4 areas where Todd Downing struggled that Tennessee Titans' next offensive coordinator must fix

The Tennessee Titans offense was bad in 2022, and that started with offensive coordinator Todd Downing.

Titans coach Mike Vrabel fired Downing on Monday after two seasons running the team's offensive operations. The Titans had one of the worst offenses in the NFL this season, ranking fifth-worst in points, third-worst in total yards and passing yards and tied for last in first downs. This was a stark downturn from the success the Titans experienced in the years before Downing took the reins, when the Titans peaked at No. 2 in the NFL in total offense and No. 4 in scoring in 2020.

Personnel changes, injuries and natural aging have plenty to do with the Titans' offensive regression. It's hard to improve offensively, for example, when you trade away the NFL's fourth-leading receiver or play most of your season without your perennial Pro Bowl left tackle.

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But those are issues for a different day. For now, let's focus on the areas Downing could control. Here are four problems that Downing created, ignored or couldn't fix, and what his replacement will have to do to get the Titans' offense back to its dominant ways.

Man, the offensive line was bad

Anyone who watched the Titans this season knows the offensive line was bad. You don't need stats to come to that conclusion. But since we have them...

Pro Football Focus graded the Titans as the worst pass blocking team in the NFL. Per PFF, there were only 13 offensive linemen who played at least 50% of their team's offensive snaps and had a pass blocking grade of 50 or worse -- and three play for the Titans. Titans ball-carriers averaged the NFL's most yards after contact per carry but were tied for the fourth-fewest yards before contact per carry. The line's 36 penalties were the seventh-most of any offensive line group.

For what it's worth, Vrabel also fired offensive line coach Keith Carter.

This isn't solely a coaching problem. The Titans need to add offensive linemen if they want to contend. But the new regime will also need to put its offensive linemen in better positions to succeed. That means more run and pass plays that spread the field sideline to sideline, more plays out of up-tempo or shotgun formations and quicker-developing pass plays that don't require linemen to hold blocks as long.

Where was the play action?

Downing was never afraid to build his whole offense around Derrick Henry and the running game. And for good reason. Henry led the NFL in yards after contact and ranked third in missed tackles forced and 10+ yard carries.

But the other strength of the Titans' offense before Downing took over was the play-action passing game. And for whatever reason, Downing went away from that.

The Titans still thrived in play-action in 2022. Quarterback Ryan Tannehill averaged 12.1 yards per attempt on play-action passes this season; no other quarterback with at least 200 pass attempts finished within two yards of that mark. But the Titans called their lowest percentage of play-action passes for Tannehill in his four years in Nashville, using play-fakes on 27.8% of his drop-backs compared to 36.2% in 2020.

In fairness, the offensive line did allow 16 sacks on play-action, making it tough to rely on it as a cornerstone piece of the offense. It's unfair to say the Titans need to run quicker developing plays and then advocate for running more long-developing plays. But if there's something your quarterback is the best in the NFL by a wide margin at, find a way to exploit it. Exploit it as much as you can. Downing didn't.

There's predictable, then there's Downing

The Titans ran the ball on 65% of their first downs. The rest of the NFL runs the ball on first down 54% of the time. The average NFL team averaged 4.4 yards per carry on first down. The Titans averaged 4.2. It's surprising the Titans were able to be only a little worse than average while being that predictable on early downs.

The weird thing is the Titans were really good when they did throw on first down. They averaged 9 yards per attempt with a 96.2 passer rating. Football Outsiders' advanced metrics say the Titans were 30% better than the average NFL team at throwing on first down but were 13% worse than average at running on first down.

The Titans need to be less predictable. Put plainly, they were too easy to stop in 2022. They averaged the fewest plays per drive and the second-fewest net yards per drive in the NFL and made the second fewest trips to the red zone. Only Houston and Denver had a higher percentage of drives without a first down or a score. When defenses have a good idea what's coming, it's easy to stop it. That can't be the model going forward.

Games can't end how they did

Fourth quarters were bad. Really bad.

The Titans scored 37 fourth-quarter points all season. That works out to 2.18 fourth-quarter points per game, which is the third-worst mark by any team in 20 years. The Titans ran 277 plays in the fourth quarter; 104 of them (37.5%) either lost yards or gained no yards. Henry averaged 3.5 yards per carry in the fourth quarter compared to 6.6 in 2020 and 5.3 in 2021. Per Football Outsiders, the Titans' offense was 44% worse than average in the fourth quarter.

This is another area that's hard to fix with one tweak. But getting ahead of the chains is a good place to start. The Titans had 7 or more yards to go for a first down on 70% of their fourth quarter snaps. Factor out first downs and the Titans still faced 7 or more yards on 87 of their 166 fourth down plays, more than half.

As mentioned earlier, playing better on first downs means being a lot less predictable and being willing to use more of the field. This issue intensified late in games. Six of the Titans' losses were by five or fewer points. Fix your offense late in games, this team is still playing.

And maybe Downing still has a job.

Nick Suss is the Titans beat writer for The Tennessean. Contact Nick at nsuss@gannett.com. Follow Nick on Twitter @nicksuss.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: 4 ways Tennessee Titans' new OC must be better than Todd Downing