Whew – I just finished watching 36 minutes of the hour and eight minute coaches film from the Monday Night Football game between the Tennessee Titans and Buffalo Bills. In case you missed it, the Bills won that game 41-7, and it was one of the trashest ass performances I’ve ever seen from the Titans. I never want to watch that tape again. But, I do it because I love the team, and I want to see how our initial reactions to the game hold up to the film. One of the scapegoats from Monday night’s bloodletting was cornerback Caleb Farley.
Now, I’ll admit – we’re a paragraph into this and you’re probably thinking this is going to be a staunch defense of Farley. It’s not. He didn’t play consistently well at all, and he made a couple of really big and bad mistakes that directly impacted the course of the game. But, to say that’s all it was…pure catastrophe…is a bit of a reach. To take that a step further and to go ahead and start calling the guy a bust is just silly.
Let’s start with the critiques – he was playing with a lot of cushion in this game. I don’t think it’s a coaching issue, as it seems like we’ve heard Shane Bowen or Mike Vrabel talk about how their guys have the freedom to give as much space as they want within their responsibilities on the play. I wonder if it’s an issue of being tentative in returning from injury. Regardless, it’s been a criticism of this defense in the past, and it seemed to be an issue early on as Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs were content to drive those corners back and just take what they gave them underneath. It also seemed like the Titans, as a whole, were deploying a defensive strategy of “playing paralyzed with fear that we’re going to be beat deep,” which we can’t necessarily put on Farley. Last I checked, he is not the defensive play-caller of this team.
Besides, the spacious cushion worked on some plays! When he and the safety were clearly communicating and seamlessly switching off zone responsibilities, they were able to neutralize apart of the field! That’s part of the trickeration that this defense wants to use to disguise their coverages and confuse quarterbacks. I thought he drifted in his zone a couple of times, but the play didn’t come his way, so no harm, no foul. That’s just something to correct in the future. He couldn’t get through his blocker on a well-designed screen to Diggs that was clearly meant to just get him the ball in the open field, and it was blocked and executed to perfection. I’m not sure I would count that as a catch on Farley. And yeah, we all saw it – Farley was covering ghosts on a play that saw Diggs streak across the formation uncovered and score a touchdown. That one was on Farley, who should’ve stayed with Diggs instead of retreating into zone coverage.
But, this is part of the reason we watch the tape – because the totality of Farley’s performance wasn’t all bad. I mean, he’s running with guys down the field like this:

He seemed in perfect position and ready for Isaiah McKenzie on an end-around where McKenzie would’ve met Farley in the open field had they actually handed him the ball. He had a great rep against Jake Kumerow during which he matched Kumerow stride for stride down the field, and when Kumerow broke the route in, Farley closed on it in a way that eliminated Kumerow as an outlet for Allen.

Ironically enough, the big play he gave up to Kumerow came right after this play in a similar alignment. Farley stops running on the route. I’m not sure if Kumerow gave him a tiny little juke that made Farley think he was going to break in again, or if Farley just made a misdiagnosis in thinking Kumerow was going to break that route in. But, Kumerow drove through it and breezed right by Farley. A huge mistake, and it’s also worth noting that Farley wasn’t giving much cushion on this play…he was at the line of scrimmage with Kumerow. So, for everyone drilling him for playing off so much, maybe that was actually better than the alternative.
He also had a good rep against Diggs in the slot in the red zone. He had some help from another defensive back (can’t tell what the jersey number is ’cause Game Pass), but they were able to really bottle him up and render him ineffective on that play.
He had the two huge mistakes on the Diggs touchdown and the big Kumerow reception, but by and large, it felt like a lot of the negative plays he made were the result of his giving so much space. It looked like he (along with a lot of other Titans defenders, mind you) was playing a little tentative and I don’t know if that was a result of his still not being 100% confident in his ACL or coaching. Regardless, all of the Titans defensive backs took turns getting cooked by Diggs.
Every Titans DB took turns getting cooked by Diggs. Farley still has a wealth of natural talent and he’s a gifted athlete. Let’s maybe just take it easy on him on a night when everyone in a Titans uniform sucked total ass. It appears as though Vrabel took him out of the game after the miscue on the Diggs touchdown, but I’m not watching the rest of this awful fucking game to confirm that. So, that’s where this evaluation is going to have to end this morning.
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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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