Tennessee Titans vs. Houston Texans: Full Report Card Grades for Tennessee
If the Philadelphia Eagles game was ugly, this week's matchup with the Houston Texans was hideous. The Tennessee Titans not only lost 45-21 but lost badly and lost two very important starters to injury.
Quarterback Zach Mettenberger went down in the third quarter shortly after the team lost right guard Chance Warmack.
The end result was a turnover-laden, injury-producing shellacking of the team by the Texans.
There's almost nothing positive that can be said about this game. The Titans move on to face three weak opponents in a row, but with the injuries they've sustained in the last two weeks, even those games will be tough to emerge from with any wins.
Here are the postgame grades for each Titans unit.
Quarterback
1 of 9
Zach Mettenberger went down in the third quarter with what appeared to be a collarbone injury. There's no news yet out of the Titans camp as to the extent of the injury, but I'm not optimistic about his chances of returning.
The Titans will now have a much tougher time evaluating whether or not to use their high draft pick on a quarterback with very little game tape to evaluate Mettenberger on.
However, if nothing else, it appears that he is already better than Jake Locker. Locker was terrible on Sunday, throwing three picks (one of which was negated by a penalty) and losing a fumble to J.J. Watt.
Locker completed six of 12 passes for 91 yards and a touchdown. He also took two sacks.
For the sake of comparison, Mettenberger completed 13 of 19 passes for 184 yards and a touchdown, only taking one sack.
Neither was helped by the offensive line, but Mettenberger looked good outside of the terrible pick he threw to start the game.
Grades: Mettenberger B, Locker D
Running Backs
2 of 9
The running backs were once again not a big part of the game. Bishop Sankey was the best of the group, with 10 carries for 42 yards.
Dexter McCluster was right behind him with nine carries for 33 yards and a couple of catches for 11 more.
Shonn Greene had two carries for a total of zero yards.
Head coach Ken Whisenhunt is never going to make the running game a big part of his offense. Still, the backs were pretty average. They didn't get helped by an offensive line that was down to one original starter on the entire unit by the time that the game ended, but even so, the backs were nothing special.
Grade: C
Receivers and Tight Ends
3 of 9
Kendall Wright had an awesome performance. Not only did he lead the group in receptions, targets and yards, but he was also one of two receivers to catch a touchdown and was second in yards per catch.
Wright finished the day with seven catches for 132 yards and a touchdown. He made the most out of nearly all of his catches, making multiple defenders miss on several runs after the catch.
Nate Washington was second in yards and caught the other touchdown.
Delanie Walker was surprisingly a non-factor. He was thrown to three times but only caught one ball for six yards.
Other than Wright's standout performance and Washington's quality showing, the receivers didn't show much, though much of that stemmed from poor play by Locker.
Grade: B-
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Offensive Line
4 of 9
A unit down four starters, along with missing a backup to one of those starters, can't be expected to do much against the likes of J.J. Watt. And that's exactly what happened.
Offensive line play was atrocious in every aspect of the game. The linemen weren't on the same page. Pass blocking was awful, and run blocking wasn't much better.
To give you an idea of how porous the line was, Watt had 12 hurries by himself, and even though the Titans only gave up three sacks, they allowed nine hits on the two quarterbacks.
Chance Warmack also left the game early due to injury, after the unit had already lost Brian Schwenke for the season, Taylor Lewan for an unknown length of time and Michael Oher for at least one game last week.
Andy Levitre is the only remaining starter in the entire unit, and Will Svitek is the third-string left tackle.
Grade: F
Defensive Line
5 of 9
Ropati Pitoitua played against the Texans, but the small amount of playing time he saw leads me to believe he's still dealing with some injuries. He was a non-factor.
Jurrell Casey had a decent game, with two tackles for loss (one on third down) and seven total tackles.
Sammie Hill had a much better game than usual, with four tackles and a tackle for loss, but wasn't spectacular. He's still playing out of position as a nose tackle, but he did a much better job of stopping the run than in previous weeks.
Karl Klug also contributed; he had two tackles, with one for a loss.
Tennessee put forth a decent performance against the run, but the pressure on the quarterback just wasn't there.
After 12 games, it just seems like the Titans can either stop the run or pressure the quarterback but not both. At all. And that is not a good position for a defense to be in.
Grade: C
Linebackers
6 of 9
Missed tackles weren't as big a problem for the linebackers as they had been in previous weeks. That probably contributed in a big way to the 99 total yards rushing allowed by the Titans.
Derrick Morgan got some pressure on Ryan Fitzpatrick, but he still showed the same problems he's had all season in pass coverage.
Avery Williamson, who had been so good up until this point, disappeared for most of the game. He came up big in the fourth quarter though, with a big hit on Fitzpatrick, a tackle and a defended pass.
I don't know what he was doing the rest of the game, but this was not a quality performance for him.
Wesley Woodyard led the unit in tackles with five. Woodyard and Morgan were the only two linebackers with tackles for loss.
Grade: C-
Defensive Backs
7 of 9
Jason McCourty was solid, forcing and recovering a fumble for a touchdown, keeping his receivers covered most of the time and even bailing out a couple of his teammates.
George Wilson was solid as well, leading the team in tackles. He picked up a tackle for loss and a defended pass to boot.
Other than those two, the unit was horrible. Blidi Wreh-Wilson was dominated by DeAndre Hopkins, who caught all nine passes thrown to him for a ridiculous 238 yards and two touchdowns.
Wreh-Wilson also had lots of trouble tackling, as did Coty Sensabaugh and Daimion Stafford.
Michael Griffin didn't miss that many tackles, but the fact that he's missed a step this season was clear in this game. He just isn't fast enough to be a reliable free safety anymore.
Griffin separated his shoulder against the Eagles, so that may have contributed to his problems.
The best way to sum up the performance of the defensive backs is to list Ryan Fitzpatrick's stat line: 24-of-33, 358 yards, six touchdowns, no interceptions.
Grade: D-
Special Teams
8 of 9
There wasn't much to say for the Titans special teams. Bishop Sankey had a couple of good kick returns, and Dexter McCluster had a punt return of 21 yards.
On the opposite side, the Titans weren't kicking off much, but the only one returned was for a mere seven yards, while Keshawn Martin managed 20 total punt return yards on two punts.
Ryan Succop nailed all three extra points, and Brett Kern averaged 45 yards per punt again.
Special teams did nothing spectacular, but at least they were mistake-free.
Grade: B
Coaching
9 of 9
It's hard to evaluate Ken Whisenhunt on this one. The offensive line made almost any consistent play impossible, and you can't coach around that many injuries to such a critical unit.
The Titans offense sustained drives better than it had in weeks, and the only three-and-out came when Locker subbed in. Tennessee also failed to get any points in the first half, despite more consistent offensive play, and turned the ball over four times.
On defense, the Titans scored a touchdown and stopped the run effectively. But there was no pass rush, and they surrendered 45 points.
Both sides of the ball put the coaches in tough positions, but it's hard to say that this was the best possible game plan, even with those injury and personnel problems.
Grade: C-
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