Disturbing Context About How Little the Titans Score

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Two better games from Will Levis have not resulted in improvement from the Titans in the most important offensive number: Points.

The Titans scored 17 in their loss at the Chargers and 13 at home against the Vikings.

They are now 8-26 in their last 34 games and in those 26 losses, they've averaged 14.4 points and topped 20 twice.

Titans’ points in losses

The Titans broke a 1,000-day streak and topped 30 points to beat Miami, 31-12, on Sept. 30. Twenty points was enough for their second win, 20-17, over New England in OT on Nov. 3. Otherwise, they’ve maxed out at 17.

In Mike Vrabel’s final year, the Titans won with 27, 27, 28, 17, 28 and 28 points. That win with 17 points was against Carolina, the NFL’s worst team.

So seven of the franchise’s last eight wins required at least 20 points. Points in losses have been disappointingly low, just see the chart above.

One of the reasons Brian Callahan cited for Tennessee not doing any better finding the end zone the last two weeks despite better QB play is its inability to convert third downs in the red zone, or even approaching the end zone.

The Titans are 28th in red-zone offense, scoring TDs just 48.3 percent of the time they get inside their opponents’ 20-yard line. In the last two weeks, while they’ve thrown the ball better, against two good defenses they’ve not gotten into the red zone much and they’ve not been productive once they’ve gotten there, scoring a TD just once in four chances.

The league average is 56.8 percent.

“We've kicked far too many field goals,” Brian Callahan said. 

But they’ve attempted 15 – tied for the second-fewest in the NFL -- hitting all but one. 

“You convert those drives into touchdowns, you're going to have a better shot,” he continued. "Obviously, we had a touchdown that got called back (against the Vikings). Those are things that we just need a little bit more efficiency. Our third down in the red zone has got to be better. I’ve got to do a better job putting guys in position to be able to convert because those are 4-point plays and you want to average, above 20 to 24, 25 points, that's where you want to be.

“We've got to do a better job of getting those 4 points more when we have the opportunities and haven't done a good enough job there to score more than what we’ve scored. And that's an emphasis for us is when we get trips down in red zone, particularly when you get to third down in the red zone, we've got to do a much better job than we have so we can give ourselves an opportunity to score more points.”

Visit a fantasy land where we convert all the Titans 3s to 7s, and the Titans would go from a minus-93 point differential to a minus-30. Their scoring average would jump from 17 (28th) to 23 (16th).

We’d take it. It’d be a notable jump, but it would still be under where Callahan talks about wanting to be -- 24 or 25 points.

Here is Will Levis’ solution to the scoring issue:

“Just sustain drives, get ourselves in more manageable third downs,” Will Levis said. “That's been the story all year. I think we're No. 1 in the league in third-and-11-plus. It's good, but just means we're there more often than others. So just sustaining drives throughout and making the plays down there when we can, we got to be better in the red zone and more touchdowns, less field goals.”

Only eight teams have visited the red zone fewer times than the Titans’ 29. We know they typically stall as soon as they take a penalty or suffer a sack, so cleaner play is the goal. But they've got a substantial right tackle issue. If everyone else can play with precision, they are still at high risk just from that one spot.