Titans, Jags continue search for big plays

Posted by ESPN.com's Paul Kuharsky The pass was perfect. David Garrard had put about all he had on it and while Troy Williamson didn't have much of a lead on Dre Bly, it was enough. The ball fell out of the gray Denver sky into Williamson's hands. Down at the 2-yard line, the play was a 69-yard beauty.
Passing plays of 30+ yards TeamNo. of PlaysDallas 11 New Orleans 11 Houston 9 Indianapolis 6 Jacksonville 3 Tennessee 3 Cincinnati 1Rushing plays of 20+ yards TeamNo. of PlaysNY Giants 10 Houston 4 Jacksonville 4 Indianapolis 2 Tennessee 1 Arizona 0 NY Jets 0 Pass plays of 30+ yards given up TeamNo. of PlaysDetroit 12 Houston 7 Jacksonville 7 Tennessee 4 Indianapolis 2 Pittsburgh 2 Cincinnati 2 Rushes of 20+ yards given up TeamNo. of PlaysKansas City 11 Indianapolis 6 Tennessee 4 Jacksonville 3 Pittsburgh 0 And it didn't happen.
Khalif Barnes' hold of Elvis Dumervil bought Garrard an extra second to make the throw and drew a penalty flag.
Even so, the Jaguars viewed the non-play as progress.
That's how it works sometimes with big plays in the passing game, where incremental progress can provide hope and a washed away bomb can provide evidence -- that it can happen, that it will happen, if we just keep working on it.
"You see Troy, it was an amazing catch, it was an amazing route, it was something that we are trying to get to," Garrard said. "Unfortunately we had a holding call. But that's just something we have to keep building on and continue to get better at... That's something we definitely want to get to more.
"We can do those things. We just have to be patient, we can't think that we're going to throw it over everybody's head all of the time.
The Titans and Jaguars pride themselves on pounding it, grinding it out, winning it the hard way.
Long marches that chew up clock and spit out first downs, drives that build a rhythm and leave a defense tired can be lovely, but wouldn't an occasional big play be a nice supplement?
The Titans have just three pass plays of 30-plus yards and only one run of 20-plus this season. For Jacksonville has three of those passes and four of those runs.
The standard response to questions about explosive plays is that offenses are looking for them, dialing them up, and expecting they'll show up. But they're not easily found, and so offenses have to wait on them while trying to see if they can't go 80-yards in 12 plays or take advantage of field position won for them by defense or special teams.
"You're looking for big plays, the home runs," Jeff Fisher said. "We've taken some shots, and we haven't hit many of them and we're going to keep taking them and eventually it'll happen. The completion percentage on deep passes is not as good as on the shorter passes and we've just had our share of incompletes. If you keep doing it, eventually you're going to hook up."
Said center Kevin Mawae: "We're a hair away from a long run with Chris Johnson or a shoestring tackle away from just our running game stretching the field out for us."
As I started asking around about the impact of big plays versus long drives for a defense, I was a bit surprised with the answers I got. Titans coordinator Jim Schwartz and linebacker Keith Bulluck and defensive end Kyle Vanden Bosch all said they can come to terms more easily with a big play than a big drive, because the big play is typically easier to resolve.
Schwartz remembered a 2002 game against Pittsburgh when Hines Ward beat Andre Dyson for a 72-yard touchdown on the first play of the game. The coordinator started to gather his defense to sort things out, but the players basically waved him off, saying "We're OK, we're straight."
"Sometimes if a team can methodically move the ball, guys are looking for answers," Schwartz said. "It's not just one thing that needs to be fixed, it's a multitude of things. The one play you can handle as long as it's something that you can identify quickly and it's something that is fixable. It wasn't, 'Hey, look we've got a corner who can't cover this guy.' If it's something fixable, I think the one big one is easier to overcome. You're only attacking one problem on the sideline. As opposed to they got six yards each play, they went 12 plays, 72 yards, 'OK, well we have a lot of things to address.'"
If the psychological damage defensively is worse on a long drive, I tend to believe an offense get a bigger boost out of a big play. An offense has to work and fight and execute for a long time and have a lot go right on a long drive. Less work for the same payoff is what everybody on offense wants -- points as quickly and easily as they can put them up on the scoreboard.
Indianapolis is built for those plays. The Colts like to pounce and put up a couple scores, forcing a team to become one dimensional on offense. That tailors a game to the Colts' defensive talents. They got back to that formula last week when they routed the Ravens.
Reggie Wayne is often part of the big pass plays, and thinks they are ultimately more damaging because a defense gets that much less time to assess formations, groupings, routes and schemes.
"For us and for me the quick strike score is better because it leaves the defense wondering what happened and how we scored so quickly," he said "The 12 play, 80-yard drive touchdown gives the defense the opportunity to see where we may have positioned ourselves more often as an offense and the defense can adjust based upon what they saw more often to limit what we like to do next time"
Kerry Collins spent some time during the Titans bye week considering his deep-ball accuracy.
In Kansas City Sunday, he and the Titans will continue to look for explosive plays. The Jaguars will work after their bye, hoping to line up the same when they return to action against Cleveland.
Vanden Bosch will chase and track Brodie Croyle, trying to ensure he's got insufficient time for anything deep to develop and plug holes hoping Larry Johnson doesn't break free.
A successful long drive may serve to leave the defense with more questions, but Vanden Bosch knows that big play can impact a different area of the game, one that can be more important.
"More so than any other sport, football is all about momentum," he said. "That big play, just momentum-wise can be tough to overcome. It affects the crowd, it affects your attitude, it affects your intensity. That can be the bad thing. A big play is a quick shift in momentum. And so much of the game we play is momentum."


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