The Mike Vrabel thread (+ coaching staff)

[TitanSS]

10 hours ago, deeluxx3 said:

I said all that. And what I said was that we are culturally incapable of convincingly beating bad teams.

and I stand by it. We just got beat, outplayed and out coached by the Jets. A team that has been absolutely getting their teeth kicked in with a rookie QB. Same thing happened last year against Cincy. We literally almost lost 2x to Houston last year and almost lost to Jax in our first meeting.

beating middle of the pack teams (at the time) in chicago and Oakland and actually thoroughly beating a bad team in Detroit doesn’t change the fact that we typically play up to and down to the level of our opponent. Consistently. And have throughout Vrabel’s tenure. Detroit reads more like an outlier in the bigger picture.

I’m well aware of how the NFL works. Well aware of how slim the margin of error is and the difference between a great team like KC and a bad team like Houston isn’t all that much. 
 

but can you seriously say that teams like KC, GB, and Baltimore don’t go into NY on Sunday and almost certainly come out with a win? And we can’t use the “they have franchise QBs” as an excuse here, because the consensus here (and I agree) is that Tanny is a top ten QB.

9/10 times, those teams take care of business. We make it hard on ourselves and have every single season. We either limp into the playoffs like last year or need to make a late push for the WC. It’s ridiculous.

 

the single objective in this league is to win a super bowl. Literally nothing else matters. Losses like Sundays show how far we are from winning one when you look at the big picture. 
 

we can’t beat the Jets but we are supposed to beat Balt/Buffalo/KC in consecutive weeks? 
 

and miss me with any “overreaction / the sky isn’t falling” bs. Because it’s not an overreaction. This team is repeatedly showing that, the way it is in its current state (injuries or not), it is not on the right path toward winning a super bowl. Whether it’s getting our butts totally whooped by the Browns or Packers last year or by Cincy and the Jets…this is a football team that simply fails to show up mentally and strategically every single Sunday. 

This is a point that I think about when people says Titans fans are overreacting and it's only week 4. In order to win a Super Bowl we would need to win 3 consecutive games, most likely on the road, and then one game in a neutral stadium.

If fans admit that we're going to play like this consistently because of who we are as a team, how can you possibly support the team continuing down the same road they're on? How could you have any faith that a team this inconsistent could go on a 4 game stretch against considerably better opponents on the road?

Every team has off weeks; I get that. The Titans take it to the next level. It's not just one random week where we played down to the opponent and then we bounce back and play well for several games. It's a weekly issue that's been around for years.

That said, I don't think we're a very good team this year. We're bottom half of the league in terms of offensive and defensive EPA per play. We probably weren't as good as we thought we were last year when we look at how many close games we had against bad teams. We just have stars on offense that are capable of taking the game over sometimes and will the rest of the team to a win. When half of those stars are out we saw first-hand how top-heavy our roster is and how bad we are without them.

[TitanSS]

We know first-hand that we overrate our own players on this forum. We can assume Tannehill, Henry, AJB, and Julio are not overrated and Lewan, when healthy, isn't overrated. Everyone else on our team is a strong candidate for being overrated by us as fans. The trick is which ones are we overrating and which ones do we need to replace? How many of the guys on defense would play better given adequate coaching?

We have the worst TE unit in the NFL and we play at least 2 of them on every early down. I really don't get this. I'm not even sure we have a TE on our roster that would start on the 31 other teams. Our best TE was released right before week 1 by another team and we got him then. Firkser is a slot WR primarily so I'm excluding him from this. He really only lines up flexed out or as a wing.

Edited October 5, 2021 by TitanSS

[-Hope-]

1 hour ago, TitanSS said:

We have the worst TE unit in the NFL and we play at least 2 of them on every early down. I really don't get this.

hurr durr gotta establish the run

[615finest]

This is where I’m at lol

[TitanSS]

 

 

Bucs retained all 22 starters on the team that won the Super Bowl and are getting more rookie contribution than Robinson's/Vrabel's latest draft.

