it up against. While the Titans have shown flashes of being the team coach Mike Mularkey envisioned in preseason, they've only managed 16 points in each of their first two games.

 

In quarterback Marcus Mariota, running back DeMarco Murray, tight end Delanie Walker and rookie wide receiver Tajae Sharpe, Tennessee has more pieces offensively than it's had in a few years. But critical mistakes had tripped it up until the fourth quarter in Detroit.

 

There, Mariota threw two touchdown passes and completed all nine of his attempts for 74 yards on the game-winning drive, giving the Titans only their sixth win since the 2014 season's beginning.

 

"We have to build off this win and show up at our home game," Walker said. "We have to protect our house."

 

That's been much easier said than done for Tennessee, which is 2-15 in its last 17 games at home, dating back to the 2014 home opener. Its two wins in that span have been one-possession verdicts against equally bad Jacksonville.

 

Oakland is one of many teams to leave Nashville with a win in the last two-plus years, rallying late to take a 24-21 decision on Nov. 30, 2015, as Derek Carr found Seth Roberts for a late touchdown pass.

 

Carr already boasts 618 yards and four touchdown passes in two games, while wide receiver Amari Cooper has 208 yards. The presence of Michael Crabtree and Roberts keeps teams from constantly doubling Cooper, and Latavius Murray offers a ground threat that prevents opponents from concentrating solely on the passing game.

 

"We know the challenge they pose and how good they are offensively," McCourty said. "They are going to come in here hungry after they lost a tough one to Atlanta. So it's going to be a tough challenge for us."

 

The challenge will be equally difficult for the Raiders if they don't start generating some 3-and-outs, as well as big plays, on defense. The Titans are certain to emphasize Walker in the game plan after Falcon tight ends combined for 180 yards on 10 receptions last week.

 

Del Rio might insert rookies Karl Joseph and Cory James at safety and inside linebacker, respectively, and could also bench cornerback Sean Smith. Even linebacker Khalil Mack, the leader of the defense, has been neutralized with only two pressures and no sacks the first two weeks.

 

Like his teammates, Mack is chagrined at the defense's play.

 

"A thousand yards," he said. "Being the leader of this defense, that hurts."

 

[Cherry 1,302]

33

 

21

[RazorStar 4,025]

Exotic Smashmouth is gonna run for 200+ on the Raiders. Lol

 

30

21

[Vin+ 3,121]

 

Raiders CB David Amerson (concussion) is active for Week 3 against the Titans.

Amerson was able to gain clearance over the weekend.

Inactive for the Raiders are OT Austin Howard, QB Connor Cook, CB Dexter McDonald, CB Antonio Hamilton, OT Matt McCants, and TE Mychal Rivera.

 

 

 

 

Delanie Walker (hamstring) is inactive for Week 3 against the Raiders.

It's a huge blow for the Titans' offense and probably means Tajae Sharpe will get the lion's share of targets. Look for Phillip Supernaw and Anthony Fasano to handle tight end duties for the Titans.

Also inactive for the Titans are WR Kendall Wright (hamstring), CB Curtis Riley, CB LeShaun Sims, OLB Aaron Wallace, OG Sebastian Tretola, and DT Austin Johnson.

[Thanatos 2,847]

Due to injuries, I am rolling with Tajae Sharp in fantasy. With Walker out, Titans need to feed their best player.

[ATL_Predator+ 1,196]

What a game this was.

 

Offensively:

 

Offensive line did great against Dick Lebeau who was dialing it up and with no run game due to the Titan's run D I thought we did very well. Had some really annoying penalties..such as Vadal not lining up on the LOS...I get he's a rookie but that's unacceptable at this level. Derek Carr's turnover wasn't his fault at all. Ball got deflected and popped up in the air for like what felt like for a minute and Williamson made a good play.

 

Defensively:

 

I think we really took some good steps forward considering how the past 2 weeks went..but I'm not really going to put too much into it as the Titans were missing Delanie..who you could tell was severely missed as Jace Amaro and Mariota didn't seem to be on the same page for much of the game.

 

I LOVE LOVE what Karl Joseph brings, his speed, effort, and the way he hits is special. Saw him in a limited role but he really impressed.

 

David Amerson is really taking strides to become and elite CB in this league, glad we locked him up. The guy play great all day and had some very timely 3rd down deflections.

 

Khalil Mack I was disappointed in. He had 2 offside/neutral zone infraction penalties and one of those was on third down. As the leader of our Defense you can't do that. He did come in later and was getting pressure on Mariota. These teams are really getting two him with these double and triple teams...which leads to my next statement..

