As a road team in the NFL playoffs, there is perhaps nothing sweeter than generating the first big play of the game, stealing some early momentum.
The Cincinnati Bengals did just that Saturday afternoon against the Titans in Tennessee.
The Titans received the opening kickoff, and immediately put the ball in the hands of quarterback Ryan Tannehill on a play-action design. The Titans passer tried to target the intermediate area of the field on an in-breaking route, but safety Jesse Bates III read the quarterback’s eyes perfectly:
Jessie Bates III interception on the first play! #RuleTheJUngle #NFLPlayoffs
📺: #CINvsTEN on CBS
📱: https://t.co/3uvV4E3BTI pic.twitter.com/O4DZIC6fsm— NFL (@NFL) January 22, 2022
Getting ready for this game, I made the case that the Bengals needed “to take away the layups” from Tannehill:
When assembling the previews for last week, trying to come up with what the Kansas City Chiefs had to do to defeat the Pittsburgh Steelers was relatively straight-forward.
One of their tasks? Make Ben Roethlisberger beat them deep downfield. Watching Roethlisberger this season, it became apparent early in the year that his arm was not what it once was. To help prove that point, I pulled up PFF’s charting data for throws deep downfield. There it was. On such attempts of 20 yards or more, Roethlisberger posted an adjusted completion percentage of 34.9%, fifth-worst in the league.
The player just above him?
Ryan Tannehill, at 36.0%.
Digging into it a bit further, on such throws this year Tannehill has completed 15 of 50 passes for 489 yards, three touchdowns and a pair of interceptions. Now, these are not a huge portion of Tannehill’s throws this year. They make up just 9.4% of his attempts on the season, ranking him 25th in the league.
Where does Tannehill want to live, particularly off of play-action? In the intermediate area of the field. Tannehill attempted 531 passes this year in that 10-19 yard range, and that accounted for 22.6% of his throws, fifth-most in the league.
The Titans love to attack in that area of the field, often on play-action with Tannehill hitting either A.J. Brown or Julio Jones stressing the second-level and or third-level of the defense.
On this play, the Bengals took the layup away thanks to Bates poaching the in-cut from the backside. Tannehill comes out of the run fake and immediately targets Julio Jones, but the safety steps in front of the throw for the interception.
The Bengals were able to capitalize on their ensuing possession, with the big play a connection from Joe Burrow to running back Joe Mixon. Cincinnati capped the drive with a field goal, taking a three-point lead early.
