It was really close, too close to reverse. I thought he was over when he released it, but hard to tell.
In real time it looked like he was over but on the slow motion replay it was really close. His foot was basically on the line as he was releasing. Shouldn't have been overturned but I am obviously biased. also fuck Santos release his ass
i know a lot of people think vrabel is a good coach but sending out that kicker for a 53 yarder on 4th and 4 is an indefensible decision
And at this point are we even sure Jon Robinson is a good GM? Almost all of his signings and draft picks have been duds and he also is the one that hired this dipshit Vrabel
He did help us get in the playoffs for the first time since 2008 and win a game for the first time since 2003. And I believe Webster drafted Mariota I would prefer someone who doesn't sound like such a dumbass when he speaks but I bet he gets another couple years
10 observations: From protecting the quarterback to scoring points, Titans’ consistency remains a significant issue Spoiler Up and down, down and up. One or two Titans wins in a row always seem to be followed by one or two straight losses. Up and down, down and up. One or two decent Titans’ offensive performances in a row always seem to be followed by one or two duds. The pattern continued Sunda, as the Titans returned home with a chance to move over .500 and keep pace atop the AFC South, only to lose any momentum gained by the previous week’s victory in Atlanta. The Titans’ 14-7 loss to Buffalo kept them without consecutive victories this season and left them in need of a win in Denver next week just to move back to .500. “The seesaw? Is that you want to call it, the seesaw?” Titans tight end Delanie Walker said. “I do feel like we are on a seesaw and that’s something that has to change.” The Titans have certainly had their moments over the past few years, putting together a four-game winning streak in December that left them on the verge of a playoff berth, and another four-game win streak in 2017 that gave them a 6-3 record. But so far, the Titans can’t find traction on a regular basis. “It’s that wave,” Titans wide receiver Corey Davis said. “Every time we seem to get some momentum, we seem to shoot ourselves in the foot.” Or as newly returned tackle Taylor Lewan put it: “It’s just really, really disappointing to see how we’re always consistently inconsistent as a team.” Here are 10 observations from the loss to the Bills: 1. Sack-a-palooza returns The Titans hoped they’d worked out some of their pass protection problems last week when they didn’t surrender a single sack to Atlanta. It was a combined effort that produced those results: the offensive line held off Atlanta’s rushers, Marcus Mariota threw the football away when he was in danger and the Titans’ wide receivers got open quickly. That formula was lost against the Bills as the Titans surrendered five sacks, bringing their season total to 22. There appeared to be a couple times Mariota could have gotten rid of the ball quicker than he did. But the Titans’ offensive line leaked far too often, allowing Mariota to be hit eight times overall. Rodger Saffold, who signed a four-year, $44 million deal with the Titans in March, appeared to be at fault on at least one — if not two — of the sacks. “It’s a problem this team has had for a long time, which is not being consistent,” Saffold said of the regression in pass protection. “We just went back to not doing our fundamentals. That’s something we have to fix in practice.” Said Lewan: “We’ll put this loss on the offensive line. We have to be better. There’s no other way of putting it. We have to be better as an offensive line, and that includes myself.” 2. Questionable call (Part 2) For the second consecutive week, Titans coach Mike Vrabel made a call that left many fans scratching their heads. A week ago, Vrabel — with the Titans ahead of Atlanta by two touchdowns early in the fourth quarter — chose to go for it on fourth-and-1 from the Falcons’ 10-yard line instead of kicking a field goal to go up by 17 points. He acknowledged the following day he should have kicked the field goal and taken a 27-10 lead. On Sunday against the Bills, the Titans — trailing 14-7 with 6:35 left — faced fourth-and-4 from the Buffalo 35-yard line. Vrabel had three options: go for it on fourth down, punt the ball and pin the Bills deep or give Cairo Santos — 0-for-3 at that point in the game — a chance to hit a 53-yard field goal. Vrabel chose option three, only for Santos to miss another attempt. Even if Santos had connected, the Titans still would have needed a touchdown to win as they would have trailed 14-10. Why not punt, letting Brett Kern — one of the Titans’ best weapons — pin Buffalo by its own goal line? If the Titans’ defense held at that point, Tennessee would have had the ball back in good field position once again. Instead, the Bills took over at their own 43-yard line following the miss. “I looked at (Santos), and I felt like we were going to make it,” Vrabel said. “That’s the decision we made, and we didn’t make it. But I felt if we could go ahead and get some points there, that we could find a way to come back and win the game with a touchdown.” 