Chiefs vs. Titans: Major storylines for the AFC Championship

The Titans defense had the benefit of playing two poor passing offenses

A lot (and I mean a lot) has been made of the Titans defense the last two weeks. Those who dare not credit the run game for the team’s success have latched onto the idea that the Tennessee Titans have a very good defense. Subjectively speaking, they have looked very physical and have made numerous plays the last two weeks. Without question, they have played well and deserve credit for that.

That said, there’s a subjective caveat and a number of objective caveats to their success. The subjective take is that the New England Patriots and the Baltimore Ravens have been below-average passing offenses this season.

I’m not sure much time needs to be spent on the Patriots. While they put up some decent statistical production on the season, thanks in part to an insanely easy start to their schedule, it was clear by the end of the season that this offense was not very good. Whether it’s the decline of Tom Brady or his lack of weapons, the passing product was one of the worst New England had produced in quite some time. Their rushing offense wasn’t much better.

More time needs to be spent on the Ravens. Yes, the Ravens were on an absolute tear this season. They won 12 games in a row and finished only losing 2 of 16 contests. That said, only a few teams were successfully able to force the Ravens to throw the ball. By gaining a lead early, the Titans were able to force the Ravens out of their preferred scheme. Rust, struggles with situational football, and turnovers plagued Jackson and the Ravens to the point where the team couldn’t recover.

My point is, the Patriots offense is very poor and the Ravens didn’t play to their strengths. Some of that was the result of scheme plus great plays made by Titans defenders, but a lot of it was simply due to the Patriots poor offense and the Ravens coaching staff putting Jackson in poor positions. Can we really expect the Titans defense to live up to those performances against a prolific passing attack like the Chiefs? I’d argue no.

For these next items I’ll focus primarily on the season, because again, I don’t think the last two contests showed us what to expect on Sunday. On the season, the Titans rank 21st in passing yards allowed per game surrendering 224 yards per game. For those that would argue that’s not as bad as I led you to believe, I’d argue their schedule is mostly filled with weak passers.

It’s not a perfect barometer, but passing yards on the season is a decent metric to determine whether a passer had a consistently strong season or not. During the season the Titans only played six quarterbacks who surpassed 4,000 yards. In those contests the Titans actually gave up an average of 323 passing yards per game, much higher than their average over the season. This tends to paint a far different picture of their passing defense.

This is probably the result of their poor secondary. What was once a strength of the team in 2018 became an abject weakness in 2019. According to Pro Football Focus, the Titans secondary fell from fourth overall last season to 20th overall in 2019. A strong factor in  this regression was the decline and eventual season ending injury to Malcolm Butler, the team’s top corner from 2018. They’ve added some veterans along the way, but the fact remains this secondary has been inconsistent.

Another interesting stat, one that should benefit the Chiefs significantly, is the Titans red zone defense during the season. There was only one team worse on the year in allowing touchdowns in the red zone, and that was the Houston Texans. One of the Chiefs biggest struggles this season has been the red zone, but that wasn’t the case against the Texans. We should see similar effectiveness on Sunday, barring any mistakes by the Chiefs offense.

Finally, my favorite advanced metric ranks the Titans defensive DVOA as 16th in the NFL and their passing DVOA even worse at 21st in the NFL. The truth of the matter is this defense has been at or below average most of the season. When you consider the schedule they’ve played, it’s hard to argue they’re a great defense. With the performance Mahomes had against them the first time around, in Tennessee, I’d expect him to perform as well or better on Sunday.