Game Overview ::
By HILOW >>
- Titans CB L’Jarius Sneed (quad) and RB Tyjae Spears (hamstring) did not practice Wednesday. Head coach Brian Callahan labeled Spears as “week-to-week,” making it likely he sits against the Bills.
- Bills RB James Cook (toe) returned to a limited practice after missing last week’s win over the Jets, while WR Khalil Shakir (ankle) started the week with a full practice after playing only 38% of the team’s offensive snaps in Week 6.
- Amari Cooper makes his debut with a Bills team that had been without a true top dog through the air to start the season.
- The Titans rank last in the league in giveaways per game (2.0) while the Bills rank first (0.3).
- The Bills rank ninth in takeaways per game (1.7) while the Titans rank 29th in takeaways per game (0.6).
- The Bills D/ST is the top on-paper play from this game, which tells you a lot about how I’m currently viewing this game environment.
- The Bills rank last in plays per game (56.6) while the Titans rank 27th (58.2), making it highly likely we see a fewer-than-average number of total offensive plays run from scrimmage in this game.
- Both teams have been at or below expectation in pass rate in all but one game this season (five of six for the Bills and four of five for the Titans).
How TENNESSEE Will Try To Win ::
This game is all about minimizing turnovers for the Titans, as they could very quickly find themselves with 26-28 minutes of time of possession and 50-55 offensive plays run from scrimmage against the Bills. But that all starts with turnovers and managing possessions. The Titans prefer to be a game-managing team themselves, with a pass rate under expectation in four of five games played this season. They have also been fighting key injuries this season, with veteran wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins playing through a torn MCL, quarterback Will Levis knocked out of the team’s Week 4 game with a shoulder injury, multiple defenders missing significant snaps, and now the injury to Spears. Furthermore, Levis has come crashing down to earth in his efficiency with downfield passing and Callahan has done very little to place him in the best position to succeed, largely failing to alter the clearly defined roles of his pass catchers through the first six weeks of the season. Calvin Ridley has an almost entirely downfield role as the most dynamic playmaker on the offense while Levis has been one of the worst deep-ball passers in the league.
Spears appears unlikely to go here after being deemed “week-to-week” by Callahan, likely leaving the backfield to Tony Pollard and Julius Chestnut. Chestnut has played just four offensive snaps this season, making it likelier than not we see Pollard approach or surpass his heaviest snap rate of the season, which came in Week 6 at 74%. The team ran just 58 offensive snaps in that game, leading to 17 carries and three targets. That means Pollard has now failed to eclipse 22 running back opportunities in all five games this season, keeping him in the “his workload is fine for his price but he has very few paths to truly erupting in volume” bucket of running backs this season. If you remember how we viewed him last week, that should sound familiar. Pollard is “fine” on paper, but doesn’t carry the volume upside we’d typically be looking for to turn him into a can’t-miss fantasy bet. That’s an important understanding considering he is likely to once again check in as one of the chalkiest plays on the slate. The matchup is about as good as it gets for the Titans against a Bills team allowing the most yards before contact per attempt in the league, but the Tennessee offensive line has been the worst unit in the league in the run game, generating just 1.07 yards before contact per attempt this season (dead last).
We touched on the clearly delineated roles amongst the pass catchers above, most notably leaving Ridley in almost a purely downfield role. Ridley ranks second in aDOT (18.7) and sixth in share of air yards (47.0%) but has caught just nine (lol) of 27 targets through five games. That is largely due to a 95th-ranked target accuracy rating of 4.8. Against a defense holding teams to just 6.1 yards per pass attempt (seventh), look for the offense to function primarily in the short areas of the field. Hopkins played his heaviest snap rate of the season after the team’s Week 5 bye week (71%), while Tyler Boyd is confined to a prototypical slot snap rate in the 60-70% range, dependent on game flow and personnel package rates. The tight-end room is a nasty three-headed monster amongst Chigoziem Okonkwo, Josh Whyle, and Nick Vannett. In all, the matchup clearly points towards the short-to-intermediate areas of the field, most likely benefiting Hopkins and Boyd, but volume is unlikely to amass enough to matter for fantasy purposes.
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