3. A stinker for Santos Heading into Sunday’s game, Santos had performed reasonably well as a fill-in for Ryan Succop, hitting 4 of 5 field goal attempts and connecting on all 11 of his extra-point attempts. But he was awful against the Bills, missing wide left from 50 yards, wide right from 36 yards and wide left from 53 yards. He also had a 33-yard attempt deflected. “I’ve never had a day like this,” said Santos, who’s played in 67 games. “In practices, workouts and in training camp, I haven’t missed a kick under 40 yards in probably two years or something. “After the first one, I saw the ball sort of draw. … It wasn’t how I was hitting the ball. I tried to make a correction and cut it a little more on the next one and sliced it, so I have to do a better job of adjusting.” It remains to be seen whether the Titans stick with Santos or audition other kickers. Succop, meanwhile, won’t be eligible to return from injured reserve until after the eighth game of the season. 4. Dominant defense The Titans entered the game ranked fourth with 15.5 points allowed per game and the defense once again did its job against Buffalo. Tennessee held the Bills to just a pair of touchdowns, 4 of 13 third-down conversions and 313 total yards. The defense even set up the Titans’ lone touchdown as safety Kevin Byard’s interception of Josh Allen’s third-quarter throw gave the offense the ball at Buffalo’s 38-yard line. It took the Titans seven plays, and they had to overcome two penalties, but Tennessee did tie the score when Derrick Henry scored from the 1-yard line. “The defense has played great,” Jack Conklin said. “It’s on us. We let then down.” The Titans’ defense has not allowed an opponent to score more than 20 points in any of the five games. “When it comes down to it, our defense is playing outstanding,” Mariota said. “We just have got to play better complementary football. With those guys in that locker room, just how they’ve played, we as an offense have to carry our weight and go score points.” Byard’s interception, incidentally, was his second of the season and 14th over the past three seasons. 5. Points problem As good as the Titans’ defense has been about keeping opponents out of the end zone, the offense has had trouble producing points with any kind of consistency. The Titans have been held to less than 20 points in three of their five contests and have scored just one touchdown in two of their past three games. Mariota has a pair of three-touchdown games — against Cleveland and Atlanta — but has thrown a combined two touchdown passes in the other three contests. There’s little doubt the Titans have more offensive weapons this season — thanks to slot receiver Adam Humphries and rookie wide receiver A.J. Brown — but the results aren’t coming. The Titans were their own worst enemies against the Bills, missing four field goals and twice seeing touchdowns called back by penalties. But 252 total yards of offense — along with a 4-for-14 showing on third down, and a 1-for-3 showing in the red zone — isn’t going to lead to a lot of points. It didn’t help that the Titans’ average drive started on their own 23-yard line. But the Titans couldn’t help flip field position as they went three-and-out on 6 of 11 possessions. “We have to do better as an offense,” Davis said. “A lot of those drives we were shooting ourselves in the foot — most of them we were shooting ourselves in the foot.” 6. Walker left wondering Walker has long been a favorite target of Mariota, but the veteran hasn’t seen much action over the past two weeks. Walker was targeted a combined four times against the Falcons and Bills, making two catches for 15 yards. Of course, those numbers would look different had Lewan not been called for holding on the Titans’ first play from scrimmage, negating a 26-yard completion to Walker. Still, Walker found himself wondering after the game why he hasn’t been more involved in the offense. “That’s something you might want to ask the coaches, to be honest with you,” Walker said. “I can’t really say why I’m not being a big factor in the offense.” Walker had missed practice time earlier this season with a knee injury, but said following Sunday’s game: “I feel healthy, I feel great.” Walker, who had 15 catches in the Titans’ first three games, said he wants to help. “I’m trying to be patient,” Walker said. “I don’t like seeing our team lose, but I feel like I ain’t helping out … I’m a team player, but if we’re not winning, I want to get some touches, of course.” 