{"id":315691,"date":"2025-08-25T06:26:16","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T06:26:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/315691\/"},"modified":"2025-08-25T06:26:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T06:26:16","slug":"how-we-graded-tennessee-after-week-3-preseason-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/315691\/","title":{"rendered":"How we graded Tennessee after Week 3 preseason win"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Tennessee Titans<\/a> finished off a successful preseason with a 23-13 victory over the Minnesota Vikings in a primetime showcase at Nissan Stadium.<\/p>\n

How did the individual units perform?<\/p>\n

Here’s a quick report card from Friday\u2019s victory.<\/p>\n

Offense<\/p>\n

The Titans\u2019 offense looked good in this one with a mix of big plays and methodical drives that staked them to an early lead, and they never looked back. Cam Ward was solid and led one of the two early scoring drives. While he once again failed to throw a touchdown pass, it was his arm that put the Titans in position. Brandon Allen proved to be solid and likely locked up the backup role.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rookie running back Kalel Mullings left the game early with a lower leg injury. Although he walked off the field, this is something to monitor as cut day approaches.<\/p>\n

Notables who did not play: G Kevin Zeitler, C Lloyd Cushenberry, WR Calvin Ridley, RB Tony Pollard, RB Tyjae Spears, OT JC Latham<\/p>\n

Grade: B+<\/p>\n

Defense<\/p>\n

Jeffery Simmons made his preseason debut and led an outstanding effort early on. The veteran defensive tackle, along with Sebastian Joseph-Day, was stout against the run and created some push. Linebacker Cedric Gray excelled once again and is pushing James Williams for the starting role next to Cody Barton. Depth at the cornerback position is still questionable. Rookie Marcus Harris made a few plays, but overall, the rest of the reserves struggled.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Notables who did not play: DT T\u2019Vondre Sweat, S Kevin Winston Jr., CB L\u2019Jarius Sneed\u00a0<\/p>\n

Grade: B<\/p>\n

Special teams<\/p>\n

The special teams units are still a work in progress. While Joey Slye bounced back with an outstanding game and Chimere Dike looked explosive on a kickoff return, there were still coverage issues and penalties that must be cleaned up before the season opener.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Grade: C<\/p>\n

Coaching<\/p>\n

Head coach Brian Callahan dialed up the right mix of veterans and youth while resting some players and came out with a win. Both the offensive and defensive game plans were solid, and the use of multiple play-callers was a fun experiment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tennessee still has some work to do before the season and will have an interesting couple of days leading into roster cutdown day on Tuesday. But they left Nissan Stadium on a positive note and built some momentum for the team to build on.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Grade: A<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tennessee Titans finished off a successful preseason with a 23-13 victory over the Minnesota Vikings in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2061],"tags":[7,1184,6,1602,2517,526,394,2411,527],"class_list":{"0":"post-315691","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennessee-titans","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-listicle","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-smg","12":"tag-smg-listicle","13":"tag-tennessee","14":"tag-tennessee-titans","15":"tag-tennesseetitans","16":"tag-titans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115087984843984188","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}