Titans (

16) at
Chargers (

24)

Game Overview ::

By mike johnson >>

• The Titans have scored 20 points in regulation only once all season.
• Los Angeles has played eight games this season and all of them have had less than 40 points scored, while no individual team has scored more than 27 in a game, and no opponent of the Chargers has scored more than 20 points.
• The return of Quentin Johnston solidified the Chargers wide receiver rotation and gives Justin Herbert multiple reliable threats.
• The Chargers offense has leaned FAR more pass heavy recently, ranking 2nd in the NFL in pass rate over expectation over the last four games.
• Calvin Ridley has a massive target share for the Titans without DeAndre Hopkins and has averaged 12 targets per game since the Hopkins trade.

How tennessee Will Try To Win ::

Defense wins championships, but offense wins games. The Titans currently have the 9th ranked DVOA defense and rank 3rd in the league in yards per play allowed, which is one of the stronger predictive metrics for how strong a defense actually is. Despite that, the Titans have a 2-6 record through eight games due to a dysfunctional offense. Their two victories were over the hapless Patriots and the Dolphins without Tua Tagovailoa. Basically, they’ve only had a chance against teams who can match or beat their offensive futility. Second year QB Will Levis (rightfully) took a lot of the blame early in the season as he made poor decisions, struggled to work through progressions, and was wildly inaccurate at times. However, Levis has missed time recently and the offense continues to be unimpressive with Mason Rudolph under center. Levis practiced in full this Thursday and is trending towards being active for Week 10. Considering this season is primarily about figuring out the direction of the franchise and the team is basically out of the playoffs already, they should go back to Levis at least for a few weeks to be sure what they have (or, more specifically, don’t have).

The Titans offense has relied heavily on Tony Pollard and Calvin Ridley in recent weeks, as Pollard handled 31 touches last week against the Patriots, and Ridley has 23 targets in the two games since the trade of DeAndre Hopkins. Regardless of who is at quarterback, we should expect a heavy dose of these two. The Titans look like they may be getting RB Tyjae Spears back this week after he also practiced in full on Thursday. His presence would allow them to rely even more heavily on their backfield, as they already rank 29th in pass rate over expectation over the last four weeks. Tennessee’s approach at this stage in the game must be heavily focused on their running backs, who are actually pretty talented and explosive players. The Chargers have the league’s 5th ranked pass defense and have been solid but not elite against the run. Chargers games have been relatively low scoring all season so the Titans are likely to enter this game with a conservative approach and hope this is another defensive battle like last week’s where it took overtime for someone to reach 20 points.

How los angeles Will Try To Win ::