7. Too penalty prone There were some marginal penalty calls against the Titans, but the bottom line was they still wound up taking eight penalties for 60 yards. That’s actually the second-fewest yards the Titans have been penalized this season as they had surrendered 77, 101 and 75 yards worth of penalties in the previous three contests. One Titans possession early in the fourth quarter was especially costly. The Titans held a first-and-goal at the Buffalo 8-yard line and appeared to score on the next play when Henry bulled up the middle for a touchdown. But the play was negated because of Conklin’s hold. The Titans managed to get the ball back to the Bills’ 6, but were again moved back on a Lewan false start. Still, it looked for a second that the Titans had finally scored when Mariota connected with A.J. Brown on an 11-yard touchdown pass. But another flag was thrown, as officials determined Mariota had crossed the line of scrimmage before the pass. The drive ended with Santos’ field goal attempt getting blocked. “We knew what type of refs we had for this game,” Walker said. “I think they were (the crew with the) second-highest penalties thrown. So, we knew what type of game it was going to be. Exactly what we were told by our head coach and it happened.” When Buffalo took over after the miss, the Titans suffered another costly penalty. That time, defensive tackle Jurrell Casey — who appeared to be trying to dive over a sliding Allen — made contact with the Bills quarterback and drew a 15-yard unnecessary roughness call. The Bills scored their winning touchdown four plays later. “If you see, I come with my hands extended, try to go over the top (of Allen),” Casey said. “But when he slid under, his body keeps going, my body keeps going. Eventually, they’re going to make some kind of contact. Couldn’t avoid it.” 8. Home-field advantage? On Saturday, Jay Skurski of The Buffalo News tweeted that in all his years covering the Bills, he’d never seen so many fans on a road trip. It wasn’t too surprising to see a wealth of Buffalo fans in the Nissan Stadium stands — so many that Bills defenders regularly raised their hands to the crowd when they wanted more noise. Several media members at the game estimated the crowd to be about 60 percent Titans fans and 40 percent Bills fans. “What a (Bills) fan following down here,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “Unbelievable. I don’t think I have ever seen it like that at an away game. As we pulled in on the bus, as I looked left, a couple parking lots away from here, and it was all Bills fans and it was awesome. I really appreciate that. The players felt it. The staff felt it.” Lewan said the Titans have to be better to bring back home-field advantage. Tennessee had been 12-4 at Nissan Stadium over the past two seasons, but the Titans are 0-2 at home this year. “I’ll be honest, I’d be pissed off, too, if I was a Titans fan,” Lewan said. “I mean, that’s just what it is. I think one Titans fan told me his dad sold their season tickets because he said (the Titans) were always going to break their heart. So, we have to be better.” 9. Costly losses The Titans’ three losses this season — to Indianapolis, Jacksonville and Buffalo — have all been against teams Tennessee may have to contend with for a playoff berth. The Titans are hardly out of the postseason race after five weeks, but starting 0-2 in the AFC South won’t help much in terms of division tiebreakers. Luckily for the Titans, they still have two games left against the Houston Texans, who are 3-2 and were atop the division prior to Indianapolis’ game Sunday night. Buffalo’s win over the Titans could be costly in a tie-breaker battle for a wild-card spot. The surprising Bills are 4-1, two games ahead of the Titans. 10. Personnel update The Titans had a pair of new injuries Sunday as linebacker Sharif Finch (shoulder) and cornerback Chris Milton (calf) left the contest and did not return. Finch’s injury was especially costly as the Titans were already without veteran edge rusher Cameron Wake. He missed his first game of the season after injuring a hamstring in Atlanta. Among the Titans’ seven inactive players were four offensive linemen: Hronis Grassu, Aaron Stinnie, Kevin Pamphile and Dan Quissenberry. Tennessee is carrying 11 offensive linemen on its 53-man roster. The other inactives were cornerback Tye Smith and defensive lineman Brent Urban.
