PODCAST Episode 32 - Two Tone Bliss

[Cyrus]

I don't think it's correct to presume that Goodell is opposing the wishes of the NFL owners. In fact, it's the NFL owners who are most opposed to a pension plan, not Goodell. So there is absolutely no risk to his job security because he is merely carrying out their directions.

[Jamalisms]

The snap initiates the play. You can never have a false start off a snapped ball. Centers get called for false starts when they flinch or move in a way that may simulates the start of a play but don't continue the action into an initiated play (snapped ball).

That's what I thought.

[Jamalisms]

I don't think it's correct to presume that Goodell is opposing the wishes of the NFL owners. In fact, it's the NFL owners who are most opposed to a pension plan, not Goodell. So there is absolutely no risk to his job security because he is merely carrying out their directions.

Yep.

[Cyrus]

[Cyrus]

Here's where I disagree Jamal:

The Titans only punted once on offense. Once. Last week? Seven times. Week one? Four. Two missed field goals, two fumbles, two fumbles recovered by the Lions. All fairly random events.

69% completion rating. 0 sacks. 0 interceptions. An efficient passing game. Not random.

The Titans did struggle in the red-zone and in the opponents side of the field. This primarily has to do with the fact that the Titans have virtually no run game right now. It's absolutely something the Titans need to improve on if they want to score touchdowns. However, I think that there's a lot of good things to take away from this game. If you take away all the random factors in the game, the Titans probably still win this game.

[TitansGuru]

I don't think it's correct to presume that Goodell is opposing the wishes of the NFL owners. In fact, it's the NFL owners who are most opposed to a pension plan, not Goodell. So there is absolutely no risk to his job security because he is merely carrying out their directions.

Pretty much what we were getting at.

[Jamalisms]

Absent a dominant defense, you can't win consistently in the NFL with field goals... but field goals are our offensive specialty. We could try and figure out why that's the case, but it doesn't matter why. It matters that this is the case. We do not complete drives, and if you think this game is evidence of a change... good luck. Our only TDs were long flukey plays. Not one TD, not most, all of them were long and flukey plays.

I'm excited by the progress we saw last week and have been high on Locker while saying bad things will happen and let's weather the storm, but let's call things by their real names. This win took large and uncommon amounts of fortune and execution by elements outside our offense. You can be excited by a win and root for a team without denying where the team stands. Even with a punt return TD, a kickoff return TD, a defensive TD, and a fairly remarkable game from Locker... we almost choked the game away.

We are more likely to look like week 1 or 2 against Houston than week 3. We beat a good team. We are not better than them. The win is nice and can't be taken away. In looking at where we're at... it's still a problem.

[Cyrus]

Being able to string together 7-8+ play drives is a huge sign of growth for an offense with a first year starter at quarterback. I imagine that red-zone efficiency will improve over time. At this point, with Locker under center, the Titans are meeting or exceeding reasonable expectations in the passing game. (with all things considered, health, opponents etc).

I don't understand why you state the Titans good fortune while mostly excluding the Lions exceptional good fortune. Missed field goals by the Titans, random fumbles (and let's be real, they were random), a recovered onside kick which took extremely fortunate bounces (I've never seen an onside kick that traveled so far before kicking up in the air), an interception negated by a penalty, a potential fumble not reviewed and a hail-mary completed for a TD.

The whole game was wacky, no doubt, but I think you have to look at what occurred that wasn't random. However, the Titans played better on defense and offense and that's just a fact. The arrow is pointing up after last week where it was pointing down. Does that mean that the Titans will beat the Texans? No. They may get throttled by the Texans, but at this point they look like they may be more competitive than we thought. We didn't see any real mental errors at all (unless you want to include the penalty, batted pass). Locker didn't throw interceptions and made very good decisions all game long. The Titans pass blocked very well against pressure. These are all very important things that bode well for the future.

Outside the last quarter the Titans basically had complete control of the game. How is that not something to draw positively from?

[Jamalisms]

You seem to be having trouble distinguishing between my commending the team for improved performance and assessing what that improved performance can be defined as and what it indicates.

1. If you would like to discuss that the Titans were improved over previous weeks, we will agree that it was an encouraging performance.
   
2. If you want to discuss "flukey" plays and try to define how much and who, we will likely not agree and I'd be happy to restate that case for you.
   

