Three Keys to Victory Over the Jaguars
A day after their 2019 season ended with loss to Kansas City in the AFC Championship, Tennessee Titans players and coach Mike Vrabel talked about the need to get off to a fast start and to win the division, which would mean at least one home playoff game, in 2020.
Sunday, the Titans host the Jacksonville Jaguars with an opportunity to start 2-0 for the first time since 2008, which was the last time they won the AFC South and hosted a playoff game.
Additionally, Tennessee and Jacksonville were the only AFC South teams to win in Week 1, which means the winner of this matchup will be alone in first place just two weeks into the season.
With that in mind, here are three keys to a Titans victory:
• Get to Gardner: Jaguars quarterback Gardner Minshew has proven that he knows where to go with the ball and can get it there. In his 13 career starts, he has completed more than 64 percent of his passes six times, including a whopping 95 percent (19-for-20) last week at Indianapolis.
He also has shown he can hang on to the ball a little too long. He also has had six starts in which he has been sacked three times or more – and he is 3-3 in those contests.
The only NFL game in which he has played and was not sacked was last season against the Titans (Week 3). He completed 20 of 30 passes (66.7 percent) in that one and the Jaguars won 20-7.
Tennessee also was one of three teams that did not register a sack in Week 1. It is imperative to get to Minshew a few times and make sure he never gets comfortable in the pocket, particularly given the injury issues with the secondary.
• Keep Them Guessing: The Jaguars had 13 rookies make their NFL debuts in Week 1, including starters at cornerback (C.J. Henderson) and running back (James Robinson) and a number of important role players on both sides of the ball. Other notable starters such as Minshew and defensive end Josh Allen are second-year players.
In short, this is one of the NFL’s youngest teams. The Titans have an experienced offense, including four starters on the line that are seventh-year veterans or older. They have a defense that relies on a thick playbook with a broad array of blitzes that can come from virtually anywhere on the field.
It will be critical to find ways to exploit the Jaguars’ relative inexperience – via scheme and/or disguised looks – and make their players think rather than just play fast and loose.
• Let Derrick do Derrick: The Jaguars’ last two visits to Nissan Stadium have turned into the Derrick Henry show. In 2018, Henry ran for a career-high 238 yards and four touchdowns on just 17 carries, one of which was the epic 99-yard stiff-arm fest that remains his signature NFL moment. Last season he rolled to 159 yards and two touchdowns on 19 attempts.
Both rank among the top five rushing performances of his career, and the Titans won each game by three touchdowns.
It seems unrealistic to expect that the NFL’s 2019 rushing champion do it – or something close to it – again. But it makes absolutely no sense not to let him try. Give him the ball and dare Jacksonville to stop him.