Rexrode: Let’s play the Titans blame game, starting with Mike Vrabel and the decision to go again with Cairo Santos Spoiler Blame Cairo Santos. He lined up for field goals four times Sunday, in the Tennessee Titans’ latest proclamation of their mediocrity, and he provided the Titans with zero points on those four tries. He hooked one from 50, pushed one from 36, had a 33-yarder blocked and then hooked again, no chance as soon as the ball left his foot, from 53. “Never had a day like this,” Santos said after the 14-7 loss at Nissan Stadium, and the same can’t be said for a Titans team that fell to 2-3 on the season, though of all the setbacks in this recent franchise run titled Good Enough to Tease and Bad Enough to Torment the Teased, this one came with a special kind of sting. Blame Mike Vrabel. The macro view of Vrabel’s young tenure as an NFL head coach is that of an aggressor who stresses fundamentals, physicality, effort and unselfishness, and whose playing career and approach give him credibility in a locker room. The micro view brings a new question every week. Why was Adoree’ Jackson still returning punts in Jacksonville after gifting the Jags a touchdown? Why didn’t Vrabel opt for a 27-yard field goal to go up 17 in the fourth quarter in Atlanta? Why did he opt for a 53-yard try on fourth-and-4 from the Buffalo 35 on Sunday, down a touchdown with 6:35 left, after watching Santos fight himself all day? “I have confidence in him,” Vrabel explained afterward, and Santos said Vrabel actually asked him before sending him on the field if he “wanted this.” “I said, ‘Yes sir,’” Santos recalled. “He let me kick it. I don’t shy away from problems, still have my confidence and I am shocked – very shocked – right now. But something happened because I haven’t missed four kicks even in practice in years. So just sorry.” Jackson and Santos are examples of Vrabel showing faith in players and sticking with them longer than most coaches in this league would in similar situations, and I don’t expect that mindset will change. But coaches in this league separate themselves with the little decisions on game day that win or lose games, and Vrabel’s in a slump. His record is 11-10, and he wasn’t brought in here to hover around Mike Mularkey territory. Mularkey won a playoff game. Vrabel has another team that is trending toward just missing, even if the Titans’ teasing tendency resurfaces on schedule with a win at Denver to get to 3-3. This is not the “good to great” that Vrabel envisioned with that offseason catchphrase, this is a talented team that he and his staff are coaching to be almost good again. Unless you want to blame Jon Robinson. That’s always the rub when discontent hits an NFL town. Is this a coach problem or a GM problem? Robinson could have brought a viable backup kicker into camp, which ended with starter Ryan Succop going on injured reserve because of a knee injury. Instead, he grabbed Santos just before the season began. That was working out fine until Sunday. And that’s sort of how things go on the never-ending evaluation of Robinson in this job. He quickly lifted the Titans from awful to good. He hasn’t figured out good to great. One week, some of his biggest moves show promise. Corey Davis and A.J. Brown light up the Falcons (who increasingly appear to be awful, by the way) and Malcolm Butler locks down Julio Jones. The next week, high-priced offensive guard Rodger Saffold is torched again in pass protection, Jackson is beat by a tight end for the winning touchdown and an offense that has received heavy investment scores 7 points to bring it to a grand total of 55 in the past month. “As an offense, we need to get in gear,” said Titans left tackle Taylor Lewan, whose return from a four-game suspension for testing positive for a banned substance could not prevent five more sacks of Marcus Mariota and could only help the Titans gain 252 total yards. “For the last however long I’ve been here, this has been the story. And I think we’re all over the ‘We’re gonna be fine’ (attitude). We need to get in gear, we need to get going. Everyone’s upset, everyone’s pissed off. Derrick (Henry) is pissed off, Marcus is pissed off, this