The two discussions being jumbled together in your posts confuses the issue and my position, which makes it hard to move forward fruitfully because I'm not even sure what you think you're trying to explain to me that I don't already agree with.

[Cyrus]

You seem to be having trouble distinguishing between my commending the team for imnproved performance and assessing what that improved performance indicates.

If you would like to discuss that the Titans were improved over previous weeks, we will agree that it was an encouraging performance.

If you want to discuss "flukey" plays and try to define how much and who, we will likely not agree and I'd be happy to restate that case for you.

The two discussions being jumbled together in your posts confuses the issue and my position, which makes it hard to move forward fruitfully.

I think I understand your point, I just feel like you're measuring the Titans performance to a high level of expectations and are eager to dismiss a number of things readily. My interpretation of your statements are that you don't feel like this win means anything and that while the performance was better, it wasn't necessarily "good". Personally, I feel like this win does mean something (that they can be competitive in some matchups) and that the performance was good, albeit not as "great" as the score indicates.

The fact that Cook had to break a tackle to score a TD means nothing. At minimum it was still an explosive play offensively and a completed pass if he doesn't break the tackle. Yes, Washington's TD was also flukey but that doesn't mean that if it had been incomplete that we can draw any conclusions about what might have happened next. That's where I think we see things differently. It isn't a dichotomy where if those plays didn't go for touchdowns that those drives would have ultimately stalled.

In fact, we can't draw any conclusions at all about what might have happened next, although we can assume that based on the overall efficiency of the passing game that day that chances are things would have been more likely to be positive than negative. (Again, one punt). If the Titans only got a 25 or 35 yard return on the kickoff instead of a TD, what might have happened? I don't know, but I think it's not accurate to assume that it would have been negative based on the offensive performance.

So again, yes you'd like to see Jake Locker be put a situation where he removes all doubt about this teams offensive efficacy in the redzone. We didn't see that, but we can't assume that any of those drives/possessions would have ended in a punt or FG.

[Jamalisms]

An inability to sustain drives is what we've shown so far. It's all we've shown. While this past week was encouraging, it was more of the same. Stalled drives. Better stalled drives, but stalled drives all the same.

Week 1 we had an 80 yard long sustained drive that resulted in a TD. That was encouraging at the time (and the only time we've done it). Apart from that, we had two field goals, went 0-2 in the red-zone and 0-1 from goal to go, and were 5-14 on 3rd down.

Week 2 our only TD was largely the result of a 71 yard return by Hawkins. It was a short field, not a sustained drive. We went 1-9 on 3rd down, 1-2 in the red zone (the short drive), and punted all day long after three-and-outs.

Week 3 we improved, but only in so much as we consistently got drives into field goal range before stalling. The only TDs we got were fluke long balls from way out. On our drives that moved past the 50 yard line - We attempted 5 field goals and had a fumble. We were 5-12 on third down and 0-2 in the red zone.

The long pass plays were a damn fine shot in the arm. I was ecstatic to see them, however it wasn't even the first defender who had the worst mistake but the second one who in both cases mysteriously misplayed the hell out of the play. Again, they were very nice to see but they're weren't sustained drives and both probably shouldn't have even been TDs if the second defender doesn't take himself out of the play. We would have been looking at drives that moved past mid-field. We've done little with those on the year and did nothing with them against the Lions in terms of TDs.

We are a combined 1-5 in the red zone. We are a combined 11-35 on 3rd down (tied for fourth worst % in the NFL). We've got 1 drive as an offense that resembles a typical long, sustained, scoring drive... and we've had 32 drives. Even if you include the short field from Hawkins and the long flukey-type plays we're discussing from week 3 (they did happen, after all), we only have 4 drives out of 32 that have resulted in a TD. That's 12.5% of our drives ending in a TD, which is 31st in the NFL.

Our offense doesn't yet sustain drives. Even our overtime possession was a FG. If you project anything onto those long-catch drives (draw conclusions) but FG attempts, punts, or turnovers, it's not because we've shown we can do it. It's because you are a fan.

As a fan myself, I'm comfortable stealing a win with special teams TDs. It's a damn good feeling not to be winless and I'm even more excited about our potential to keep improving on offense in future games and to turn the bad trends around. They are bad trends, however, and even against the Lions we showed them. There is no arguing it.

