Turns Out It's Tough To Beat The Chiefs When Your Receivers Have 0 Catches
I'm going to go out on a limb and say you're going to need to complete passes to your wide receivers to give yourself a chance to beat the Kansas City Chiefs in their building. Just a thought. The Titans were sooooooo close to actually pulling it off but it fell apart late in the 4th quarter, with this being their production in the passing game.
It's no secret that Malik Willis is still a work in progress, the rookie was making his second career start in place of Ryan Tannehill due to his ankle injury, doesn't help that it was in a hostile environment on Sunday Night Football vs arguably the best team in football. He and the Titans offense showed flashes and held an 8-point lead late in the game but the Chiefs and Mahomes are just too good to be held down that long. But the fact that Mike Vrabel and the Titans took the Chiefs to OT without their quarterback completing a single pass to a wide receiver is insane. I thought Mike Vrabel and Todd Downing did a decent job last night, the wide receivers just need to make plays.
Willis only had 5 completions on 16 attempts and every completion was to a tight end or running back. 48 from Chig on the first offensive play was over half of Willis' yards on the day. And looking at the Titans wide receivers it's easy to see why they had issues getting the ball to them. Robert Woods, Chris Conley, Cody Hollister, Nick Westbrook-Ikhine. Do those names scare anyone? Absolutely not. Those guys combined for a grand total of 0 catches, 0 yards and 0 touchdowns on 5 targets. Woof.
The Titans were in the game strictly because of Derrick Henry and his first half attack. He went over 100 yards again and had 2 touchdowns for all of the Titans offense.
The visuals of this game are hilarious too. Patrick Mahomes had 68 attempts, 3 away from setting the NFL record. Wilis had 16. Malik tallied 5 completions compared to 43 for Patrick. Bottom line is the Titans have next to 0 offensive help outside of 22 and when Tannehill is out that complicates everything even more. It's almost like Jon Robinson should have nutted up and paid A.J. Brown instead of trading him for picks! Who would have thought that a guy like Brown leaving could make the offense look bad. Oh wait, everyone. What an awful trade that turned out to be and we all saw it coming.
No moral victories but if you would have told me at the beginning of the night that the Titans would lose to the Chiefs in OT by 3 after leading basically all game I'd have taken that in a heartbeat. It's just a dagger to watch Patrick Mahomes and that offense go to work while your receivers literally don't catch a ball all night. You can't win a game like that, you won't win a game like that. Especially against Mahomes.
Plus it doesn't help when the refs refuse to call a penalty on Tracis Kelce on a 2-PT conversion for ever so kindly removing this defender's helmet. No penalty for that? I see the holding on the Titans and it was called, but nothing for ripping his helmet off? Bizarre.
At least Derrick Henry is still awesome. Again, the fact that Vrabel found a way to have his team keep it close with a defense that played pretty well even with giving up 400+ yards to Mahomes, it's a miracle considering the Titans only had Derrick Henry on offense.