I do think it's too early to completely panic

[bizzyeddie]

1 hour ago, Face said:

Lewis is so much better on a down to down basis it's ridiculous. He led the RB's in DVOA for FO last year & led the league in YPC.  It's not even close.

 

Henry does break a lot of long balls & will put up a few incredible runs here & there but what are you going to do, sit one of the best backs in the league for long stretches in the hopes that Henry pops one?

 

That's the problem with Henry now, there's no real role he fills. I don't care how big he is, I'd much rather give it to Dion on 4th & 1. Henry is great & breaking long runs at the end of the game against tired defense, and it's exciting, but if we're up by 4 points with 3 mins to go & we need a 1st down or two I want Lewis in as well.

lol

[imemtitan]

Never expected much from the team this year anyway, at least not the first half of the season.   Lots of young players and first time coaches, gotta expect some growing pains.  If they still look rough towards the end of the season I’d start to get concerned but next season is when I’d expect them to put it all together.

 

I think some fans may have had inflated expectations based on the Rams success and the Titans making the playoffs last year.  But the Rams already had a great defense and Gurley to carry the load on offense, Henry and Lewis combined probably don’t equal Gurley.  I also personally felt the Titans were closer to a 5-6 win team last year, I don’t think they would have won 9 games with a healthy Luck and Texans team. 

 

@tgo post earlier was a pretty good breakdown, I don’t see this year as a rebuild but a development year.  

Edited September 11, 2018 by imemtitan

[Cyrus]

Finally caught up on the entire game now that the condensed replay is up. I mostly watched the offense. 

 

- Prior to the elbow injury, any Mariota criticisms are really nitpicky. Probably the worst throw preinjury was the quick out throw that was far behind the receiver. Play didn’t have much of a chance anyways, but it was a poor throw.

 

- Hayes tackle on Mariota was really awkward, almost like a late cut block rather than a hit. Not a super common football play. Think he tried to ease up and didn’t have much control. Ended up colliding with Mariota somewhat sideways. Kind of a fluke play and injury.

 

- Dion Lewis is a stud. They need to get him involved earlier. I think he’s exactly what Mariota needs, even more so than Walker/TE. Just someone to come to late and will likely always be open underneath.

 

- Good to see Davis involved. He’s going to be critical moving forward. He and Mariota need to have confidence in what the other is thinking and where they’ll be on the field.

 

- Interior OL still looks like it could use some improvement. 

 

- Gabbert still stinks. Ball ends up low and in the dirt too often. 

 

- Defense was legitimately bad in the first half. Just got totally gashed in the running game. Hard to excuse really. Way too slow of a start.

 

- Florida stinks too. I think the weather delays impacted both teams. Long games / days like that almost never happen. Teams can play in virtual blizzards and torrential rain but not lightning. 

 

Personally, I’m hoping Mariota is 100% next week and think the team should just forget about the Miami game and just consider next week the real start of the season. It’s still a loss, but it’s far too early to dwell on it. 

 

 

[Huston]

4 minutes ago, Cyrus said:

Finally caught up on the entire game now that the condensed replay is up. I mostly watched the offense. 

 

- Prior to the elbow injury, any Mariota criticisms are really nitpicky. Probably the worst throw preinjury was the quick out throw that was far behind the receiver. Play didn’t have much of a chance anyways, but it was a poor throw.

 

- Hayes tackle on Mariota was really awkward, almost like a late cut block rather than a hit. Not a super common football play. Think he tried to ease up and didn’t have much control. Ended up colliding with Mariota somewhat sideways. Kind of a fluke play and injury.

 

- Dion Lewis is a stud. They need to get him involved earlier. I think he’s exactly what Mariota needs, even more so than Walker/TE. Just someone to come to late and will likely always be open underneath.

 

- Good to see Davis involved. He’s going to be critical moving forward. He and Mariota need to have confidence in what the other is thinking and where they’ll be on the field.

 

- Interior OL still looks like it could use some improvement. 

 

- Gabbert still stinks. Ball ends up low and in the dirt too often. 

 

- Defense was legitimately bad in the first half. Just got totally gashed in the running game. Hard to excuse really. Way too slow of a start.

 

- Florida stinks too. I think the weather delays impacted both teams. Long games / days like that almost never happen. Teams can play in virtual blizzards and torrential rain but not lightning. 

 

Personally, I’m hoping Mariota is 100% next week and think the team should just forget about the Miami game and just consider next week the real start of the season. It’s still a loss, but it’s far too early to dwell on it. 

 

 

A voice of reason.

[Huston]

There are a lot of picks being thrown by established QB's that can actually grip the ball.

[Cyrus]

4 minutes ago, Huston said:

There are a lot of picks being thrown by established QB's that can actually grip the ball.

Mariota’s picks weren’t egregious either. Neither were good mind you, but if he was throwing with numbness it might excuse the quality of the pass. (Obviously) The first INT in particular looked like it was impacted - ball just off target and floated. Second one looked like a bad play we’ve seen before.

 

No idea how bad the numbness was. Just a bad day for everyone. A multitude of little things went wrong. 

 

I actually like the offense too.

[Titans279]

 

[Denali]

3 hours ago, Kirkster said:

Evans and Landry better both be quality starters, immediately. 

 

 

 

They already aren't.  They didn't even play.

[OILERMAN]

5 hours ago, Face said:

Lewis is so much better on a down to down basis it's ridiculous. He led the RB's in DVOA for FO last year & led the league in YPC.  It's not even close.