[Jamalisms]

In terms of adding up our fluke plays and theirs, it's a somewhat silly exercise because points actually scored count the same no matter how they were scored. At the same time, it's somewhat useful to dig in and assess just how much each team benefitted from a season worth of luck occurring in a single game. It's a "where are we as a team" sort of thing... and definitely "what if" scenarios.

Both Jonboy and you seem to disagree that we benefitted more, so let's go through it. Let me know your thoughts if you add things up a different way.

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Direct points

The Titans scored 21 points as a direct result on the specific plays we got from the defense and ST (more than half of our regulation total). There were no additional plays required beyond kicking extra points. We didn't have to drive further down the field. None of that. Those specific plays scored 21 points. The Lions scored only 7 (on the Hail Mary). We benefitted more.

Drives off turn-overs

If we include results of drives after turnovers as flukes, the Lions went down for a FG after Locker's fumble and a TD (something we don't do) after Wright's fumble... they also got a two-point conversion. That's still only 18 points compared to our 21 that were directly scored. We still benefitted more.

Missed FGs

It would have been nice to see Bironas make all of the field goals, but even he doesn't make them every single time. You can't rely on field goals alone. Still, let's offset six of those points we scored. Now we only really got 15 points because our kicker fluke-missed FGs. Compare that to their 18 and it looks like they benefitted more... buuuuut...

Long TD Catches

At that point we probably need to include the fluke TDs we scored on offense. We're adding in missed field goals and results of their drives and only including three plays on our end. Take away our TD's and we scored 29 points compared to their 18. Maybe we should include FGs instead of TDs, since we would have been fairly far down the field and we did show an ability to get within FG range. Ok, now we're down to 23 for us and 18 for them. We still benefitted more.

----

There are a ton of assumptions involved there... so many that the second-guessing to put this together seems silly. That's a lot of "fluke" plays to subtract out, after all. Looking at it, however, the only point where you get to the Lions benefitting more than the Titans is if you include only three plays for us, add in the results of their drives after turnovers (inclusive of many plays), gives us makes on all five FGs, and don't include our long catches as flukes (despite that you called them flukey catches).

Even the level and nature of fluke plays favor us. We had 5 TDs, an NFL record, on plays over 60 yards. They got a Hail Mary and somewhat standard points off of turnovers.

With that said, how do you add things up to say we didn't benefit more? I don't see it, but maybe you can convince me.

[Cyrus]

Jamal, I think your analytical nature is looking for some more exact conclusions in the performance than we can really gather. I get your perception that the Titans can't score touchdowns outside of fluke plays because we really haven't seen them score touchdowns. But the Titans really haven't been in many redzone situations altogether. The ones we have seen haven't generally been positive. You stated that the Titans are only 1-5 in the redzone through three games, which is true, but the context is that the Titans are well below average in redzone visits altogether which was part of a larger issue of passing inefficiency (combined with a defunct run game). The Lions for example had 6 visits against us alone. The Titans have had 5 through three games.

However when you look over the tape you see the Titans moving the ball in the passing offense through a number of concepts/routes. They gained 20+ yards on a fade-out route combination, Wright got a first down and nearly 20 yards on a read-route against a MOFC read (deep-in). The Titans worked the seams at critical times with the TEs. There's a lot of positives to take away from the game on offense despite their inability to put the ball in the endzone in close situations. Again, the Titans moved the ball efficiently in the passing game which bodes well for all down-distance situations. (And the redzone inefficiency is a function of the overall passing game too).

Still I'm not saying that the Titans are performing very well in that sense, but rather what we can gather from the Lions game is that it's certainly trending in that direction. (at this point).

____

Trying to fit together some thoughts while I'm working so forgive the scattered writing.

[OILERMAN]

Cripple fight!!!!!

[Jamalisms]

Results on the field literally are conclusions. They are the conclusions of plays. In a vacuum they don't indicate much of anything. Duplicated many times over, they begin to be useful to predict expected results.

Are there positives from this team? Yes. Of course. There's nothing wrong with positives as long as you keep them in perspective and avoid being so fixated on minutia that you lose sight of the big picture. At the end of the day we had to settle for field goals and fluke plays against the Lions, and that is our best game on offense to date. Don't fixate on the positive and pretend negatives don't exist. Cite as many specific things we did well as you wish. What did they amount to? Until we do even more and better, those results won't change.

The good news is that the positives give hope that eventually we will start to sustain drives. That does not change where we are right now.

If I give you a dollar, don't pretend it's five just because you invested it.