How Tim Kelly Can Help the Passing Game
His hiring as Tennessee Titans passing game coordinator was only made official earlier this week, so we’re still in the process of learning about Tim Kelly and what his responsibilities will be moving forward.
But like all experienced NFL coaches, Kelly does have a track record that might give us an idea of how he will impact the Titans’ offense in 2022.
We’ve seen the basic stats concerning Kelly’s three years as Houston’s offensive coordinator from 2019 through 2021: The Texans finished in the upper half of the league in 2019 (13th in yards, 14th in points); dipped a bit in 2020 when Bill O’Brien took over play-calling duties for a year (13th in yards, 19th in points); and then fell off a cliff in 2021 without quarterback Deshaun Watson (32nd in yards, 30th in points).
But are there other clues from Kelly’s past that indicate what he might bring to the Titans’ table?
Before beginning that search, keep a few things in mind:
• First, Kelly is not the offensive coordinator. Todd Downing retains that role, meaning Kelly will serve in more of an advisory role than a decision-making one. It will be a similar set-up to the one that was first shared last season by defensive coordinator Shane Bowen and senior defensive assistant Jim Schwartz.
• Second, just because Kelly showed certain tendencies while coaching certain personnel in Houston doesn’t mean we’ll see the same kind of patterns with the Titans. Any coach – or in this case, any passing game analyst – would adjust his ideas based on whether he was working with the likes of Watson, DeAndre Hopkins, Will Fuller, Brandin Cooks, etc., or whether his offensive cogs included Ryan Tannehill, A.J. Brown and the threat of play action with Derrick Henry.
• Third, there’s not much point in looking at what the Texans did under Kelly in 2021, when Tyrod Taylor and Davis Mills split quarterbacking duties and when Rex Burkhead was the top running back. So, we’ll give Kelly a mulligan for the most part on last season.
All that said, here are a few points to ponder concerning Kelly, paying particular attention to 2020 when Watson was still playing:
Downfield passing delivers
One of the things the Texans’ passing attack under Kelly did best in 2020 was get the ball downfield. In fact, Watson led the NFL in both average yards per pass attempt (8.9 yards) and in yards per pass completion (12.6 yards) that season.
If finishing first in both those categories sounds familiar to Titans fans, it should. Tannehill topped the NFL ranks in the same departments in 2019. But he and the offense – impacted by injuries to Brown and Julio Jones – labored to find success pushing the ball downfield in 2021, finishing 19th in average yards per attempt (7.0) and 24th in average yards per completion (10.5).
The Titans must hope Kelly’s influence – and better health at the receiving spot – helps the offense take strides here.
Downfield passing delivers – Part 2
It wasn’t as if Watson just heaved the ball downfield a bundle of times and having occasional big successes in 2020 either.
Check out his quarterback rankings on throws of 20 to 30 yards downfield (125.0 toward the left side of the field; 129.5 toward the middle; 90.1 toward the right), and on throws of 10 to 20 yards downfield (127.6 toward the left side; 120.5 toward the middle; 110.8 toward the right).
Those numbers were not only waaaay above the NFL average, but also represent a marked difference from Tannehill’s downfield success with the 2021 Titans. We’ll sum his total up in a simpler fashion by noting Tannehill didn’t hit as high as 90.0 in any of the six areas listed above.
Again, personnel – and health of personnel – have to be considered here. But if Kelly can somehow help unclog the downfield passing game for the Titans and Tannehill in 2022, it would be a huge boost to the offense.
Interception improvement
The largest lingering memory from the Titans’ playoff loss to Cincinnati was Tannehill’s three-interception performance. It was an unfortunate continuation of a regular season that saw Tannehill throw 14 interceptions, one more than he’d thrown in his first two Titans seasons combined. That’s a concerning trend, to say the least.
But Titans fans may be encouraged by the fact Watson’s interception numbers dropped from one year to the next under Kelly. In 2019, Watson tossed 12 picks, posting an interception rate of 2.4 percent. It was a different story in 2020, though, when Kelly was both the offensive coordinator and the quarterbacks coach. Watson trimmed his interception total to just seven in 16 games, and his 1.3 percent interception rate was half as high as Tannehill’s (2.6 percent) last season.
If Kelly’s passing-game influence can help restore the less turnover-prone Tannehill of 2019 and 2020, the Titans would be in much better shape.
More first-down passing?
Assuming Henry returns at full, frightening strength in 2022, we can rest assured the Titans aren’t suddenly going to adopt an offense that features 40 or 50 passes per contest.
But maybe Kelly’s experiences in Houston – when the Texans had a much better passing attack than rushing attack – will lead to the Titans throwing more on first down.
No team in the NFL ran more often on first-and-10 in 2021 than the Titans, who did so 265 times. No team threw the ball fewer times on first-and-10 last year than the Titans, who did so 168 times.
In stark contrast, the Texans under Kelly in 2020 threw 228 passes on first down, the ninth-highest figure in the league. They piled up 1,902 yards on those first-down plays (third best in the NFL) and produced 83 first downs (also thir -best in the NFL).
Might a meeting of the minds between Kelly and Downing lead to the Titans throwing a bit more frequently on first downs in 2022? It probably wouldn’t hurt to be as predictable as the Titans were in 2021.
Sluggish starts
The Titans’ offense all too often took too long to gain traction in 2021, averaging just 3.4 points per game in the first quarter, which ranked 21st in the league. In eight of 17 regular-season games, the Titans were blanked in the first quarter.
But if fans are hoping Kelly and a souped-up passing attack can revamp matters, they might be wise to tamp down expectations. In the two years Kelly (as offensive coordinator) had Watson in the lineup, the Texans weren’t much better than last year’s Titans. Houston averaged 3.8 points per game in the first quarter in 2019 (tied for 21st in the league), and 3.8 points again in 2020 (26th in the league).
Sacks a’plenty
One of the Titans’ biggest issues on offense last season was an inability to keep Tannehill upright. He was sacked 47 times (seventh-most in the NFL) and hit 64 times (tied for fourth most in the NFL). A large chunk of that problem is the offensive line, but the rest of the offense – the quarterback’s ability to get rid of the ball, the receivers’ ability to get open, the blocking of the tight ends and running backs – factors into the equation as well.
Unfortunately, Kelly may not be much of a miracle worker in this aspect of the passing game either, as Watson was sacked 49 times in 2019 (eighth-highest in the NFL) and 50 times in 2020 (tied for second-highest in the NFL).
