A small but telling stat is giving Titans fans a reason to feel better about Brian Daboll taking over the offense.
The conversation starts with one of the most familiar frustrations in football: a team gets to third-and-inches, lines up in shotgun, loses yardage, and ends up punting. It is the kind of sequence that makes a stadium groan, because the simple answer is usually the right one. The analytics agree.
Since 2022, on 3rd/4th & 1, or any snap from the 1-yard line, QB sneaks have produced an 81.8% success rate and +0.45 EPA/play. All other plays in those situations have hit at a 63.8% success rate with +0.03 EPA/play.
That data lines up with the growing belief that the NFL keeps searching for reasons not to sneak it, even though the numbers keep pointing back to the same solution. And for Tennessee, the encouraging part is where Daboll fits into that picture. He posted the fourth-highest sneak rate among play-callers, at nearly 30%.
That does not mean every decision will land perfectly or that Titans fans are about to watch a flawless offense. There will still be calls people question, and there will still be players on the field more often than some fans would prefer. But the stat does point to something important: a coach who is willing to keep the easy stuff easy.
That matters for a Titans roster built around a lot of uncertainty. JC Latham, Austin Schlottmann, Carnell Tate, and Gunnar Helm are all players who could end up anywhere from average to very good this season. With that many variables, the offense needs its play-caller to avoid making life harder than it has to be.
That is where Daboll’s profile should help. The hope is that he will resist the urge to get cute in obvious situations, and instead keep drives moving with decisions that make sense. After the Titans leaned on ineffective screens and stalled momentum in 2025, there is at least a path here toward a more direct approach.
There is also the question of how often the offense can put players in space and set things up for Cam Ward without asking him to extend plays over and over just to salvage a snap. Daboll’s track record suggests he can get the most out of what he has, and that should be a welcome sign as the Titans head into training camp with a new-look offense.
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