Midway Illustrated answers Total Titans' questions about the Bears

Written by Tom Gower on .

I'm glad to be joined for this week's Q&A by Brett Solesky of Bloguin's fine Bears site, Midway Illustrated. Check them out for more Bears coverage, and for my answers to Brett's questions.

 

Total Titans: The last time the Titans faced the Bears in the regular season was back in 2008, the year before the Bears traded for Jay Cutler. In his fourth season with the Bears, what's the verdict on the trade? How good is Cutler, and is he good enough for what the Bears need him to be?
 
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The Titans and success rate at midseason

Written by Tom Gower on .

One of my favorite simple measures for getting a perspective on how well the Titans performed on offense and defense in a given game is success rate. I've mentioned success rate before, typically in the context of evaluating running backs, but here's a brief overview.

A play is considered a success if it gains 40% of the needed yardage on first down, 60% on second down, and 100% on third or fourth down, with adjustments for leading in the fourth quarter (lower baseline on first and second downs) or trailing by 8 or more in the fourth quarter (higher baselines on first and second down). A successful play gets a 1, while an unsuccessful play gets a 0. This method has a number of limitations, which I'll get to later in the post, but it's a good initial gloss.

Here's what the success rate has looked like for the Titans and their opponents in each game this season:

Game Titans Opponent
1-vs Patriots 39% 61%
2-at Chargers 36% 51%
3-vs Lions 40% 60%
4-at Texans 43% 57%
5-at Vikings 41% 49%
6-vs Steelers 44% 37%
7-at Bills 48% 59%
8-vs Colts 44% 60%

Now, let's caveat the heck out of those numbers:

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Titans fans, what questions do you have about the Bears?

Written by Tom Gower on .

The Titans square off against the Chicago Bears this week for the first time since 2008, and for the first time at LP Field since the last NFL overtime game decided by a safety. To better know the 2012 Chicago Bears, we'll be doing our nomal Q&A with Bloguin's Bears blog, Midway Illustrated. If you have any questions about the Bears you'd like answered, post them below and I'll pass them along.

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Tennessee Titans Week 8 Snap Report

Written by Tom Gower on .

The NFL this year is tracking player participation on a weekly basis and reporting that information to the media. Per the NFL, here's how often which Titans played against the Colts.

Offense (59 total)
QB: Matt Hasselbeck 59
RB/FB: Chris Johnson 51, Quinn Johnson 25, Jamie Harper 4, Darius Reynaud 2
TE: Craig Stevens 42, Jared Cook 25, Taylor Thompson 16
WR: Nate Washington 43, Kenny Britt 38, Kendall Wright 30, Damian Williams 17, Lavelle Hawkins 2
OL: Steve Hutchinson 59, Mike Otto 59, Fernando Velasco 59, David Stewart 58, Kevin Matthews 48, Leroy Harris 11, Byron Stingily 1

Defense (76 total)

DE: Kamerion Wimbley 65, Derrick Morgan 63, Scott Solomon 13, Pannel Egboh 4
DT: Jurrell Casey 59, Sen'Derrick Marks 50, Karl Klug 21, Mike Martin 19
LB: Colin McCarthy 73, Zach Brown 56, Akeem Ayers 36, Tim Shaw 3
CB: Jason McCourty 76, Alterraun Verner 75, Ryan Mouton 44, Coty Sensabaugh 6
S: Michael Griffin 75, Jordan Babineaux 74, Robert Johnson 17, Al Afalava 4

Xavier Adibi, Beau Brinkley, and Tracy Wilson each only played on special teams. Rusty Smith did not appear in the game.

Analysis: For the second consecutive week, you see a lot of run game personnel up there. QJ's 25 snaps were a season high, and up 1 from last week. Jared Cook played his fewest snaps since the Houston game when he was limited due to injury, and the disparity between Stevens' snaps and his was the biggest it's been in any game he's healthy. The wideout rotation is the wideout rotation, and the offensive line is the offensive line plus injury-related replacements.

Defensively, the defensive end rotation is the defensive end rotation. Karl Klug saw the most snaps he'd seen since the Detroit game, and it was the first time since the season opener against the Patriots he'd played more than Mike Martin. Akeem Ayers sat for 40 snaps after sitting for 31 in the first seven games combined. I haven't loved his play this year, but there's been little to love on this defense. Zach Brown was the main beneficiary of Ayers sitting, and his 56 snaps were a season high. After this week, it's probably relatively safe to say Jordan Babineaux's time on the bench last week was the result of injury rather than performance.

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Titans fall to Colts in OT, 19-13

Written by Andrew Strickert on .

The Tennessee Titans had their chances to win, and should have won, but fell to the Indianapolis Colts 19-13 in overtime.  Frankly, I wasn't surprised by the loss but was surprised at the way(s) the Titans lost - I was expecting a high-scoring game, something along the lines of 38-35.

 
The game was not particularly well officiated - there were some questionable calls and no-calls that hurt the Titans - but they should have won despite those.
 
The wind was brisk and seemed to have more of an effect on the kicking game than on the passers.  Still, it was encouraging that the Titans gave up only 3 points in the first quarter, when the Colts had the wind.  It was even more encouraging when the Titans had the lead and the wind in the fourth quarter.  Sadly, the Titans couldn't make a 13-6 lead late in the fourth quarter stand up.
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Enemy Intelligence: Indianapolis Colts

Written by Tom Gower on .

 

To find out more about what the 2012 Indianapolis Colts look like, I went through my normal practice of watching the next opponent's previous game. Coming off their bye, the Colts beat the Cleveland Browns at home last week by a final score of 17-13 to improve their record to 3-3 on the year. Andrew Luck scored twice on the ground in the first half, and the defense held the Browns after they cut the deficit to 14-13 early in the second half.
 
After the jump, what I saw from the Colts that game:
 
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Nate Dunlevy answers Total Titans' questions about the Colts

Written by Tom Gower on .

To learn more about the Colts, I'm delighted to bring back Nate Dunlevy. My first Q&A with Nate posted four years ago (today!). Since then, Nate has moved from his own site 18 to 88 to bigger and better things as Lead Writer for Bleacher Report at their AFC South blog. He's also written two books, including Blue Blood, a history of the Colts in Indianapolis, and Invincible, Indiana, a novel of Indiana high school basketball, while also still being part of the cast of writers at Colts Authority. You also can (and should) follow him on Twitter.

If you want to read my answers to his questions, check those out over at Colts Authority. Otherwise, on with the show.

Total Titans: Where does Andrew Luck stand six games into his rookie season? Is he as awesome as sliced bread, air conditioning on a hot summer day, high-speed internet, or all of the above?

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