Lost in all the chest-thumping over how we're going to destroy the Titans is that Henry is the kind of guy that we can concentrate on and still may not be able to stop.
We'll likely go with a contain rush for the athletic Mariota, and a heavy emphasis on keeping men in the box to defend Henry which might give him time to hit the underrated PITA Delaney Walker and Corey Davis-- who didn't have a great year due partially to injury, but looks like a future star to me. A stud.
Watching that game against KC I swore they were the dumbest team I'd seen all year with self-inflicted mistakes in all three phases, but they also have some very good players sprinkled into every positional group who play hard for their questionable coaching staff, including Logan Ryan who quietly made 2nd team all-pro the other day. If they don't play as stupidly as they did against KC then we've got problems.
Everybody is chuckling, but I won't have any issues keeping my usual respect for the opposition up for Saturday night.
As such, our tailgate tradition is to symbolically "eat the opponent" and for the Titans that means I'll be whipping up some baby back ribs with a Jack Daniels sauce, cole slaw and bacon-cheddar-jalapeno corn bread. My goal is to start tailgating as early as possible to get a maintainable buzz going.
Playoffs. We're talking PLAYOFFS!!!
I don't agree that Henry can overcome a defensive focus, to me, he's Legarrette Blount with less tread on his tires. But the rest of this is spot on. Walker's 33, so I don't know how much of a future star he'll be, but he's IMO their best offensive player, and someone Chung could struggle with covering one-on-one. Corey Davis terrifies me over the top, and I just pray that Gilmore gets that assignment over Butler, although Butler struggles with Eric Decker too, so who knows?
That said, Tennessee's not a team that can do more than one thing. They can run, OR they can pass. Even with the big comeback, it's not like the Titans spread-em-out and chucked it all over the field. They just stuck to the run, and eventually they ran to Quitter Revis' side enough to where the holes were wide open. They only had 195 yards passing.
I think Chevss is right, and I think you even risk giving David Harris meaningful snaps (even though he's useless in containing Mariota), and I think Harrison plays a ton. Stack the box, make Mariota chuck it, and hope your D-Line doesn't over-rush, and your secondary can cover. Davis is a legit speed guy, so I'm concerned about that, and covering Walker with just Chung, is a little scary, considering Walker is pretty damned dynamic when they start feeding him
If you can keep Mariota from killing you on 3rd and medium/long with scrambles, the defense should be ok.
And in the end, the Patriots are going to score points. The Zone Blitz scares me exactly 0%. Find Brian Orakpo. Figure out if he's rushing or dropping. Adjust accordingly. That's the game on offense. If it were a more creative DC, I'd say they even put Logan Ryan on Gronkowski, but it's not. it will be a LB with safety shaded, blah blah blah.
I don't love predicting scores, because in the end, it doesn't matter, a 1 point win counts just as much as a 50 point win. But I just don't see how Tennessee can stop the Patriots enough, to be able to keep up with them on the scoreboard - AND run the ball, AND control the clock.
I mean, they're 9-7 for a reason. :shrug:
