The Tennessee Titans will look to keep the good times rolling when they hit the road to take on the Indianapolis Colts in Week 5, which is also their first divisional game of 2023.
The AFC South is about where you’d expect it to be after four games. Every team in the division is neck-and-neck with a 2-2 record and are separated by just tie-breakers that have very little meaning this early in the season.
Buy Titans TicketsThe Titans can get a jump on one of those tie-breakers (divisional record) with a win over the Colts on Sunday.
As the Titans and Colts meet in Lucas Oil Stadium, the Jacksonville Jaguars will host an elite Buffalo Bills team. Meanwhile, the Houston Texans have it a bit easier against a struggling but frisky Atlanta Falcons team.
If everything falls into place, the Titans could find themselves atop the division alone after Week 5.
Now, the burning questions for Tennessee.
Will Chris Hubbard remain at right tackle?
When he was first suspended, the thought was the Titans would cover right tackle Nicholas Petit-Frere in the meantime and simply return him to his starting spot once he was reinstated.
However, in that time, veteran right tackle Chris Hubbard has played well, and Vrabel made it sound like NPF was no lock to get his job back.
“Nick has been away for a little bit — he was with us in training camp,” Vrabel said, per Jim Wyatt. “We’ll see where things go. I like the way Chris (Hubbard) is playing over there (at right tackle). We’ll just see how he looks this week.”
With the way Hubbard has played overall this season, and after what we saw from NPF in his rookie campaign, there is zero guarantee the latter will be an upgrade over the former.
I think the Titans stick with Hubbard for the time being, but keep a close eye on this situation, as the veteran right tackle hasn’t been as good over his last two games (five pressures, three sacks) as he was in his first two (one pressure, zero sacks).
Will Peter Skoronski play?
The Titans have been without their starting left guard for the past three games after Peter Skoronski was forced to undergo an emergency appendectomy prior to Week 2. The usual recovery time is one to four weeks.
In his stead, the Titans have deployed Dillon Radunz, who has held his own, which is especially impressive considering he’s coming off a torn ACL. There’s no doubt Radunz has helped his stock mightily.
However, Skoronski has all the makings of a better player than Radunz, so chances are he’ll provide a boost upon his return. When that return occurs exactly remains to be seen, but Vrabel did say he was hopeful Skoronski returns to practice this week.
Usually when Vrabel expresses hope, the player returns in some capacity. I’d put my money on Skoronski practicing and playing this week.
Will Treylon Burks play?
Burks sat out last week’s game with a knee injury and head coach Mike Vrabel said he would miss “a week or so.”
The Titans’ passing attack still thrived without the second-year wideout in the lineup last week, but nobody is going to say the offense is better off without him. Despite his quiet start to the season, Burks’ return would be a plus for Ryan Tannehill and Co.
Will Kyle Philips play?
The Titans opened Philips’ 21-day window to return to practice, but the team still has to activate him from injured reserve, something that will happen near the end of the week, if it happens at all.
The oft-injured Philips, who is coming off an MCL injury suffered in the preseason, figures to take back the punt return role he was slated to have before his injury.
But the biggest plus he could potentially provide is his short-area quickness in the passing game, which is important if the Titans’ pass protection breaks down and Tannehill needs to get rid of the ball quickly.
Can the offense stack good games?
So far, the Titans have been bad, good, bad, good on offense through four games. The first bad was a result of Ryan Tannehill, and the second bad was a result of the offensive line.
When given time to throw, Tannehill has been good this season, and we saw that in Week 4 when he was slinging it all over the field, with Tennessee completing a handful of passes over 20 yards.
A big reason for that was improved pass protection, and especially from left tackle Andre Dillard, who was a sieve the week prior. Dillard and the rest of the offensive line desperately need another performance like that to build confidence moving forward.
But it isn’t just about pass protection with the group upfront. Improved run-blocking in Week 4 finally sprung Derrick Henry, who had his best game of the young season and was a massive difference-maker for the Titans’ offense.
Coming off that performance, the offense may get reinforcements in Burks, Philips and Skoronski, which would be great news and only increase the chances of Tennessee’s offense stacking good games.
Now that we’ve discussed the players, it’s time to mention the play-caller, offensive coordinator Tim Kelly. He pushed all the right buttons last week and showed the creative, unpredictable play-calling we all wanted to see. Hopefully Kelly can follow that up with another good game.
Can the defense (and mostly secondary) stack good games?
This question is mostly about the secondary, which had no shortage of issues over the first three weeks. However, its coming off its best performance of 2023 after keeping the Bengals’ elite wide receiver trio in check.
But how much of that performance had to do with a hobbled Joe Burrow and a relentless pass-rush rather than the secondary finding its stride? We’ll have a better answer to that on Sunday.
Speaking of the defensive front: not only do we want to see the pass-rush do its thing for a full 60 minutes once again, something that was an issue in the previous three games, but it’s going to be vital to make sure that Anthony Richardson isn’t escaping the pocket and running all over the place.