Two of the teams with less than us didn't have a first round pick.

If this was a one year thing it wouldn't be that concerning, but we're in the second year of it now.

[titans0021]

52 minutes ago, TitanSS said:

 

 

Bucs retained all 22 starters on the team that won the Super Bowl and are getting more rookie contribution than Robinson's/Vrabel's latest draft.

Two of the teams with less than us didn't have a first round pick.

If this was a one year thing it wouldn't be that concerning, but we're in the second year of it now.

Did we have a rookie play a single offensive or defensive snap this past week? Without looking it up, McMath might have gotten a couple?

[titans0021]

9 minutes ago, titans0021 said:

Did we have a rookie play a single offensive or defensive snap this past week? Without looking it up, McMath might have gotten a couple?

Looked it up, McMath played 14. Up to 40 snaps this year, resulting in one target and zero yards. So that’s great.

[615finest]

18 drives inside the 20?! That’s crazy. Fixing our kick return blocking would be a start to help this. And maybe a competent returner 

[twotonebluenation]

23 hours ago, 615finest said:

18 drives inside the 20?! That’s crazy. Fixing our kick return blocking would be a start to help this. And maybe a competent returner 

Just put the King in on kick returns. 

[deeluxx3]

 

Serious question. As I obviously have no idea what goes on in practice, meetings, locker room, games, etc.

After four games, how does this "motto" not translate onto the field? If the secondary's entire ethos has been about challenging receivers, then HOW do we get in a position where it's 3rd-and-2 in OT and our corners are 10 yards off the ball?

[-Hope-]

1 hour ago, deeluxx3 said:

 

Serious question. As I obviously have no idea what goes on in practice, meetings, locker room, games, etc.

After four games, how does this "motto" not translate onto the field? If the secondary's entire ethos has been about challenging receivers, then HOW do we get in a position where it's 3rd-and-2 in OT and our corners are 10 yards off the ball?

not only that, but it's a completely different set of corners from last year! it's not like an "old habits die hard" situation. i find it completely impossible to comprehend. we're not getting the whole story, and obviously that's true of any nfl news, but this is really something else. i just don't get it.

[TitanSS]

So Vrabel and Bowen are now both trying to say that they're preaching the CBs to play up on the receivers in these crucial situations and they're just backing off on their own?

Considering it's been going on for more than a year with a completely different set of CBs with only the two coaches being the same, it's hard to believe the coaches when they say it's not their coaching causing the issue.

 

[TitanLegend]

I think the weirdest thing is the CBs playing off in stupid situations only really reared it's ugly head in the Jets game after we had to move Fulton to the slot. Which makes me wonder if it was personnel related(no, I have no idea why that would be the case, but just trying to figure things out) somehow. Because before that the coverage was tight and everything looked pretty good defensively.

[-Hope-]

16 minutes ago, TitanLegend said:

I think the weirdest thing is the CBs playing off in stupid situations only really reared it's ugly head in the Jets game after we had to move Fulton to the slot. Which makes me wonder if it was personnel related(no, I have no idea why that would be the case, but just trying to figure things out) somehow. Because before that the coverage was tight and everything looked pretty good defensively.

yeah, i mentioned this earlier but the common thread is having sub-optimal personnel- in that situation and last season. but it's completely insane to say "okay, we have weak personnel, let's all of a sudden put them in a total lose-lose situation." in any case it seems to point to bad coaching of some variety, but it's so weird that i just can't wrap my head around it.

[ttitansfan4life]

Maybe it’s my mindset but if we’re playing man coverage, there’s not a single time my CBs are playing to the depth of 10 yards off. Play up and press them every play. Affect the timing of the route. I’d rather get burnt deep playing aggressive then giving up a free release every play playing scared. Sounds like the coaching staff is trying to blame the players and the players are blaming the scheme. Sounds amazing….

Edited October 7, 2021 by ttitansfan4life