The second week of the Joshua Dobbs experiment will commence for the Tennessee Titans in Week 18 when they meet the Jacksonville Jaguars in a winner-take-all game for the AFC South.
On Monday, Titans head coach Mike Vrabel made it official, but it was a foregone conclusion that’s the way the team would go after Dobbs was clearly an upgrade over Malik Willis in Week 17.
“Josh will be our quarterback,” Vrabel said. “I’ve talked to both quarterbacks and let them know that Josh will be our quarterback for this week and Malik [Willis] has to continue to prepare like a starter. I am fairly confident Malik is going to do something to help us win in this football game. So, I am hopeful — and I know he will — continue to prepare like he has and continue to improve throughout practice.”
With a new week comes new burning questions. Here they are for Week 18.
Are the Titans better off losing?
Your answer to this is a matter of perspective.
Even if the Titans win on Saturday night, they’ll almost certainly be one-and-done in the playoffs, which means we’re just delaying the inevitable (and heartbreak) here for one more week.
Adding to that, the Titans will get a much better draft pick if they lose. At the moment, Tennessee is slated for No. 11 but could move inside the top 10. If the Titans win, they’d pick no higher than 19th.
But a loss also comes with the fact that the Titans are completing one of the more ugly collapses in NFL history, and are doing so at the hands of the Jaguars, which will be ammunition for their fans for years.
If you’re OK with that, I totally get it. For me personally, seeing Jags fans get their hearts broken by Josh Dobbs and the Titans is just too good to pass up. Give me the latter, draft position be damned.
Will injured players return?
This question might’ve made every burning questions article we’ve done this year. That would be no surprise, as the injury-riddled Titans have 23 players on injured reserve, and have placed 34 on the list all season, both NFL highs.
The 23 players on Tennessee’s IR account for exactly 50 percent of the team’s salary cap, per Spotrac.
The Titans opted to rest their key players last week, but question marks remain about some of them, including Kristian Fulton, David Long and Amani Hooker, all of whom have missed multiple games in a row.
Long is on injured reserve but eligible to return in Week 18, and Fulton has been out since Week 14 with a groin issue. Vrabel said on Monday he hoped both would return to practice this week.
Hooker was spotted doing a good amount of work at practice last week, so he looks like he’ll get back, which is even more important after the Titans lost Andrew Adams, who was filling in for Hooker.
As far as other key guys who sat out last week, Derrick Henry, Denico Autry and Jeffery Simmons are all expected to play. Questions remain about Dylan Cole and Nicholas Petit-Frere, though.
The Titans will be fine on the inside if Long comes back to play alongside Monty Rice and/or Jack Gibbens. Right tackle is more problematic, as Le’Raven Clark was not good in place of NPF last week.
Getting Long, Hooker and Fulton back would obviously be huge for a Titans defense that will have to play its best game to keep a hot Jaguars offense in check. With Tennessee’s offense unlikely to score much, the defense won’t have much room for error.
Can Titans avoid self-inflicted wounds?
One of the themes of the Titans’ meltdown over these last six weeks has been self-inflicted wounds. And, as Vrabel has rightly said, this team simply isn’t good enough to overcome them.
If it’s not back-breaking penalties thwarting drives, the Titans are turning the ball over to give their opponents extra chances. In fact, Tennessee coughed up the football four times in its Week 14 loss to Jacksonville.
One of the biggest culprits in that game was someone the Titans will be relying on heavily in Week 18 in Derrick Henry. He had a pair of fumbles lost and has fumbled four times in his last three games, losing three of them.
Going into Week 18, the Titans rank 12th in giveaways (21), and their 105 penalties and 916 yards resulting from them rank fifth and second in the NFL, respectively, per The Football Database.
The Titans will have to play a perfect game on both sides of the ball to have a shot to beat the Jaguars on Saturday night, and that means taking care of the football and no stupid penalties.
Can Josh Dobbs save the Titans' season?
While the Titans didn’t snap their losing streak in Week 17, they did get a little bit of hope in Josh Dobbs, who was most certainly an upgrade over Malik Willis after what we saw of the rookie in three starts.
Now, the Titans have at least a little bit of momentum going into a game nobody expects them to win.
It’s a tough spot for Dobbs to be in, no doubt. After not playing in a game since 2020 and spending just two weeks with the team as of Wednesday, Dobbs will now be tasked with helping the Titans avoid completing a historic meltdown.
While the deck is stacked against him and we can’t say for sure if Dobbs can get the job done, there’s no question that, of the Titans’ healthy quarterbacks, Dobbs gives Tennessee the best chance to win.
At this point, that’s all this depleted team can ask for.
