Titans' Mailbag: What to Watch for, Searching for THE Issue, Bad Officiating

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Welcome to the weekend. Nice to see you here.

Be sure to check out this week’s excellent edition of the podcast.

Let’s jump into the mail, shall we?

David Jackson Other than if we get Levis development, what else should we keep an eye out for in an otherwise lost season?

Subtle progress isn’t very exciting, but subtle progress. The punt coverage team was actually good in LA. We don’t really care because they still gave up a 56-yard kickoff return. But can they do things like that punt return coverage effort again and then sustain it?

I’d really watch JC Latham. I’ve not done enough about him and he’s the brightest spot in terms of a long-term guy on the team. Jarvis Brownlee is going through some growing pains right now. Can he get through them and settle down? He’s saying all the right things and has a mindset that seems just right.

If they can get L’Jarius Sneed and Chidobe Awuzie on the field together and then have a nickel package with Roger McCreary, we’d actually see the defense they planned on fielding, and the pass rush might get a little bit longer to work. I’m curious what that could all look like together. Sneed and Awuzie started three games together, most recently on Sept. 22. That seems like eons ago.

Calvin Ridley’s been really good the last three weeks. I’ll be interested to see if and how he sustains it and what he can do over eight more games.

Brian Callahan’s system and if the under-the-surface stuff he talked about this week pokes through for some actual results. They’ve got chances.

This is a troublesome question, Jeremiah. You’re looking for one issue.

No team that’s got this record has one issue. 

The line doesn’t Will Levis, who holds the ball too long, well enough, particularly the right side. They commit too many penalties. Sacks and fouls put them in unfavorable downs and distances and sometimes the play-calling is less than ideal.

The defense has this nice yardage ranking, but it doesn’t have to cover a lot of yardage all the time because special teams give up big returns and the Titans turn the ball over and give up short fields too. The defense also doesn’t sack the quarterback or take the ball away very often.

It’s a long list of problems.

Most of the time it’s never one thing. And when it’s as messy as this, it’s definitely not one thing.

See the answer before this one. Some of both. 

Let’s look at the penalty issue. Twenty-five of the Titans’ 69 penalties are on the offensive line, 36 percent. Is Leroy Watson false starting because he knows he’s insufficiently talented and his man is going to beat him if he isn’t as early as is possible? Or is he false-starting because he is sloppy and undisciplined and doesn’t understand the timing?

Callahan addressed the penalties, particularly holds, early this week.

“Almost all of those penalties are technique issues when you're talking about holds,” he said. “Your hands are wrong, your feet are wrong, you’re late off the ball and those things are fixable. Those are things that we have to eliminate. I don't know that it's necessarily because of guys getting beat.”

They aren’t getting fixed.

Put simply, wins and progress. One is more tangible than the other.

Amy Adams Strunk is friends with Sheila Ford Kamp. In what Kamp has overseen with the excellent Lions’ rebuild, they endured a 3-13-1 season when Dan Campbell took over in 2021 before jumping to 9-8. 

I think the Titans win at least one of two against the Jaguars, and can win against the Colts. (Maybe there is a surprise in there too, it wouldn’t surprise me if they beat the Texans.) But likely they finish 3-14 or 4-13. To get to 9-8 next year would be a remarkable improvement. 

They will address right tackle, edge rusher and receiver in some form and we don’t know where things will head with quarterback, but it will be another offseason of player acquisition. If the 2024 roster assembled by Carthon and led by Callahan can’t make gains in performance and results, then no matter how much the organization might like to sustain continuity the clock must tick on Callahan, Chad Brinker and Callahan.  

If the Titans finish with three, four -- or maybe five wins – then finishing over .500 next year would be big in 2025.

I don’t think it’s necessarily a bigger problem. I think it’s been a problem and remains a problem.

And I don’t think the league cares that much, it doesn’t see the crisis we see. It thinks the Monday conversation about pro football is about close games, comebacks, great plays, goats, coaching decisions and bad calls. And I think the NFL is just fine with those ingredients.

When the league looks at calls in the offseason, it probably runs through sack-fumbles vs. incompletions like the one Justin Herbert had when Jeffery Simmons hit him. Half the guys will raise their hand on one side of it and the other half on the other side of it and they’ll be stumped as to how to resolve that. Maybe Perry Fewell, the senior vice president of officiating communications and administration, tells them what it was and should have been or maybe he nods and agrees that there were two interpretations. 

But everyone is having a nice dinner after the meeting and no one is pulling his hair out.

False. It’s too early for a verdict on Brian Callahan. And I bet some of the best coaches in league history had a dud on their initial staff. Anthony Levine is a promising young coach, but having an inexperienced assistant to an inexperienced special teams coordinator was another mistake here.

If, somehow, Colt Anderson is the Titans 2025 special teams coach, THAT’s an indictment of Callahan.