The Tennessee Titans’ passing game left plenty to fix after their loss to the Seahawks, and Cam Ward took most of the heat for it. But Brian Daboll made it clear the issues run deeper than the quarterback.
Daboll pointed straight at the middle of the field, where Tennessee has struggled to create consistent offense.
“The intermediate chunk plays,” Daboll said. “Whether that’s layered throws, man-to-man throws.
I mean, that’s encompassing everybody. It’s incumbent upon the receiver to take proper angles.
It’s incumbent on the protection. And then ultimately, Cam hitting plays.”
That’s the heart of it for Tennessee: Ward matters, of course, but the operation around him has to pull its weight. Daboll stressed that the burden is shared across the offense.
“(It’s) just not on Cam,” Daboll said. “Certainly not on Cam - all of it.
It’s a combination of things. We’ve been working on it.
We’ll continue to work on it. That’s part of the execution stuff we’re going to continue to grind away at.
That’s an element of our offense we’ve got to improve.”
Ward didn’t hide from his own role in the problems after the game. He pointed to missed chances in the passing attack and said the offense still has room to grow.
“I think just missed opportunities on some plays, particularly our passing game,” Ward said after the tilt, via the team’s official transcript. “I think it was improvement from last week, but just got to be better down the field as a whole.”
Head coach Robert Saleh took a more upbeat approach, even while acknowledging the offense has a ways to go.
“Thought Cam, again, was good with the ball, good decision-making,” Saleh said. “We just couldn't connect on a couple of deep throws.
But overall, it's got to be better, guys. I’m not trying to sugarcoat it.
It does (have) to be better. But at the same time, there's always going to be things that we can take from.”
Ward said the learning curve is starting to level out as he gets more comfortable in the system.
“Everything slowed down,” Ward said. “We're finally at the point where we're not going to be installing too much stuff. It's going to be nice to really show what we really are about when the time comes.”
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