Titans Film Room: Tim Kelly Creates Explosive Plays & Red Zone Magic in Week 2
One of the offseason changes that has made the biggest impact early in the Tennessee Titans' season isn't a roster move or a player acquisition. Instead, it was a move on the coaching staff, firing Todd Downing and promoting passing game coordinator Tim Kelly to offensive coordinator.
The scoreboard in Week 1 against the New Orleans Saints didn't necessarily reflect the quality of the game plan Kelly put together, but we talked about that last week. The point to take away is Kelly is creating new opportunities the Titans offense didn't see last year.
In Week 2 against the Los Angeles Chargers, the Titans did take advantage of those opportunities on their way to 27 points. 27 points may not jump out to you, but recall that the most points the Titans scored in a game last season was...27 points.
Through two weeks, the Titans have already tied their highest-scoring performance from 2022 with Downing. They did it by hitting two big opportunities downfield and cashing in once they got to the red zone.
On the two explosive passes, the 70-yarder to Treylon Burks and the 49-yarder to Chris Moore, Kelly found a schematic tendency from the Chargers and hit it twice on basically the same play design.
The Chargers showed two deep safeties, but on both plays they walked one of the safeties down closer to where the linebackers are. On the Burks' catch, Hopkins and Burks were on the field so the Chargers left the deep safety to Hopkins' side and brought forward the safety on Burks' side.
On the Moore catch, Moore was on one side and Burks on the other, so the Chargers left a safety deep over Burks and brought up the safety on Moore's side. In both of these cases, this move left Burks on the first play and Moore on the second play with a one-on-one matchup. Both won against the corner.
In the red zone, Kelly used fantastic play design to get the Titans' final two scores. First, the triple option with Ryan Tannehill which included right tackle Chris Hubbard pulling to the left despite the run going right. This totally confused the Chargers' defense and gave Tannehill a clear lane to run it in from 12 yards out.
Second, on a critical third down at the end of the game with the Titans losing, Kelly dialed up a play-action pass out of shotgun and hit a quick slant to Nick Westbrook-Ikhine. The handoff fake held the backside safety and gave Tannehill room to hit Westbrook-Ikhine after the receiver faked a block before darting open inside.
Check out the full breakdown in the video above!
Related Titans-Chargers stories
- WEEK 2 DEFENSIVE GRADES: The Tennessee Titans defense took on a talented Los Angeles Charger offense on Sunday and while it wasn't always pretty, the defense got the job done and we saw that reflected in the player grades for Week 2. CLICK HERE
- WEEK 2 OFFENSIVE GRADES: The Tennessee Titans got a big overtime win over the Los Angeles Chargers and saw some excellent performances on offense, led by a brilliant game from quarterback Ryan Tannehill. CLICK HERE
- GAME STORY: Despite a slow start, the Tennessee Titans made a lot of big plays on offense and got huge overtime stops on defense to beat the Los Angeles Chargers 27-24 on Sunday, snapping an eight-game losing streak dating back to last November. CLICK HERE
- PHOTO GALLERY: Here are two dozen of the best pictures from the Titans' exciting win over the Chargers on Sunday. Lots of great stuff here. CLICK HERE
