NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The Titans' target list stacks up as it should – with Calvin Ridley at the top (27) followed by DeAndre Hopkins (20), Tony Pollard (19) and Tyler Boyd (19).
But the Titans aren't throwing it enough or getting enough production when they do. The three starting receivers and top running back have yielded 525 receiving yards – 179 fewer than Derrick Henry has run for in one additional game.
Brian Callahan has talked much about intent.

“I tried to get that ball to Hop and tried to get the ball to Rid,” Callahan said of the Titans’ fourth-quarter offense in Sunday’s loss to the Colts during which they went scoreless. “Let those guys have opportunities to try to go help us win the game.”
That fourth-quarter passing offense produced 23 yards on three-for-10 passing by Will Levis. Five targets for Ridley and three for Hopkins resulted in one Hopkins' catch for 16 yards.
In his 27 overall targets, Ridley has nine catches. Against Indianapolis, I thought five of the throws from Levis were uncatchable. He could have done more to pull in the other three.
Did you accidentally drink something poisonous and need to vomit it up quickly? Consider watching all 8 of Calvin Ridley's "targets" in yesterday's game. This is not football. pic.twitter.com/bKbFyxJOWm
— Andy Holloway (@andyholloway) October 14, 2024
Overall, per FantasyPros.com, only 11 of the 27 throws have rated as catchable, with two dropped.
That’s a Levis issue, first, though we don’t know if Ridley has been in the right spots for all of them. An uncatchable ball throw to the right place would go against the QB’s scoresheet but really belong in Ridley’s error column.
While play calls may be asking for Levis to push the ball downfield, he’s become gun-shy. He seems reluctant to do it, probably for fear of big mistakes. The case has been made to me, effectively, that my recent piece suggesting the Titans’ use of Levis indicates they have a verdict on him was flawed in that he’s deciding where to throw it, and he’s not necessarily throwing it where they want him to. Much of the film from the Colts’ loss shows open people in intermediate areas being missed, often because Levis is late.
(So it’s better said, perhaps, that he’s making the verdict easier, by putting himself in a box rather than getting put in one.)
The big question is how Levis is not doing better with the primary or secondary guy in at least a share of what look to be well-designed plays.
Thread takeaway: In these situations, better scheming than quarterbacking. #Titans https://t.co/GQBBdOxy0O
— Paul Kuharsky (@PaulKuharskyNFL) October 15, 2024
Levis said he didn’t think he checked down or threw hot too often against Indianapolis.
Tyke Tolbert said that, as we’d expect, Ridley and DeAndre Hopkins and primary and secondary on a good share of Titans’ pass routes, though he emphasized that coverages and situations can take one, or even two, guys away.
Bo Hardegree said Levis gets to his first or second read “a good percentage” of the time.
“You take the plan, you get your guys on the right spot and then you go from there, you find a completion,” Hardegree said. “One of those guys is probably winning, we would expect them to win, yes.”
Callahan's intent is about more than just who gets the ball
"There are always reasons why a certain player is on that primary, and then there is also a progression for the quarterback," he said. "I always say it's not Will's job to get guys the ball, it's my job to put them in position so they can get the ball. It's Will's job to read the progression or read the play and know where to go with the ball based on what the defense is doing."
"That's really what I mean by that: There is intention in what we are trying to get done, who we are trying to get the ball to, when, why all those things."
I wrote last week about the lack of positive wow throws from Levis this season, and he didn't add any in Week 5. He's conscious of that.
“I’d like to hit some more deep shots,” he said. “I feel like my deep ball accuracy is one of my strong suits and it just hasn’t shown up this year and that’s disappointing for me. I’ve got to find ways to put myself in position to be able to get those balls off and make those plays. I’m not going to search for those and try to push and throw it up when it’s not necessary. But lack of completions down the field, we’ve got to get that fixed.”
The longer those go missing, the more the ones from last season seem to qualify as outliers rather than the core component of who he is as a quarterback. The struggle for Levis and Ridley, a costly free agent with deep-threat ability the Titans have lacked for a long time, to connect has been an issue since training camp.
Ridley was upset after eight balls went his way Sunday and he had no catches. I didn’t think he had a chance at five of them. I thought he could have done better on the other three, even if he couldn’t have come up with them.
He dropped some F-bombs post-game and while he said he sucked he also said he needed the ball more, earlier. Only two of the pass attempts aimed in his direction came before halftime.
“I wasn’t frustrated with my coach, players or anything,” he said. “It was just, I want to help us lose if we’re going to lose, you know what I am saying? …”
“I want to win. We’ve got a good team, we should be winning, that’s all I feel. Emotions came out. I believe in my team, myself, my coaches. Everything. I want to help us win, that’s all.”
Talking broadly about the passing-game execution issue, Callahan said: “It's certainly something that we've spent a lot of time and effort on as of late, trying to make sure we continue to refine it and get our timing down so we can have more success because we need to be better in the passing game.”
It sure seems hard.
The Titans are 31st with 135 passing yards a game, 45 fewer a game than last year when their passing game was terrible. Forty-nine players who’ve appeared in at least three games have more targets per game than Ridley’s 5.4. Eighty have more than Hopkins’ 4.0. The volume can only go up if the quarterback play is better. Much better.
Among Titans, nine-year NFL veteran Tyler Boyd knows this offense better than anyone but Callahan. He was in it for all five years that Callahan worked as Zac Taylor’s chief assistant with the Cincinnati Bengals.
He said he’s absolutely surprised at the state of the passing offense.
“When you’ve got weapons on this team like us and not the results and statistics that everybody thinks we should have, it’s kind of up and down,” he said. “We all want to get more targets and catch a lot more balls to help this team win and that hasn’t been our M.O. right now. The run game has been our successful point. We’ve just got to kind of rally off that.”