offensive line is pissed off. We’ll put this loss on the offensive line. We have to be better. There’s no other way, we have to be better as an offensive line, and that includes myself.” So blame Lewan for missing that first month and putting this offensive line in flux. Blame offensive line coach Keith Carter. Blame new offensive coordinator Arthur Smith. Blame Matt LaFleur if you like. Titans fans were hoping he was the problem with the offense last season in his first job as an NFL play-caller. Now he’s 4-1 in his first job as a head coach, with the Green Bay Packers. Not bad for a numskull who only got the job because he’s friends with Sean McVay. Blame Mariota. The Mariota haters are wondering how that isn’t the headline. The Mariota lovers see a guy who spilled his guts again, made a lot of good throws under duress and can’t be faulted for being a centimeter over the line of scrimmage when he threw what looked like the go-ahead touchdown to Brown early in the fourth quarter. Oh, and blame the refs. The winning touchdown drive may have stalled on a third-and-8, except for the way the previous play ended. Josh Allen scrambled for 6 yards on second-and-14 and Jurrell Casey saw him on the ground, so Casey did his best to vault over Allen and avoid contact. His knee brushed Allen. Personal foul. The next play was a pop pass to Isaiah McKenzie for 46 yards. “Tried to jump over him,” Casey said later, shaking his head at something that is consistent, the NFL protecting quarterbacks to a fault. Blame the Titans defense. Does that sound crazy? These guys are giving up 15.2 points a game. Kevin Byard appeared to change this game with a pick of Allen, leading to Tennessee’s only touchdown, then ended the next drive with a pass break-up. This is not the defense of a 2-3 team. But I want you to have options, and it is true that the Titans had a chance to get the ball back with time for one last Mariota drive. Instead, that defense gave up runs of 11 to T.J. Yeldon, 11 to Frank Gore and 19 to Gore on three consecutive plays to kill that idea. All three losses this season have seen late miscues on that side of the ball. “That’s something that’s consistent, that toward the end of the game in those critical situations, we’re not playing well,” Byard said. “We’re not playing disciplined.” Blame the Bills. They’re 4-1 now, and they should have finished a win over New England a week earlier. This was an embarrassing loss in Buffalo a year ago, but losing to Buffalo isn’t embarrassing anymore. This is a good team, a Titans-like team — salty defense, physical approach, athletic quarterback — doing it better than the Titans. “Physical and effort is their MO and what we want our MO to be and what we hang our hat on,” Lewan said. “And they were more physical than us and more consistent than us. That’s just what it was.” Blame the more than 20,000 Bills fans among a crowd of 66,910 who gave their team such a lift that Buffalo coach Sean McDermott said, “I don’t think I have ever seen it like that at an away game.” Blame Nashville for being so fun that fans of opposing teams circle this trip when the NFL schedule comes out each April. Blame Broadway barkeeps for allowing Bills Mafia to threaten their hops-and-barley reserves. Blame it on the rain. Blame it on Rio. Blame Canada. Just don’t blame Titans fans who want off this roller coaster. It’s the kind you find at a county fair, a rickety old thing with an expired permit and a knack for making you cough up your corn dog. “I’ll be honest, I’d be pissed off too if I was a Titans fan,” Lewan said. “I mean, it’s just what it is, you know? One Titans fan told me that his dad sold their season tickets because he said, ‘They’re always gonna break our heart.’ So we have to be better. That’s just what it is. I’m not saying anything that nobody else sees. We have to be better. That’s myself included, everybody. Upstairs (in the front office), coaches, players, everybody has to be better. And that’s got to be consistent. And it can’t be ‘Oh we lost. Oh shit. Well, ugh. Well, let’s be better.’ And then we win and we’re like ‘Oh, we’re the greatest.” It’s got to stop. It’s just, it’s getting out of hand.”
