6. Reshaad Jennings and Jamil Douglas Edit: I was curious so I went and looked. 7 with Chad Henne on the Chiefs. Yes that Chad Henne.
Concerning the many former Dolphin players we've seen participating throughout this, and previous, postseasons: The NFL is filled to the brim with talented individuals. It's all getting those individuals to buy in to a particular, and particularly strong, vision as a group and unselfishly join together that creates success. Coaching is everything in team sports.
Really disappointed Cam Wake isn't healthy, I can imagine he would wreathes havoc in a game like this.
Any insight on how the Chiefs can TRY and slow this offense down? I think it is safe to say the personnel in Baltimore is somewhat better defensively than KC, yet even they couldn't contain him. On the flip side, how would you defend that Chiefs offense with so little pass rush? Is Mahomes a QB you would send extra rushers against?
This is what has made Tannehill so dangerous. Defenses stacking 8 in the box to try and stop Henry, leaving them vulnerable for play action pass, especially when the line crashes down and he rolls out left (or right).
If the Chiefs get up by 3-4 touchdowns that will take the Titans out of running Henry as much as they’d like. Gamescript will dictate a lot in that game. Kind of obvious, I guess.
If the Chiefs get up by THAT much it'll be over, but regardless of the score, Tennessee CAN'T give up on the run. How many times have we seen Henry rip off a run for 10, 20 or more yards? I don't see Kansas City though getting THAT far ahead of Tennessee.
That damn kc offense is whoof scary. Travis kelce i mean no one defeats coverage like that guy does. There may be better blocking tight ends but there isn’t a better flex one. And those schemes are filthy
Hard to believe, watching them yesterday, that they scored 80 less than the Ravens on the year, and just a few more than the Cowboys. I hope Dean Pees can figure out something great for this one...they looked unstoppable. Can they use somewhat of the same strategy they used against Jackson? Containment to the pocket with eventual pressure? Limit the run chances? Hopefully the LBs will be a full force and can at least limit Kelce a bit. That team is a handful...they haven't lost since the Titans beat 'em 35-32 in Nashville, in November. Edit: And much like the Ravens, the Chiefs have taken advantage of early leads to take opposing offenses out of their game, and only gave up 9 PPG after that loss to the Titans in the regular season.
Well in the playoff thread I predicted it would be KC vs Tennessee and that the Chiefs would come out on top. I'm not even 70% confident in the Chiefs though. It's more a gut feeling, the game will most likely come down to whether the Titans can keep the Chiefs on the sideline by running the ball and making quick stops on defense.
That was their recipe in November...Henry had over 180 yards and 2 TDs. Even then, they needed a late TD drive by Tannehill and a blocked FG to ice it. Was a hell of a game.
If KC manages to get up 2-3 scores, hang it up IMO, barring some big time defense/special teams beasting. Not because I don't think the Titans can get 2-3 scores to catch up, but KC won't just go scoreless to help lol. Titans need a lead early.
This is going to be an exciting game. I just hope that Henry is too much for Spagnola to stop. If he has a beast of a game yet again...whew, I’m really anxious and eager at the same time.
There is simply just a remaining question about how Tannehill will fare if he's put in a situation in which the Titans' running game can't steamroll the opponent, the opposing team's passing game plays well, and Tannehill is thus forced to win the game with his own high-volume passing performance. There is little if anything to go on to indicate that the Titans should be predicted to prevail in such a situation. Now, admittedly there are few quarterbacks in the league who would prevail in such a situation, but those are the kinds of QBs that Super Bowl winning teams have almost always had in recent history. So, the comment about low-volume in the regular season game against the Chiefs wasn't meant to be an insult; it's just a comment about whether that game was like the kind of game noted above. Tannehill had 19 pass attempts in that game and Mahomes 50.
Yup, these are two very different yet equally dominant teams. I think it all comes down to Tennessee's secondary slowing down Mahommes for four quarters....which sounds near impossible. The same goes for the Titans, Henry and Tannehill off the play action. So I think we go to option B and this one ends up being a shootout. I feel like the Titans have a chance to win but there's no way to make a real prediction...I really think it comes down to a final drive for either team.
Titans have to score early again - a lot of their success against both NE and Baltimore was from early scores and then playing Henry and solid defense. If they let the Chiefs roll out of the gate they can't play their game and will get trashed. They need the defense to limit big plays and make some red zone holds, while they conversely need to continue their own absurd red zone success. This is going to be a tough challenge for them though, that's for sure. Chiefs had a stumble in the early-mid season, but they have been crazy good since then on both sides of the ball. Titans best shot is to just keep playing their game and hope the pressure wears the Chiefs down into making mistakes. The way KC looked yesterday though ... man that's an uphill task.
