It only took a couple of preseason snaps for the Titans’ defense to remind everyone why August can feel like a mood swing in cleats.
Tennessee opened Week 2 of the NFL preseason looking vulnerable in the exact areas that can wreck a defense fast: communication in coverage and discipline in the run game. The Seattle Seahawks’ backups turned their first two drives into points, first with a breakdown in the secondary and then with a massive run straight through the middle. That kind of sequence is the last thing the Titans can afford when the games start counting.
That doesn’t mean the whole unit is broken. Last season, the Titans had a real foundation to build on, especially against the run.
Pro Football Focus ranked their run defense ninth, while the coverage unit landed all the way down at 26th. That split gives new head coach Robert Saleh a clear starting point.
The issue is obvious: if the coverage doesn’t get better, the strength up front won’t carry the defense far enough.
Saleh has already lived through that kind of patience before. His first defense with the San Francisco 49ers finished near the bottom of PFF’s grades, and it took two years before that group climbed all the way to second. Tennessee may need a similar runway.
Against the 49ers in their preseason opener, the Titans showed the kind of edge Saleh wants. They set the tone early, got after the quarterback and played with energy. That version of the defense looked sharp and connected.
The Seahawks, though, exposed the opposite.
Backup quarterback Drew Lock worked the first drive with easy throws, quick checkdowns and a short run, and Seattle never had to do anything fancy to move down the field. The series ended with play action freeing tight end Elijah Arroyo for a touchdown after Tennessee’s secondary lost track of him following a presnap motion. It was a clean communication breakdown.
Seattle’s next possession was more encouraging for Tennessee at first. The Titans stopped the opening run, Jeffery Simmons nearly reached Lock on a short throw, and on third down the pocket closed in enough to force Lock to scramble for a first down. The front was starting to make the Seahawks work.
Then one snap flipped the whole thing. Jacardia Wright shot through the middle for a 69-yard touchdown, and once he reached the secondary, he ran past Kevin Winston Jr. and Alontae Taylor. The gap discipline disappeared, and one explosive play erased the good work Tennessee had just done.
There were still positive signs from the starting defense, especially up front. The line generated pressure and made Lock earn some of his completions on the second drive. But two busted plays can change the feel of an entire quarter in a hurry.
Saleh has seen a defense take time to become what he wants, and Gus Bradley has the same challenge in front of him now. Tennessee can’t keep living with the same coverage errors and gap-control lapses once September arrives.
Nobody needs to sound the alarm over one preseason game, even if the uneven showing made the roster picture a little murkier heading into the final week. Still, the Seahawks’ backups made the Titans’ weak spots impossible to miss. Clean up the communication and the run fits, and this defense could look very different when the regular season begins.
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Ward has already acknowledged the preseason wasnt his sharpest work, while stressing that the bigger picture is the progress Tennessee has made as it gets ready for games that count. Still, the energy around his recent exchange with a reporter only fed the sense that the Titans are once again headed into the season with a familiar question hanging over the offense, even after the front offices efforts to reset things around him. [Read more 🡒]