Glad to see all the Lewan hate in here. It’s embarrassing how awful he was yesterday. I get there is some rust since he had a 4 game vacation because he couldn’t stay away from the PEDs but he barely got a hand on people most of the second half. Go work on your fucking podcast you look-at-me asshole. Why do we do this to ourselves every season
Titans are allowing 15.2 points per game and have a losing record through nearly 1/3 of the season. This offense...
#1 dislike in this week's installment by Sheil Kapadia 1. Mike Vrabel’s late-game decision-making With 6:35 left, the Titans faced a fourth-and-4 from the Bills’ 35-yard line, trailing 14-7. That’s when Tennessee coach Mike Vrabel decided to send Cairo Santos out to attempt a 53-yard field goal. Santos had gone 8-for-16 on field goals from 50-plus in his career. He had lined up for three field goals earlier in the game, and none had netted the Titans any points. In the first quarter, Santos missed from 50 yards out. In the second, he missed from 36. And in the third, his 33-yard attempt was blocked. Even if Santos made the 53-yard attempt, the Titans would have still been down four points and needed a touchdown to win. In the last five years, league-wide, teams that went for it on fourth-and-4 converted 47.2% of the time. “I looked at (Santos), and I felt like we were going to make it,” Vrabel said afterward, per The Athletic’s John Glennon. “That’s the decision we made, and we didn’t make it. But I felt if we could go ahead and get some points there, that we could find a way to come back and win the game with a touchdown.” Compare that response to ones we’ve seen from coaches like John Harbaugh, Doug Pederson and Reich, who rely on analytics staff members to give them win probability data before making critical decisions. As Glennon explained in the piece linked above, this isn’t the first issue Vrabel has had with game management. The Titans’ defense kept them in the game, but Marcus Mariota, the offensive line and the passing game were a disaster. Tennessee went three-and-out on 54.5% of its possessions, the highest rate for any team in Week 5. Mariota’s final numbers (13-for-22 for 183 yards) were inflated by a 57-yard screen to Jonnu Smith. He took three sacks on third down and has taken nine third-down sacks on the season — the most of any quarterback. Mariota averaged 0.6 yards per play on 11 third downs. On Monday, the Titans announced that they released Santos. That’s not going to solve their problems.
Good shit Lewan you loser. 7 points last week and zero this week. Our eyes are set on -7 points next week Maybe we can get a high draft pick
Going to be another week of the same old bullshit from the players and the coaches. We need to do better, we will get it fixed, the fans don’t deserve this, etc. It’s like clockwork after every shitty loss.
Every time this happens I just think about the early draft picks that have been wasted over the years: Bishop Sankey Justin Hunter Taywan Taylor Kevin Dodd Kendall Wright Mike Martin Chance Warmack (as much as I hate to admit that) DGB Poutasi Austin Johnson Corey Davis All drafted in rounds 1-3. A couple of decent OL (maybe Conklin just not getting injured) might have changed the course for everything.
Corey Davis is looking so awful. Top five pick in year three with like 270 yards through 1/3 of the season Yikes
Tannehill officially our starting QB vs the Chargers I feel badly this didn't work out for Mariota. Always said the right things and seemed engaged in the community. But this roster has never been good at WR, we've had issues along the OL since 2009 (when Stewart/Roos/Mawae were all together for one last season), and there's been constant turnover in coaches. All that combined with his own deficiencies as a QB = gonna have a bad time
we keep showing up in the wrong section of Sheil Kapadia's 10 likes/10 dislikes column each week 9. The state of the Titans I feel for their fans because they came into this season convinced they had a team that could make a playoff run. Now six weeks in, they have no answer at quarterback and one of the most unwatchable teams in the NFL. The Athletic’s Joe Rexrode currently has a column up headlined, The Tennessee Titans have managed to make football about as fun as cleaning toilets. No, seriously. Click the link. I’m sure that in Tennessee this week, there will be plenty of talk about whether the Titans should go with Marcus Mariota or Ryan Tannehill at quarterback. The truth is, it probably doesn’t matter.
Think we're starting to transition to Jonnu over Delanie. Sucks but this guy has freakish ability we need to get him the ball more