The Tennessee Titans are a bad football team. There’s not much that needs to be said to defend that statement given their 1-6 record, but beyond the weekly memes of Will Levis and the complete lack of positive big plays on either side of the ball, there has been one normally unsung aspect of the game that has brought nothing but doom to the Titans. Special Teams.
An Omen of the Future
During the Mike Vrabel era, Titans fans had become accustomed to a few “unheralded” players making the final 53 due to their abilities and contributions on Special Teams, and many wondered why such players were given roster slots over players that seemingly had more potential or could fulfill more of a role on offense or defense, but that never stopped Vrabel from stubbornly sticking to his guys and leaving them on the roster. Now this didn’t always give the Titans the best Special Teams unit, but the base potential of the unit when everything was clicking was obviously top of the league. From Kern’s Playoff punt in New England to help end the Brady era, to Rookie Punter Ryan Stonehouse breaking an 80-year-old record that was once thought untouchable, “Vrabel’s Guys” showed they had the ability to get the job done at an extremely high level, but Vrabel is gone, and it seemed his guys were gone with him. With his firing and the hiring of Callahan a promise of fresh life was given and with it a new hope began to stir amongst Titan fans. Come cut down day, it became very apparent that this was no longer the Vrabel Titans, familiar Special Teams names like Hassan Haskins were cut in favor of potential young talent on both sides of the ball. Little did they know what horrors they were unleashing.
Early Setbacks
The Special Teams mishaps didn’t take long to rear their ugly head for the Titans. The first game of the season saw the Titans have a punt blocked and returned for a touchdown, a play which swung the momentum in the Bears direction, and after which the Titans failed to score a single point in route to a 24-17 loss in Chicago. It only took 7 days for the Special Teams bug to bite again as Week 2 saw the Titans face off against the Jets. This week Tennessee once again failed to protect their punter resulting in 3 points for the Jets off a Greg Zuerlein Field Goal. The early season miscues easily contributed directly to the Titans 0-2 start.
False Hope
After the major mistakes in the first 2 weeks there were already those calling for Colt Anderson (Titans Special Teams Coordinator) to be replaced, but he made some adjustments to the punt coverage team, leaning more towards heavier bodies to help with protecting Stonehouse until he could get the kick off. For 4 weeks the Titans Special Teams unit took a backseat on the blame train to let the floundering offense shoulder most of the blame leading the team to a 1-5 record and making Ran Carthon begin jettisoning expiring contracts like Deandre Hopkins and Ernest Jones for future picks. This past week however, the Special Teams issues returned against the Lions with a severity never before seen. The punt team did manage to keep things blocked up front long enough to get the ball off, but after that was pure disaster. In total the Lions gained 262 yards from punt and kick returns including a 90-yard punt return touchdown by former Titan Khalif Raymond. The lions Special Teams outgained the Lions offense 262-225 in what was reportedly the second-best Special Teams performance since 1979.
Where do we go from here?
Following the Lion’s game many fans and media pundits have been calling for Colt Anderson to be relieved of his position, but Callahan came out Monday in Defense of his Special Teams Coordinator and seems to be firm in his belief in Colt and in Keeping him in the position. Fans have had a somewhat mixed reaction to this with many being outraged by this statement saying Callahan refuses to fire him because the 2 are friends, while others have taken the somewhat optimistic road of saying that keeping Colt guarantees a better draft pick and that’s all they can ask for at this point. The only thing we do know currently is that the Titans have allowed the most Punt Return Yards in the NFL so far this season, and if something doesn’t change quickly the discourse surrounding Colt Anderson will continue to grow.
