This seems like the easiest call ever.
There are a million* reasons that Todd Downing shouldn’t be the offensive coordinator of the Tennessee Titans anymore. He has to be the worst play caller in the NFL. We have been over that a million times.
The focus of this post is the baffling use of personnel that Downing employs. The Titans ran 57 offensive plays yesterday. Before you read the rest of this post, guess how many of those Treylon Burks played. Now guess how many Chig Okonkwo played. I’d love to hear what your guesses were in the comments.
Now the actual answer is 38 for Burks and 19(!) for Chig. The number for Burks is too low. The number for Chig is criminal. Especially when you consider that Geoff Swaim, who tackled Derrick Henry during the game, played 31 snaps – almost twice as many as Chig. As I was writing this post, Tom Gower tweeted this:
Pet peeve: generally been a “WR” thing, but just because Geoff Swaim & Chig Okonkwo are listed at “TE” doesn’t mean they do the same thing or snaps given to one can be given to the other on a pure replacement basis.
— Tom Gower (@ThomasGower) November 28, 2022
While I understand that to be true, what I don’t understand is why they refuse to move away from running the plays where Swaim can (allegedly) do something and move toward running plays where Chig is on the field. I guess they don’t do that because it would require creativity and Downing isn’t creative when it comes to designing an offense.
Burks is playing more with each passing week. That’s good news. What they need to do is Feed Burks! Design plays to get him the ball more. Why don’t they do that? See the above paragraph.
The Titans appear to have a couple of young playmakers in Burks and Okonkwo. A smart offensive coordinator would figure out ways to get them on the field more and get them the ball more. It’s just a shame the Titans don’t have a smart offensive coordinator.
*The actual number