Titans Offense Needs Reinvention, Not Repetition, After Raiders Loss

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LAS VEGAS – By the way the Titans operated at Allegiant Stadium, it certainly feels like they are in stay-the-course mode.

The Cardinals made huge mistakes a week earlier, opening giant doors, but the offense mounted three great drives to grab an improbable win.

Tennessee went right back to the offensive style it played in the first three quarters of that game against the Raiders, and got similar results en route to a 20-10 loss that dropped them to 1-5.

Tennessee Titans quarterback Cam Ward (1) fumbles the ball while hit by Las Vegas Raiders linebacker Devin White (45) during the first half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Oct. 12, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/David Becker)
Cam Ward fumbles in Las Vegas/ ASSOCIATED PRESS

It’s time for the Brian Callahan offense to change, for he and play-caller Bo Hardegree to toss stuff that doesn’t work instead of asking guys to execute it as if it’s suddenly going to start gaining yards and earning first downs.

I asked Cam Ward -- who was terrible in a 26-for-38, 222-yard, one-touchdown, one-interception, two-lost-fumbles, six-sack game – if he was for staying the course or changing course.

“I’m both, honestly,” he said. "I’m open to everything and we’re not an efficient offense so we have to try new things and if we can stay the course we have to make the course work."

Just out of mere symbolism, after Ward’s explosive fourth quarter against the Cardinals, the Titans’ offensive braintrust should have opened with something significant, shown the offense they believed that its most recent Sunday work was real and sustainable and that it could do it again.

Instead the script said give it to Tony Pollard and give it to him again. And then the Titans were in third-and-1 and a run was fine, but they didn’t get the yard and Johnny Hekker punted for the first of five times. Three-and-out and deflated again.

What do the Titans do well on offense?

Take your time, pause, give it some thought.

The answer is nothing.

Thus they should be on a Lewis & Clark level expedition to find stuff, whether they worked on it in camp or not. Run stuff that hasn’t worked against the six teams you’ve played so far, it’s not working Sunday against New England.

Mike Vrabel is bringing the the Patriots, with a thriving Drake Maye, to Nashville and while he’ll downplay it, he’s going to want to send a message to Amy Adams Strunk, Burke Nihill and Chad Brinker. This is the first of many times I’ll predict a bloodbath.

Brian Callahan and his staff, they saw certain things in the Raiders’ tape that suggested some lateral outlet plays would work. They were trying to get the ball out in space and take advantage of some underneath things they saw given up by Las Vegas previously.

They didn’t work and the Titans were too slow to abandon them.

We tend to call them screens and Callahan has told us that some of them are actually run solution. Screen might be a misnomer, but they aren’t solving anything either. Sideways waste plays? How about that?

“They did a good job mixing up some coverages, they pressured a lot more this game than they had going into it,” Callahan said. “They zero blitzed us a few times which is not something they had done a lot of over the course of the early part of the season. But yeah, it was frustrating to not get more out of those balls underneath.”

They should have bailed on those in game. Rather he said they’ll look at them as they review the game.

Ward was harassed as Las Vegas sacked him six times and made seven tackles for losses. The Titans found no explosion, losing Calvin Ridley to a hamstring injury after just one reception and maxing out with a 23-yard Ward-to-Van Jefferson pass and a 17-yard Pollard run.

The Raiders didn’t do anything spectacular. They only turned it over once, and Cody Barton’s interception of Geno Smith didn’t turn into points while the Raiders got an easy TD out of a Ward fumble at the Titans’ 2 yard-line. Las Vegas started its drives with an average of 21 yards  better field position.

Jeffery Simmons said the Titans came out flat for practice on Thursday and he knew that didn’t bode well. Ward concurred.

How weak for a team to win one game and have a problem on the second day of practice after it putting forth a good effort and how weak for a coaching staff not being able to stop it and set things straight.

Last year’s 3-14 team lost each follow up to a win in progressively worse fashion, with a miserable defeat in Washington after their final win in Houston. Simmons said after that one they were “hungover on success.” This was a 10-point game not a 30-point drubbing like the Commanders gave them.

But both instances expose a team that doesn’t know how to win and doesn’t know how to handle a rare win.

"We won one game," Quandre Diggs said. "You can't get complacent in this league winning one game. I don't know (if we did), that's not for me, I'm not a coach, I just work here. We've got to be better, that's plain and simple."

He's a non nonsense veteran and the Titans have tried to sprinkle them in. But the culture it slow to take or there just isn't enough talent for it to mean much.

Not being able to handle a win, having a flat practice, starting slow -- it’s predictable, repetitive nonsense and while we can look around the league and see teams that experience quick turnaround there simply no reason to expect one in Nashville in 2026 or 2027.

I’m hardly alone as a Doubting Thomas. Show me, and I’ll believe. In the meantime, well, expecting 0-17 was a little extreme though the Titans certain provided cause. They may stumble into another couple of wins.

The opponent will have to provide a good bit of help, like Arizona did, and a defense that has played respectably three times -- allowing 20, 26 and 21 points – will have to have a big day.

Have no expectations however, except for sideways waste plays.

BryMak

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