If the Titans manage to beat the Chefs, I fully expect to see a thread posted here saying, "Tanny Coming Back to Miami!!" I'll be happy for the guy, but it does beg the question; "Did Grier conclude that Tanny was incapable of leading a team deep into the playoffs OR that it would be impossible to build a good OL and great running game to put around Tanny?" Is watching the success Tanny is having a knock against Grier? He traded away a QB that might be in the Super Bowl this year. Pondering this, I think Grier decided that Tanny would need a LOT of help to succeed on the level he has with the Titans. Wouldn't you rather have a QB that can carry his team when necessary? Not one that depends heavily on the run game and defense to help him win? In other words, the better your QB, the more margin for error you have in building the rest of your team. Tanny has made some great throws and is doing enough when called upon to help them win, but he is more along for the ride than being the driving force behind the Titan's success.
If that's an accurate position, then by extension it becomes difficult to say the Dolphins erred in their approach to Tannehill. If a quarterback needs a defense that makes opposing teams play poorly, as well as the kind of running back his own team can create its offensive gameplan around, then what we're talking about by implication is a quarterback who needs relatively rare surroundings to excel against the best teams in the league. I mean you can't say the Dolphins were garbage personnel-wise during Tannehill's tenure because 1) they didn't compile one of the league's best defenses, and 2) they didn't manage to acquire a running back they could gameplan around. If that's what a quarterback needs personnel-wise for his team to excel against the best teams in the league, then that's going to be a tall order for any team in the league to achieve. It may also be a tall order for the Titans themselves to sustain that personnel, once players like Derrick Henry, AJ Brown, and Jonnu Smith start having salary cap hits far greater than the very small ones they do currently. They already have to deal with the fact that Taylor Lewan's cap hit will go from $13.2M to $18.2M, and Rodger Saffold's from $6.3M to $12.3M in 2020. This again is why some quarterbacks have no more than a year of great play here or there, amidst an overall average career. It's difficult to sustain the surroundings necessary for them to play at that level.
One of the things you need to do against pass happy offenses like the Chiefs is beat the crap out of their receivers every time a pass goes their way. Slam their ribs every time they catch a ball. You won't intimidate all of them but you'll crush the spirit of a few of the weaker willed ones
Through weeks of researching data you’ve come to the conclusion that it’s possible that Tannehill will have trouble winning in the playoffs if he has to overcome a big deficit or throw upwards of 50 times? Cool.
The question that would adjudicate your position is this: you're the Titans' GM, and for some reason you have to make the choice between keeping Derrick Henry or Tannehill, and you have the ability to replace Tannehill with an average QB if you keep Henry. What do you do?
Tannehill is going to the AFC Championship game, not Tom Brady, Watson, not Jackson...ONE game away from the Super Bowl and you’re STILL running your mouth about Tannehill.
This is what I suspect though Grier should have advised against it. I suspect Ross has someone who's job is too simply monitor social media regarding the Dolphins and report back what Dolphins fans are thinking.
That addresses nothing about the point I made about Tannehill's performance volume. You're simply commenting about his team's performance and the behavior of a person on a message board.
3 out of the 4 teams.left are run first play action teams with strong defenses. Even green bay has gone that direction and they have an all time great at QB. Your view of the game and QBs is outdated by about 15 to 20 years. The last time a QB was that valuable to his team was when Drew Brees was getting a ring Nowadays you need a strong defense, a running game and a QB who can keep you honest And since when did building an offensive line and a defense get taken off a GMs job description. If you can't build a line or a defense then don't GM.
In conference championship games since 2010 (N = 20), the winning teams had an average passer rating of 96.6, the losing teams had an average passer rating of 76.3, and the correlation between passer rating differential and point differential in those games was 0.74. None of the winners of those games was able to advance to the Super Bowl by having the same as or fewer passes than Ryan Tannehill has attempted on average in the 2019-2020 playoffs (14.5). In fact just the average number of pass attempts for the winners of those games (35.1) is roughly twenty pass attempts greater than Tannehill's average (14.5) in 2019-2020.
They had an average QB and Henry averaged less than 60 yards per game for 3 seasons plus 6 games. Then they replaced that average QB with Tannehill. Henry averaged 136 yards per game over the last 12 games. Here are the top 10 teams in rush %. 7 of them were in the playoffs, the other 3 have average to below average QBs. Now here are the bottom 10. One made the playoffs: Moral of the story? If you don't have Patrick Mahomes, Drew Brees, or Aaron Rodgers, run the damn football enough. Stop pretending that this is unique to the Titans and Ryan Tannehill.
You'd go back to losing like they did with Mariota. I don't understand why you are ignoring the dumpster fire they were under Mariota. Henry had 5 100 yard games out of his first 56. He's had 7 100 yard games out of his last 8 with Tannehill at the helm. You're ignoring the effect Tannehill has on the defense, which makes it easier for Henry. I mean, you're one who points to stats, and stats tell us that the run game has little to no effect on win%. Therefore, it seems incredible that you're pointing at Henry as the reason for winning. If it was any QB other than Tannehill, I think you'd be trying to prove that it was the QB making the running back better.
