"Titans just became real Contenders"

Blake is to blame for a lot of bad, now hes gone... We fell into some wins, but improved roster makes me think we can fall into some more again..

 

Right, blame the defense for all the woes when they won 3 games against playoff teams . the offense was solely responsible for losses to Oakland and Minnesota, not the defense. They did their part against a great offense in Oakland.

TN was middle of the pack, tied at 16 for points allowed per game. Miami, GB, and Atlanta, all playoff teams, including one that was in the SB, allowed more per game. Again, let's not act like the defense was such a detriment to a high flying offense. They were average last year, and should, by all accounts, be improved through experience and new additions. I think people exaggerate how much of a detriment they are, unless the offense shows no improvement.

 

Well that's a real convenient argument when the winner of the game is determined simply by which team has more points.

And the point is that the D is bad. We're banking on the O to score more points. In other words, winning very high scoring games. And that's fine until WE play a solid D that shuts us down. Or Mariota or our O-Line gets injured. The old adage "Defense wins championships" is because you have to be able to shut down the other guys when your offense is not producing.

 

You're talking championships. I'm talking the first playoff berth in a decade. Let's be reasonable. If the offense plays to their ability, which they have the personnel to do, they can be a top 8 offense. If that's the case, they can make the playoffs with a middle of the road defense. Expecting the staff to turn this into a championship team by year 2 is completely unrealistic. Give it time.

 

I don't expect this team to win a championship. Not sure where you're pulling that from. The point was defense is necessary. We didn't get in the playoffs because our D couldn't stop the Jags- the friggin Jags! And our D about lost us the Bears guy if that butterfingers WR on their team did drop the game winner. They tore us up.

It won't matter how fast or sure we can score if our O is kept off the field. We lack depth in our pass rush and secondary and our MLBs are average at best. We're one or two injuries away from a defensive disaster.

 

I don't understand this, Blake played minimal snaps all year and gave up 1 TD in the regular season. Didn't get torched at all. Why are you so bent on blaming him?

 

If you are criticizing the personnel for this team, you need to look at every single team around the NFL other than NE and do the same. They all have holes. Teams go to the SB, and even win, with holes in their roster. Not in the "we don't have a backup OLB" sense, but in a, "Our QB could legitimately be murdered this year because we have a Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man as a lineman" sort of way.

As I previously stated, 3 playoff teams had worse scoring defenses than the Titans. So the defense wasn't the sole reason that we didn't make the playoffs, they just sucked at a very inopportune time. In 10 of the 16 games, they allowed 22 or fewer points (subtracting defensive and ST TDs, of course). Not exactly insurmountable odds.

10 points against a meh Oakland and 17 against an awful Indy defense, both of whom they had an opportunity of tying until the offense blew it at the end. And a completely embarrassing outing against Minnesota. So if you are going to single out a game that the defense blew and another one they almost blew, you need to point out the ones where the offense failed to show up. They team didn't win a single shootout this year, the defense ultimately did their part in every victory. Maybe if they were capable of competing in a shootout, the offense would have shown up Vs. the Jaguars, but they did not.

 

Seems we did just fine last year against defenses like KC and Denver. With a lesser offense no less.

Unless we get extremely lucky, title this season is a big stretch. I personally have a goal set to win the afcs, and one home playoff game. Anything else is gravy.

 

This is a terrible response

Blake didn't give up acres of yards every play?

 

Great point. Our offense sucked too.

Not buying the hype.

Yet.

I have to see us outcompete on BOTH sides of the ball.