Patriots Country

How the Patriots should attack Ryan Tannehill, Titans' offense

In the seventh edition of this series, we break down this week's Patriots matchup against the no. 6 seeded Tennessee Titans and their red-hot quarterback, Ryan Tannehill.
Max McAuliffe|
How the Patriots should attack Ryan Tannehill, Titans' offense
How the Patriots should attack Ryan Tannehill, Titans' offense

If you haven't paid attention to football since last season, you would say that stopping Ryan Tannehill is easy. However, since joining the Tennessee Titans, stopping him has been anything but easy.  

Tannehill just posted the fifth highest passer rating of all-time. Yes, you heard that right - he finished with a 117.5 passer rating on the season, which is good for fifth all-time. That puts him in a group with several MVPs from those respective seasons. 

Tannehill has four wins against the Patriots in his career and could get his first in Foxboro with a much better surrounding crew. Players like Derrick Henry (the NFL rushing champion), AJ Brown (1,000 yard rookie receiver), and Corey Davis are three great examples. 

Needless to say, the Titans have been firing on all cylinders as of late and will give the Patriots' defense everything they have.

So how will New England's defense handle the high-flying Tennessee offense Saturday night? Let's take a deep dive into what the Titans are on offense to answer that question. 

What the offense does well:

Tennessee's offense has the best play-action game in the league and the NFL's leading rusher. This can leave defenses guessing on what the Titans are going to do, and if they guess wrong - it can be fatal. 

The Titans run a zone running scheme with Henry and then mix in the play-action pass. Defending Henry and the crossing patterns they run off the play-action can't be accomplished with just man coverage. 

 Offensive quick facts for Titans:

-Averaging 13.5 yards per attempt on the play-action pass

-Henry finished sixth in yards per carry this year with 5.1 and had 303 carries this season 

-Averaging 6.1 yards per play 

-Finished season with highest redzone scoring percentage; scoring 75.56% of the time

What Tannehill does well: 

This year's Titans offense schematically looks similar to what the Rams' offense looked like last season. In other words, I see Tannehill as a more experienced version of Jared Goff. 

Tannehill follows the Titans' scheme well and has an impressive arm. Coming out of college, Tannehill was known for being a strong-armed athlete with good pocket presence and good accuracy. He was not known for great anticipation, but he seems to have developed that since his college days. All of these things are on display here:

Things have been simplified for Tannehill since his days with Adam Gase and he is now able to make quicker decisions and give his weapons opportunities to make a play with the football. 

Lastly, Tannehill has also shown a strong ability to throw against zone coverage this year. That being said, the Patriots might have to take their chances against Tannehill's ability to throw against zone. Playing man might not be wise.

What his weapons do well: 

Derrick Henry- Tackling him can be like a snowball effect. The longer Henry is on his feet during a play, the harder it will be to take him down. If he manages to break tackles and run into the secondary, the has the ability to put the football in the end zone from any distance. Henry is shaped like a linebacker or a tight end but can run much faster than those guys. 

Group tackling Henry is mandatory, but relying on players from the secondary to make the tackle isn't a good idea. It will be necessary for the Patriots to harp in early on winning the battle at the line of scrimmage. The front seven pieces must get a good jump off the ball and disrupt the running lanes in order to keep Henry in check. 

AJ Brown and Corey Davis- Both Brown and Davis are strong after the catch and can beat man coverage. They both run very good crossing routes, which New England must find a way to mitigate on Saturday. They can also serve many functions, such as playing the short game or stretching the field. 

Brown beats up on smaller defenders: 

Brown very rarely comes off the field for the Titans. His production has been incredible in his rookie season.

As for Davis, his catch radius is pretty large and he is a fabulous route-runner. The Patriots have struggled against him in their last two meetings against him. 

Davis' two games versus the Patriots:

- 5 Rec/63 Yds/2 TDs 

- 7 Rec/125 Yds/1 TD

Many have said that with Gilmore covering Brown in man coverage scenarios, Davis and tight end Jonnu Smith could be the x-factors. Look for former Titan, Jason McCourty to cover Davis in man situations.

Jonnu Smith- Belichick spoke glowingly about Smith this week, giving a pretty good breakdown here: 

"Can do a lot of things. Blocks well. Runs well. Is a good receiver. Played him at tailback, he looked pretty good back there. He’s a very athletic player. Hard to tackle. Catches the ball well. Great after the catch, probably the best in the league. I mean, I can’t imagine anyone better than him after the catch.”

