The Biggest Upgrade the Titans made in the Offseason is already Showing!
The Titan’s offense was flat-out terrible last season, and former Offensive Coordinator Todd Downing was one of the main reasons why. Downing’s confusing and predictable playcalling made him unpopular in Tennessee, leading to his firing this past January. Mike Vrabel decided to go with a familiar face as the new OC of the Titans, Tim Kelly. Vrabel and Kelly have a long history together, dating all the back to Vrabel’s days in Houston as the DC. Though he hasn’t been perfect to start the season, Tim Kelly has already proven to be much better than Todd Downing ever was!!
The Titans’ offense has already had some stinkers this year, including a three-point disaster versus the Browns. But they’ve had two excellent offensive showings this season, for which Kelly deserves tons of credit for. One of the prominent critiques of Todd Downing’s playcalling last season was the lack of creativity. Downing’s formations and overall playcalling were dull, and it made the offense slow and lethargic. Though Kelly has had some of those types of drives here and there, his creativity has been extremely refreshing. Kelly’s screen passes, trick plays, and formations are well thought out and precise, and the offense flows way better under Tim. Another critique many had of Todd Downing was the surplus of play action, which sometimes made the offense predictable and one-dimensional. Kelly has solved this problem by establishing the passing game early and often, not just the run game. Tennessee has been running more three and four-step drop pass plays, and when given time, Tannehill connects on most of them. Finally, Kelly is marginally better than Downing at solving problems within the offense. For example, the Titans’ infamous Derrick Henry wide toss play once again became ineffective for the Tennessee Offense. Instead of crossing his fingers and running it repeatedly, praying it would work, Tim Kelly found a solution to the problem. Tennessee tweaked the play against the Bengals on Sunday, making the toss shorter and limiting Henry’s movement before getting the ball. This led to a more explosive and better blocked-up version of the play. You probably didn’t realize that when watching the game, but a very subtle touch from Tim Kelly enhanced the play's development…
Long story short, Tim Kelly is 1000% better than Todd Downing, and the Titans are reaping the benefits. The offense struggled to score 20 last season; they’ve done it twice already in four games. Kelly is better in all aspects when it comes to coordinating and coaching an NFL Offense. The Titans’ offense has a long way to go, but Tim Kelly will get us to our hopeful final destination!!