NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Two teams headed in the wrong direction square off Sunday in Nashville with the Titans (3-8) hosting the Jacksonville Jaguars (2-10).
The Jaguars come in losers of nine straight road games and will go with Mac Jones the rest of the way at quarterback with Trevor Lawrence on Injured Reserve with a concussion.
Jones did throw for 235 yards and two touchdowns last week when he came off the bench against the Texans in a 23-20 Jacksonville loss. In five games this season he has thrown for just 512 yards, two touchdowns and three interceptions with a QBR of 27.8.
While I fixate on Jones, the Titans are looking at the Jacksonville run game, and with good reason after they gave up 267 yards rushing last week at Washington.
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“Pride is definitely a part of it,” said head coach Brian Callahan. “There’s a professionalism involved with the expectation. And yeah, that was a game that should fuel us to be much better. We’ve been good. We need to not have a game like that. But sometimes that happens. Sometimes you get humbled in the NFL, sometimes you get beat bad. And it’s really all about how you respond. And for us, how we respond this week is going to be critical. And that’s our focus is bouncing back from a performance that wasn’t good enough by our standards at any stretch. And we got to do a lot better.”
Tank Bigsby has been a bright spot for the Jaguars this season with 547 yards rushing while averaging 5.4 yards per carry. The Jags also boast Travis Etienne out of the backfield with 371 yards. If the Titans can win first and second down consistently and put the game in Jones’ hands, they will be able to go after the former first-round pick and try to create more turnovers.
Defensively the Jaguars have been a disaster this season ranking last in the NFL.
NFL Total Defense/Scoring Defense
- 1. Philadelphia Eagles – 282 Yards Per Game/18.1 PPG
- 2. Tennessee Titans – 291 Yards Per Game/27.7 PPG
- 32. Jacksonville Jaguars – 406 Yards Per Game/28.3 PPG
Titans quarterback Will Levis is looking to take advantage of a Jaguar defense giving up 273 passing yards per game on his way to a fifth straight strong performance. In the last four games Levis has averaged 240 yards per game while throwing seven touchdowns and only two interceptions.
Callahan says Levis’ growth on the field is keyed by his growth off of it, “The cool thing right now for Will (Levis) is that as we’ve corrected things, he’s corrected them. And that’s been really fun to watch as he’s made adjustments from game to game, sometimes even from in the game made an adjustment to a coverage or a read, and that part’s been good to see. That’s generally what you’re looking for, and a very overarching theme is that it may not necessarily show up exactly on Sunday or your performance, you might not always be having a great performance because a lot of factors go into that. But the repeating of mistakes, as limited as you can make that, that’s when you see growth.”
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Calvin Ridley could be in line for a big game against his former team. Since Deandre Hopkins was traded to Kansas City the Titans have seen contributions from Ridley and Nick Westbrook-Ikhine spike dramatically.
Titans Receivers
Calvin Ridley – 43 Rec. 679 Yards, 3 TD’s
Nick Westbrook-Ikhine – 20 Rec. 365 Yards, 8 TD’s
Tyler Boyd – 32 Rec. 310 Yards
Chig Okonkwo – 27 Rec. 289 Yards, 2 TD’s
The Titans opened a 5.5-point favorite, but coming off of their disastrous showing in Washington that number has been down to Titans (-3).
Tennessee leads the all-time series with Jacksonville (35-24).