Tennessee Titans vs. Arizona Cardinals Preview & Prediction | PFF

Tennessee Titans vs. Arizona Cardinals Preview & Prediction | PFF

What which game we got next? Oh, Titans at Cardinals. Oh, baby. A lot of different outcomes in this game here. Uh, what do you want to start talking about? Titans or the Cardinals here with this one? I I’ll start on the Tennessee side. Uh, and this game certainly is getting weirder and weirder with the Cardinals and their offense and the injuries. Now, Trey Benson’s on IR, so it looks like their top back is Amari De Marcado, and we’ll see where that goes on that side of the ball. But Tennessee, look, you you given Cam Ward no chance right now up front on the offensive line, and this is a pretty good Cardinals defensive line. They spent a lot of money on it, spent a lot of resources on it. You’ve got Kas Campbell, Josh Sweat, Baron Browning, you know, young guys like Darius Robinson, Dvin Tomlinson, the vet. I mean, they they just the Cardinals Dline has a chance here to have success because the Titans offensive line has not had success in any game so far this year. 26th in pass blocking grade, 30th in pressure rate. Cam Ward’s getting hit the most in the league. He’s getting sacked the most in the league. They got to give him a chance at some point. If the Titans are going to score points, and this goes in the run game, too, with Tony Pard, but if they’re going to score points and Cam Ward is going to have success on a down-to-down basis, they have to protect him. It just has to be better. I mean, you look at the big name guys. Dan Moore making all the money he is at left tackle. Peter Skransky, first round pick. JC Laam was out last week. You know, not sure what his his situation is yet this week. You know, Lloyd Cushenberry at center, Zitler, it’s just not been good in pass protection and they don’t. Cam Ward, especially for as long as he generally wants to hold the football, he’s not going to stand a chance unless he’s protected back there. This offensive line is something you look at every single week going, “Do they have a chance?” And this is another good defensive line they’re playing. There’s not many terrible defensive lines that you get to pad stats against. You look at the teams they’ve played. You know, they’ve played Denver and they’ve played the Rams and they’ve played teams with good defensive lines. This is another one. And I think this is a real problem if they can’t block and Cam Ward’s under pressure 50% of the time. Again, there’s not many ways this can go other than failure this week again for Tennessee. On the Cardinal side of things, this should be a win, right? I mean, you you don’t like saying that about NFL games and and with the Titans having Cam Ward. I I feel like I can never fully count them out truly, but it’s been such a struggle for the Tennessee Titans that the Arizona Cardinals, especially with them hosting this, really has to be a win here for them. What I’m what I’m worried about with them is that it just doesn’t feel like there’s enough of the in between in their offense. It feels like it’s all or nothing. It feels like it’s screens or bomb passes. Like it just doesn’t. Now, obviously, they don’t have Trey Benson as anymore either. So, the run game is is going to be a huge factor, but I am focused on the passing game. This team is talented enough. They should beat the Tennessee Titans, but I want it to look different than what it has in the past. Uh especially over the LA the past four weeks. I felt like Drew Petting was doing a good job as the offensive coordinator for them last year, and it just feels like they’re not in rhythm this season. And I to sort of look into that, I wanted to look at the in between passes. Passes of five to 15 yards. Can be outside the numbers, could be inside the numbers. It didn’t really matter. I just wanted to see targeting sort of that intermediate part of where you want the ball to go and where you want to be able to still stress defenses out. So, they have 222 passing yards when targeting 5 to 15 yards down the field. That is 31st in the NFL. So almost dead last. They are 37th in attempts in that range, which is 25th in the NFL. They’re seventh when it comes to most passing attempts behind the line of scrimmage and up to five yards. And they’re 23rd in passes of 15 or more yards. So we’ve seen from Kyler and his average depth of target this year anyways that we knew that deep number wasn’t going to be too high. But it’s just so much underneath stuff from them. And sometimes you go, okay, well, do you have the receivers to really be able to win in the intermediate? Yes, I think they do. And I think that they won well enough last year. Now, was it a major part of what they were doing last year? No. They were still, I believe it was 23rd in the NFL in total passing attempts of 5 to 15 yard range, but it’s better than 31st in the NFL. And when you look at the guys that Kyler could throw the ball to in that range, that he would, Trey McBride has a 93.0 0 receiving grade uh on those 5 to 15 yard passes or this was all of last year, excuse me. That was seventh best. That was the seventh best receiving grade in the NFL for passes at that range. And Marvin Harrison Jr. where his score was 44th in the NFL amongst all receivers. It was still an 86.5. When I say receivers, you’re throwing tight ends and even running backs into that as well who maybe had gotten into that range. So, you have legit options in the middle of the field. And I think that’s that’s what you need to prioritize in this game. Get something in the in between going because right now it just feels like it’s either underneath or sometimes those deeper passes, but we’ve even seen like they’re not really attempting a lot of the deeper passes as well. I think you got to open up that intermediate middle of the field and I think you have the right players to do it. It just doesn’t feel like it’s been a part of their game plan to this point in the season. And with them now down James Connor and Trey Benson passing the football in a way that keeps the defense on their toes that forces them to defend every blade of grass, if you will, is going to now become paramount. And I think it’s that intermediate part of the field that’s going to be really important to see if they’re able to attack that this week. Yeah. No, I I agree. I think if there’s if there is a spot for Marvin Harrison Jr. to go out and have a big game. It’s this one cuz the Titans defending on the inside with guys like Xavier Woods and Roger McCreary, they’ve been okay. So Trey McBride might have a good battle in there, but when you look on the outside where the Titans are running out at outside corner right now, Legareria Sneed is really struggling. Jaylen Armor Davis, they just recently traded for from Baltimore. He hasn’t been great throughout his career. I think Harrison’s going to have some good matchups and he’s got to win some of those matchups. If he goes out there and has a really good day, I think the Cardinals can cruise to a win. But if it’s a struggle with the chemistry and they’re just not willing to throw downfield, that’s a scenario where you see this game staying within range for Tennessee. I the Cardinals winning 27 to 10. All that to say, what do you have as the final score here? I have it 23 to 10. I think the running back injuries, it’s not great to have Amari de Marcato and maybe Bam Knight as your running backs on game day. Uh I I still think the Cardinals offense is a bit conservative, but this Tennessee Titans team, they just have a hard time scoring, right? So I think it could be even low lower scoring than that.

PFF’s Dalton Wasserman and Trevor Sikkema preview the matchup between The Tennessee Titans and The Arizona Cardinals.

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