 

Henry does break a lot of long balls & will put up a few incredible runs here & there but what are you going to do, sit one of the best backs in the league for long stretches in the hopes that Henry pops one?

 

That's the problem with Henry now, there's no real role he fills. I don't care how big he is, I'd much rather give it to Dion on 4th & 1. Henry is great & breaking long runs at the end of the game against tired defense, and it's exciting, but if we're up by 4 points with 3 mins to go & we need a 1st down or two I want Lewis in as well.

This is the biggest fault of the coaches/Robinson. 

 

It's one thing for a bunch of fans to not know Lewis is better than Henry in every way but for the team to actually feature Henry and leave the team's best offensive player on the bench for so long was malpractice. 

 

Henry's role is to absorb carries to keep Lewis from being overused, that's it. 

[oldschool]

6 hours ago, Face said:

Lewis is so much better on a down to down basis it's ridiculous. He led the RB's in DVOA for FO last year & led the league in YPC.  It's not even close.

 

Henry does break a lot of long balls & will put up a few incredible runs here & there but what are you going to do, sit one of the best backs in the league for long stretches in the hopes that Henry pops one?

 

That's the problem with Henry now, there's no real role he fills. I don't care how big he is, I'd much rather give it to Dion on 4th & 1. Henry is great & breaking long runs at the end of the game against tired defense, and it's exciting, but if we're up by 4 points with 3 mins to go & we need a 1st down or two I want Lewis in as well.

Henry is the change of pace back. His size just throws people off.

[THE_TITAN]

If Mariota doesn't progress this season we will draft a QB. But it's week 1 let's wait till week 8 before looking for potential replacements 

[Alcibiades]

Only the Jags won a game this week; so the division is still wide open  

 

Also, Fournette's injury seems to be related to his strength...could be a problem for a while for him. What I mean is that as a power back, he can't really use that power if he's got a tweaked soft tissue problem in his leg. 

 

Much depends on how we look this week against the Texans. 

[earlers]

Only reason I’m not panicking is because there were several times last year I didn’t believe this team could beat anyone. And yet, they went to the divisional round of the playoffs. 

 

Also, those who were expecting a down year due to Vrabel are lying to themselves. I’m expecting him to at least match Mularkey.

[ap24786]

I like the optimism, but I don't think it's too early to panic. We have a banged up QB who's confidence is shot who will be playing without his two best offensive lineman. Our best receiver Walker is out for the year, leaving us with Corey Davis and a bunch of nobodys. Aside from a few big runs last year, the running game has been atrocious over the last year and it continued this past Sunday. I'm not expecting it to be any better with Lewan and Conklin out. On defense, our front 7 was over matched, not getting any pressure on the QB and letting Ryan Tannehill and 40 year old Frank Gore gash us up.

 

To make matters worse, we have the Texans, Eagles (Wentz should be back) and Jags the next three games, with the Ravens, Chargers, Cowboys, and Patriots in 4 of the 5 games afterwards. Mariota and the offense is going to get destroyed, and there's going to be a lot of anger and pessimism on the board over this time.   

[japan]

15 hours ago, tgo said:

I think a lot of fans were expecting a new staff to come in and turn the team around and that Mularkey and company were holding the team back from its potential. 

 

I knew when they fired Mularkey and replaced him with a first time HC that this year would essentially be a rebuilding year. You had a staff with centuries of NFL experience and replaced them with a lot of first time coaches. The vast majority of this coaching staff are either first time position coaches or first time NFL coaches, so they’re all learning how to coach in the NFL. 

 

This is in addition to the fact that switching from an Erhardt Perkins power offense to a Shanahan West Coast zone scheme is a very steep transition. We have guys at every position playing totally different techniques than most have in their careers, particularly at QB. This is a big transition for QBs, OL, TEs. WRs running totally different stuff as well. This offense relies much more on timing and communication between QBs and receivers. This takes time to develop. 

 

Further, the prior coaching staff ran “highly schemed” (as Cosell called it) offense and defense. To make a long story short, this resulted in reliance on scheme moreso than players to run the ball, to stop the run, to generate a pass rush with stunts and blitzes, to create confusion with complex coverages, and to run a lot of trickery on offense. This fact (and I’m not saying it’s the best way to go necessarily) means that a lot of personnel deficiencies were covered up - which basically meant the team in general had a lower ceiling but higher floor. 

 

With our schedule, we were never going to the playoffs this year or competing for a Superbowl - it was always going to be a year of development and re-tooling *especially* the first quarter or first half of the year. These young coaches require development and the players require development as well. And I hope I have to eat my words on this. Hopefully I look totally stupid and we end up being heavy hitters this year.

 

If you listen to Robinson’s TV and radio interviews right after the Vrabel hire, it is totally obvious that he is trying to pump the brakes on expectations and knows that it’s a one step back to take two steps forward kind of deal.

 

It is critically important though, for the team and for Mariota, that fans are patient. We cannot keep fucking cycling through coaching staffs every two years, it’s a piss poor way to run a franchise and guarantees failure. 

 

I plan to be patient (pissing and moaning only occasionally) and to try to keep perspective as we watch the development of the younger players and watch the team grow within the new schemes. I’m expecting a pretty good draft pick this year, but next year we need to be in full blown contention. 

Or maybe people are doing exactly what they said they weren't going to do in the offseason.  Judge the team by the early games.  Everyone seemed to agree, except for the loons, that the offense would take some time to get its feet.  Everything is new.  The defense was disappointing early, but this first game is a crap shoot since these guys hardly play in the preseason.  After the first break, the defense shut down the rushing attack.  I'm giving the team some time to jell.