The Tennessee Titans are doing their best to drill through rock bottom after starting out the season 0-2 with a pair of ugly defeats.
The first one came at the hands of the New York Giants, a team that has been among the NFL’s worst the past five seasons. In Week 2, the Titans were completely outmatched by the Buffalo Bills.
Injuries were also a factor on Monday night, as several players (we counted eight in total) left the field at some point, and some of them, like left tackle Taylor Lewan and outside linebacker Bud Dupree, did not return.
So, how did the Titans cover their injuries? And what bone-headed personnel decisions did the team make en route to its being taken to the wood shed by Buffalo?
Find out now as we go over the snap counts and the biggest takeaways from them after the Titans’ Week 2 loss to the Bills.
Snap counts and takeaways: Offense
-The overall snap counts are low for starters and high for backups because the Titans pulled their first-team offense in the third quarter. Poor Malik Willis had to deal with this mess of a group for 17 snaps, which borders on abuse.
-Taylor Lewan didn’t return after being injured on the Titans’ first offensive snap. Dennis Daley was once again the next man up but it didn’t go well.
-Dillon Radunz was brought in as an extra blocker on three separate occasions on offense. That’s about the extent of his role right now.
-After leading the team in receiving in Week 1, Kyle Philips actually saw his snaps cut in half, and he was out-snapped by Titans legend Cody Hollister, although that probably had more to do with the Titans calling it a night early. Regardless, Philips’ reduction in snaps is exactly the kind of head-scratching personnel decisions that makes me want to pull my hair out.
-Treylon Burks saw more snaps this week, but only by three. It’s likely he would have seen close to double the 25 he had if the Titans were actually competitive.
-Josh Gordon saw 18 snaps in his Titans debut. He was targeted once but didn’t make the catch.
Snap counts and takeaways: Defense
-Rookie Roger McCreary led the defense with 67 snaps, or 99 percent of the plays. He, along with Caleb Farley (49 snaps) and Tre Avery (20 snaps) and the rest of Tennessee’s secondary were bad on Monday night.
-Rashad Weaver saw a career-high 57 snaps out of necessity thanks to the injury to Bud Dupree, who was knocked out of the game after just 12 snaps.
-Every player on the Titans’ inside linebacker depth chart saw action. Things got so bad injury-wise at outside linebacker at one point that Tennessee moved Joe Jones (14 snaps) outside. Jones got injured, also.
-Ola Adeniyi, who came down with an injury but was able to return, saw 30 snaps. His status becomes even more important if Dupree is forced to miss time.
-Again, some of the starters’ snap counts are unusually low while the ones for some backups are unusually high because the Titans waved the white flag on both sides of the ball by the third quarter.
