Sunday’s loss to the Indianapolis Colts was a deflating moment for the Tennessee Titans.
The Titans looked like legitimate contenders the previous week against the Cincinnati Bengals, and just seven days later they resorted back to a team that is consistently inconsistent.
Buy Titans TicketsTennessee also continues to look like a shell of itself on the road compared to the team that plays in front of a raucous home crowd inside Nissan Stadium. The Titans have scored 27 points in both of their home wins while only averaging 11.3 points in their three losses on the road.
That type of differentiation is simply not going to get it done and will likely lead to a mediocre season where the team prevents itself from both making the playoffs and securing a top draft pick.
Last week, we struggled to find anybody for the stock down choices, but this week it’s the exact opposite, as there are only a few players we can realistically say improved their stock.
Scroll down below to find out which players we felt either improved or lowered their stock following the Titans’ 23-16 loss to the Colts.
Stock up: WR DeAndre Hopkins
It’s such a shame that DeAndre Hopkins had his breakout performance on a day when practically everybody else disappointed.
Hopkins caught eight passes for 140 yards, often looking like vintage DHop with the type of elite body control he consistently displayed in order to make difficult catches look routine.
Nuk also showed that his chemistry with Ryan Tannehill is getting better by the week, as they made a couple of awesome plays off-schedule to help move the ball down the field.
The Titans have a bona fide No. 1 wide receiver again, now they need Treylon Burks to come back and be the dominant No. 2 he was expected to be.
Stock down: WR Kyle Philips
Many were excited to see what Kyle Philips did in his return to action. Unfortunately, it led to zero catches, zero yards and obviously, zero touchdowns, even with Burks sidelined.
What’s most concerning is the fact that someone who is often labeled as a route-running savant only averaged 1.05 yards of separation on the day — 1.89 yards less than the league average, per Next Gen Stats.
There’s no telling how long Burks will be out for, but Tennessee needs to find a competent sidekick for DeAndre Hopkins. Sadly, Philips wasn’t able to be that in his first game back. Let’s hope that changes the more comfortable that he gets going forward.
Stock up: DL Teair Tart
Teair Tart improved his stock without even playing in this one.
The run game was a shell of itself without his mammoth presence in the middle of the defense. The Titans went from a dominant run defense that ranked inside the top five to barely cracking the top 10 (No. 9) after the disastrous outing in which the run defense allowed nearly 200 yards.
The most glaring evidence of Tart’s importance is the fact that 132 of those rushing yards came up the middle, per Next Gen Stats.
If Tennessee is going to get back to being a truly dominant run defense, they need to get Tart back in the lineup sooner rather than later.
Stock down: Titans Defensive line
I just mentioned it in the previous section, but the Titans’ vaunted run defense was absolutely humbled in Week 5, giving up 193 rushing yards on the ground while hardly doing enough to impact Anthony Richardson and Gardner Minshew.
The only sack of the day came from cornerback Roger McCreary, while Harold Landry, Jeffery Simmons, and Arden Key all averaged over four yards of separation from the Colts’ quarterbacks, per Next Gen Stats.
For comparison, the Colts had all four of their primary pass-rushers average less than four yards of separation from Ryan Tannehill, three of which came in at less than 3.35 yards away from the Titans’ quarterback.
The Titans simply got beat at their own game, as they allowed Indianapolis to dictate what type of game it was going to be by being the more physical team in the trenches.
The Titans were easily getting displaced by the Colts’ blockers throughout the contest, which is not something you often see out of this group.
Stock down: Titans linebackers
The duo of Azeez Al-Shaair and Jack Gibbens combined for 25 tackles, but even with that type of production, the two of them were often a liability against Indy.
Tennessee’s starting linebackers didn’t have the luxury of playing behind a dominant defensive front on Sunday, subsequently putting more pressure on them to shed blocks instead of shooting through open gaps they were often getting over the first four weeks.
Even worse, when they had the chance to make open field tackles in the backfield, they routinely whiffed, allowing the Colts’ offense to extend the play.
Stock down: Titans secondary
Kristian Fulton probably deserves his own section, but the rest of the secondary doesn’t get a pass for Sunday’s performance. Outside of Sean Murphy-Bunting and Roger McCreary, who weren’t anything special in their own right, the entire secondary was borderline horrendous against the Colts.
Kevin Byard and Amani Hooker were essentially non-existent in the passing game while also being out of position on a couple of big runs.
Meanwhile, Fulton had another disastrous afternoon where he was either getting cooked in pass coverage or committing unacceptable penalties that bailed the Colts’ offense out.
Head coach Mike Vrabel said that Fulton was trying to chase interceptions in man coverage, which led to him peeking into the backfield instead of focusing on his man.
He then unnecessarily hooked a Colts receiver, leading to a pass interference call on a play that probably would’ve been incomplete had he just played the technique he’s coached to do.
It’s those small little details that are starting to add up to big issues for Fulton. And we’re rapidly approaching a point where he may need to be benched if this defense is ever going to reach its full potential.
