In a world of “Any Given Sunday”, the key is to just win games.
That said, it still felt like a letdown game. Lamar Jackson gets hurt, the Titans crawl back into it where you need an onside recovery and the boot didn’t step down on the throat of your opponent when you wanted to.
Let’s get into the Game Notes.
Offense
Lamar Jackson was well on his way toward another career day, and possibly even a Jackson 5, leaving the first half 15/20 for 222 yards and 2 passing TD. His passing chart demonstrates what he was looking to do in this game and that was to push the ball downfield and take advantage of levels route combinations from his pass catchers. He was efficient and took his shots.
The connection between Lamar Jackson and Zay Flowers has been truly special, no better look than the 51 yard bomb that Lamar perfectly led Zay to. It travelled 41 air yards and was in perfect position for Zay. Zay finished the day with 8 catches on 10 targets for 118 yards and 1 TD and just looks like he’s next level right now.
The pass protection is a key takeaway of this game, lets see how PFF charted:
I know NFL Next Gen Stats charged Andrew Vorhees with a pressure from Jeffrey Simmons, but the key here is that Lamar Jackson was only pressured on 21.7% of his drop backs, which is starkly lower than the 45% he dealt with through the first three weeks. Huntley was only pressured on 1/11 dropbacks, but he had a much quicker TTT than Lamar did.
When Lamar Jackson was kept clean he was 14/18 for 217 yards and 2 TD, just ridiculous numbers.