All these guys are hard to bring down with the ball in their hands. Group tackling is necessary on Saturday.

The hole: 

One would think a 9-7 team would have plenty of weaknesses and holes. However, Tennessee has managed to pull together a lot of loose ends. 

One loose end that has not been completely tied up, however, is on the offensive line.

At the beginning of the season, the Titans were on pace to have one of their worst offensive lines in franchise history. Taylor Lewan, their best offensive lineman, was suspended for four games. Along with that, the PFF ratings for this group were dangerously low. 

With time, the line has been better. Better in run blocking, that is. The Titans rank forth in run blocking, according to Adjusted Line Yards by Football Outsiders. However, when it comes to pass blocking, they rank dead last in the league. The Patriots should keep these stats in mind.

The attack plan:

In Super Bowl LIII, the objective for New England's defense was to shut down the Rams' run game early, mitigate the play-action pass effectiveness, and force Goff into an unfamiliar situation in which he had to throw drop-back passes in obvious passing situations in order to come from behind and win. 

That plan is a lot easier said than done against Tennessee, who, as mentioned before, has a similar offense. Plus, it will require the Patriots to succeed at a lot of things that have not been successful for them lately. For example, New England was exposed in zone coverage against the Dolphins last week and failed to put pressure on Fitzpatrick, despite bringing extra blitzers. 

The Patriots have thrived by being overly aggressive this year. In a game where they are playing against several players and coaches who are familiar with the Patriots' system, that aggressive approach could backfire very quickly. Especially against a team that is hard to tackle, very good after the catch, and runs the type of passing concepts that Tennessee does. 

So instead of tight man coverage, the Patriots should play the safe game and look to not get burnt. The Patriots will need to dial up some zone blitzes on Saturday. The man-coverage, zero-blitz approach will most likely need to be a thing of the past and need to get scrapped out the window in order to stop a red-hot Tannehill. 

Zone blitzes will be key on the first drive where the Titans will try to get the play-action going for sure. Look for some cover 4 from the Patriots in order to stop the deep post routes and crossing routes that the Titans find so much success on. Cover 1 and cover 3 will most likely not work against Tennessee's deep post and crossing route concepts. 

Next, the Patriots must find ways to attack the 32nd-ranked pass protection in the league and find a way to slow down Henry as much as possible. Line stunts and different formations up front will help with this. 

Stopping Henry and the 4th-ranked run blocking line will be hard. However, they can either shift from a 3-4 and bring more bodies up onto the line (as just mentioned) or they will have to run what's called a spill-force-alley scheme. 

The spill players are tasked with preventing the run inside. These players are front seven players like Lawrence Guy. 

The force players set the edge and turn the ball carrier back inside, towards the spill players. These players could be outside linebackers, like Jamie Collins, or could even be a slot corner like Jonathan Jones. 

Lastly, the alley players, they fill the position between the spill and force player. He is basically a safety valve in case the force player gets caught inside and the runningback runs outside. This would ideally be a player like Devin McCourty or Patrick Chung. 

Speaking of Chung - he will need to step up in order for New England's defense to perform at their best. Not only would he be key in the spill-force-alley scheme to stop Henry, but he will also be tasked with covering Smith at times. That could be problematic when considering that as of late Chung has struggled to cover tight ends. 

Last week, Chung was exposed on short drag routes to Mike Gesicki. Gesicki was winning off the snap and Chung was forced to play catch up with him over the middle.

In order to stop Smith, Chung might need help from someone, bumping the tight end off the line of scrimmage, disrupting his jump to make things easier for a struggling Chung. 

When the Patriots play man coverage Saturday night, these will be the expected assignments. They can play more man if they can shut down the play-action game down early:

Gilmore-Brown

J.McCourty-Davis

Jones-Sharpe

Chung-Smith

The keys to executing this gameplan will be team work, communication, and group tackling. The spill-force-alley method will not work without these three keys. Anything short of a good team effort and this plan will be worthless. Without a team effort on Saturday, the Patriots do not advance to Kansas City.

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Max McAuliffe
MAX MCAULIFFE

Max serves as an intern journalist on PatriotMaven. 

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