 

Our interior defensive line needs to step it up. Our oustside backers in Mack and Smith are getting pressure but there's nothing going up the middle. Dan Williams needs to get his ass in shape.

 

 

DJ Hayden actually made some good plays as well. Hate the guy but he made one real great read on a play before it even started and it ended up in a big loss for the Titans which made it like 3rd and 20.

 

Special team:

 

King is a monster, really won the battle of field position for us today

 

Seabass? What can I say? Today he became the all time leader in kickers for FGM from 50+. Father time has been generous.

 

Overall:

 

It was an average win, lots of room for improvement, but we have to start somehwere. It was good seeing us generate turnovers on defense. Baltimore will be an interesting test for us next week.

 

Also.. Mike Mularkey is the worst HC in the NFL. Terrible clock management. Terrible 2 minute drives...I genuinely feel bad for Titan fans. They have a talented defense that was on the field a lot today..but some of the HC decisions really REALLY fucked them over in a winnable game for them.

[56AceInDaPlace 110]

We have improved the run game big time. Biggest plus for us this year so far.

 

Mike Mularkey continues to hurt Mariota and this passing offense by playing slow and out of rhythm so much.

 

Mariota looks so uncomfortable when playing slow , because he is used to playing fast. In all 3 games he has shown to be ON POINT with his game when it's uptempo. Drove down the field last week to win and almost this week.

 

Lewans dumbass play hurt us because we were at the 2! Raiders did get away with a obvious DPI on Douglas at the end too. It didn't lose us the game but it hurt just as bad.

 

Having Walker sit out makes it worse. We win this game IMO with him in. Raiders don't have anybody to stop him.

 

Again, coaching staff makes zero adjustments and continue to run bs plays that don't work. They haven't and never will. Clock management, ugh... In professional sports that should NEVER happen.

 

While the Raiders seemed to outplay us, it wasn't by much. Held them to 17 points. That's tough to do considering they averaged almost 30 their first two games. Carr is a hell of a qb and they will be contenders soon, if they get that defense in order.

[oochymp 2,393]

how about that end of the first half? that might have been the sloppiest officiating I've ever seen, first off I'm not positive the DB stepped out, but then the clock kept running so they called it halftime, then as the Titans were heading back to the lockerroom they realized there were 4 seconds left on the clock so they call everyone back out, then once Oakland gets lined up for a field goal they realized that the clock didn't start at the snap of the previous play so the clock actually did run out, just a crazy series.

 

As for the game, this was really encouraging overall, there wasn't anyone I could single out as having a bad game. There were a lot of missed tackles which led to too many big plays for Oakland, but there was also some really good pursuit to the ball in most plays, it seemed like we had at least 2-3 players in on every tackle. Overall, the defense did a good job of limiting mistakes and only allowing 17 points to Oakland is pretty good. Offensively, the turnovers were bad, though the defense did a great job of not letting them get worse, and we never really seemed to get in rhythm. But, we moved the ball really well at times, had some great big plays, and almost grabbed another late win. The penalties were also bad, most of them were stupid plays at the worst moments (though of course there isn't really a good time to commit a penalty) and that needs to get cleaned up.

 

The bottom line tho is through three games we've got a lot of little things we need to fix, but that's a huge step up from the last few seasons when we've have a lot of big things we needed to fix.

[ATL_Predator+ 1,196]

Yeah...that ending to the first half was insane. There were so may things that went wrong with that alone.

 

I was trying to figure out if the Titans were trying to get some points before the half..or if they were just gonna run the clock out. So the whole pass in the middle was surprising with such middle time I was expecting maybe a deep shot...

 

The whole INT itself was crazy too, ball bounced around into Nelson's hands and then he starts going down the sideline full speed ahead..which I thought he would step out since we were already in FG position..but that didn't happen.

 

Anyway..he goes down the sideline and I thought maybe he had stepped out but wasn't positive..but the refs prematurely blow the play dead where he could've possibly scored on a pick 6 kind of play.

 

So then the Titans of course all RUSH into the lockeroom because it's not a reviewable play...and the refs are clearly lost and confused for a moment and then come out and say that the clock operator...THE CLOCK OPERATOR didn't start the game clock at the appropriate time so essentially the whole play didn't happen. The thing about it is..when he stepped ob there was at least one second left.

 

The whole thing was crazy and never should of happened but I was amused to say the least.

[oochymp 2,393]

there's no way that play took less than 8 seconds, which may have been why Nelson didn't step out of bounds, if he figures the clock is already at 0 then there's no point in going out of bounds