Well…that’s certainly not how you want to start the season when you’re expected to be a contender for the Super Bowl. A chorus of boos rain down in Nissan Stadium, and it’s over between the Arizona Cardinals and Tennessee Titans at 38-13 Cardinals. Collectively, the Titans put together one of the biggest bed-shitting efforts I’ve seen from this team in quite awhile. They look lost, scrambled, and completely inept. They appeared to be unprepared, out of sync, and anything but crisp and ready for the Cardinals.
The Cardinals revamped their defensive front in the offseason, and it paid immediate dividends, as they were able to sack Ryan Tannehill six times, with Chandler Jones getting five of those alone. Even when they weren’t sacking Tannehill, they were doing a fantastic job of generating pressure and making him uncomfortable. The Titans signal caller had some bad overthrows in this game and looked completely out of sync with his receivers at times, be it from a lack of chemistry or the Cardinals pass rush. Arizona bowed up against the run too, keeping Derrick Henry from doing anything at all in the first half of the game. Todd Downing called some vanilla ass plays early on, and the Titans were put in an early hole because of it.
On offense, the Cardinals were able to run the ball effectively when they needed to, and make chunk plays in the passing game when they had to. In other words, the Cardinals looked every bit of what we expected the Titans to look like – a fast, aggressive defense with an offense that could do whatever it had to do to win the game. And, really – props to the Cardinals for showing up in this game. They had a great game plan, and were able to execute perfectly.
The Titans started to get a little bit going late in the 2nd quarter, but even then, it felt a bit “too little too late.” Everyone did their part to make sure the Titans couldn’t get back into this game. Julio Jones had some bad drops. I mentioned Tannehill’s overthrows. The offensive line was a total disaster. On defense, the Titans were able to get into the backfield, but they just couldn’t close on Kyler Murray. Defensive backs were taken advantage of by the deep Cardinals receiving corps – even when they covered well, the Cardinals were just better at making plays. All day. And, we’re all depressed to see that this team remains cursed at kicker. Now, it’s just Week 1 – there’s no reason to panic yet when you look at the state of the AFC South, and hell…it’s possible that the Cardinals are just going to be good at football. But, it’s definitely a performance that should have the Titans doing some soul searching after a preseason of us pumping them up as Super Bowl contenders.
Silver linings: I thought AJ Brown was the only offensive player who was able to do much of anything in this game – not only did he make two touchdown-saving tackles, but he reminded us of his ability when he climbed the ladder to haul in a touchdown pass with a Cardinals defensive back draped across his back. Kristian Fulton played well in the starting role, with a couple of impressive and timely pass breakups. Finally, I know Christian Kirk ate his lunch on that long touchdown, but I thought Elijah Molden showed flashes of what the Titans drafted him to be – a feisty, agitating defensive back.
I found Mike Vrabel‘s post-game presser to be quite interesting. Sure, we got our usual dosage of ‘coach better play better,’ but he mentioned ‘attitude’ a few times. He talked about finding out what this team’s culture really is this week, guys having the right attitude in showing up and wanting to get better, and how he wants the team to stop thinking about being good and actually be good. Maybe I’m putting on my tin foil hat here, but is it possible that this loss was a good thing for the Titans? As Vrabel points out, this is what happens when you don’t play well in the NFL. Maybe this team needed to be reminded of how easy it is to lose in this league. The Cardinals served the Titans a massive slice of humble pie today.
— Tennessee Titans (@Titans) September 12, 2021
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Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley
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