What We Learned From Week 7 in the N.F.L.

Tennessee Titans Coach Mike Vrabel could not ignore the clear one 7 days in the past. After yet another virtuoso functionality by the 247-pound freight coach that is Derrick Henry bulldozing the Buffalo Costs on “Monday Night Football,” he admitted the team’s overreliance on its functioning again.

“We carry on to soar on Derrick’s again,” Vrabel mentioned, “and he’s eager and ready to carry us.”

Still we have also viewed how far one particular player can acquire this Titans group: to the convention title video game.

Seeking to go even further in the postseason, the Titans (5-2) acquired the Professional Bowl receiver Julio Jones in June, but commenced the common season with the exact same previous components. Jones and A.J. Brown have not been healthier, the protection was having gashed and quarterback Ryan Tannehill is not in anybody’s top rated 10. By means of six video games, Henry was once again on a speed to set the N.F.L.’s season dashing report following falling 100 yards short in the 2020 season.

But on Sunday, Tennessee dominated Kansas Town, 27-3, in a breakthrough match that showed the Titans ended up having a move toward staying title contenders.

There is extra to the Tennessee Titans than Derrick Henry.

Henry is unique, and any offense with any dreams of hoisting the Lombardi Trophy had superior element such a video game wrecker.

But this get panned a magnifying glass about the relaxation of Tennessee’s roster, starting with quarterback. 6 of the other 7 N.F.L. teams to develop a 2,000-yard jogging again experienced terrible to beneath normal quarterbacks. The 1973 Payments (Joe Ferguson), the 1984 Rams (Jeff Kemp), the 1997 Lions (Scott Mitchell), the 2003 Ravens (Kyle Boller and Anthony Wright), the 2009 Titans (Vince Young and Kerry Collins) and the 2012 Vikings (Christian Ponder) experienced negligible passing threats. Eventually, it didn’t make a difference how very good Barry Sanders or Eric Dickerson was. Defenses loaded the box, and the rushers primarily rammed into brick walls.

The a single exception, of program, was the Broncos’ Terrell Davis, who had a 38-year-previous John Elway at quarterback to harmony out Denver’s Tremendous Bowl operate in the 1998 season.

Against Kansas Metropolis, Tannehill proved again that he is no dink-and-dunk placeholder, finishing 21 of 27 passes for 270 yards with a 105.3 passer score.

This is the very best obtaining corps Tannehill has experienced in Tennessee, much too. Brown and Jones, battling as a result of hamstring accidents to begin the season, are commencing to exploit a single-on-a single coverage outdoors. On his 24-lawn touchdown reception in the initial quarter on Sunday, Brown boxed out Kansas City cornerback Mike Hughes and torqued his entire body close to at the very last instant to make the catch. The drops that plagued Brown by September felt like a distant memory as he concluded with eight catches on 9 targets for 133 yards.

Jones isn’t near to 100 %, but he proved on his very own circus capture versus Buffalo that he is not near to remaining concluded. Tannehill concluded passes to nine different players versus Kansas City (3-4).

They complicate what would be straightforward math in Tennessee. Opponents can not load the box to stop a 2,000-property functioning back again, due to the fact the Titans can flip video games into breezy, backyard pitch-and-catch affairs.

It was distinct in its A.F.C. championship activity loss to Kansas City in the 2019 year that Tennessee, like each other crew in the N.F.L., experienced no way of halting Patrick Mahomes. He built a mockery of the Titans’ protection then, prancing into the finish zone on a as well-quick, 27-property landing run that will eternally loop on Mahomes’s spotlight reels.

Considering the fact that then, even so, the Titans reset their secondary and additional a Mahomes antidote in the edge rusher Bud Dupree, whom the Titans signed to a 5-yr, $82.5 million deal this off-year simply because he can solitary-handedly flip a game’s momentum.

Dupree tore his anterior cruciate ligament with the Steelers in December 2020, and admitted recently that he experimented with returning from medical procedures also soon. On Sunday, he appeared again like a stopper value investing in.

With Tennessee major, 7-, midway via the initial quarter on Sunday and Kansas City dealing with third-and-7 from midfield, Dupree embarrassed remaining deal with Orlando Brown, dashing all over the two-time Pro Bowler to keep track of down Mahomes for a strip sack that forced Kansas Metropolis to punt.

Meantime, Mahomes has had to engage in at a ridiculously severe speed to retain Kansas Town alive, and it is proving to be unsustainable. We now know the Chiefs’ defense is negative — definitely poor — but the 27-stage deficit Mahomes confronted at halftime was the greatest in his career.

He threw an interception in his sixth straight match and, on a ultimate fourth-and-18 to close his working day, he was brutally sandwiched between two Titans defenders. Jeffery Simmons, all 6 ft 4 inches and 305 lbs of him, went airborne about the leading and induced Mahomes’s head to transform at an awkward angle. Mahomes cleared the concussion protocol, but, down, 27-3, Coach Andy Reid resolved to continue to keep him out of the match.

Compensating for a sieve of a protection, Mahomes has manufactured some head-scratching selections and is now tied for the league direct in interceptions.

On the other sideline, Henry, or King Henry, as he is at times named, did not want to do much, thanks to assist from the other Titans. Henry even threw a touchdown go out of the wildcat development, and ran for only 89 yards on 29 tries (a 3. yards for each have common).

For one particular activity, Henry was just human, and the Titans ended up nevertheless unsafe.

Quarterback’s no man’s land is a frightening spot.

In the off-year, groups have been acting out of desperation with regards to the most significant placement in football. The San Francisco 49ers and the Los Angeles Rams threw absent very first-spherical picks the way Oprah Winfrey gave absent cars and trucks to receive new franchise quarterbacks.

However there ended up a couple teams in acquire-now mode that took additional half-baked approaches to the placement. It cost the Carolina Panthers a mere pittance — a sixth-round choose in 2021 and second- and fourth-round picks in 2022 — for the former 3rd all round decide Sam Darnold. The Washington Football Group signed Ryan Fitzpatrick and Taylor Heinicke on the low cost. Denver mortgaged minor for Teddy Bridgewater.

Exactly where has it still left these teams? On the outside looking in.

Week 7 highlighted precisely why teams go for broke at quarterback in the spring. Trying to get by with B-minus talent does not fly.

Darnold ongoing to regress in a 25-3 decline to the Giants. Plainly influenced by the lingering absence of functioning again Christian McCaffrey, the previous Jet threw for a meager 111 yards and was benched. The Panthers have missing four straight.

Heinicke is pleasurable to enjoy in Washington. A poor man’s variation of the quarterback he idolized, Brett Favre, Heinicke sprints and dives all in excess of the subject and has come up with match-ending heroics this time. But against Green Bay, his limits had been exposed and his landing (and Lambeau Leap) was negated.

Bridgewater mustered only 14 factors Thursday evening from a stiff Browns protection and seemed benchable for Drew Lock.

Getting a huge swing in the off-period doesn’t usually pan out. We’ll know quickly if Matthew Stafford can get the Rams in excess of the hump, but it will just take years to identify if Trey Lance was really worth the heavy selling price in San Francisco. But this sort of swings at minimum give their teams a opportunity.

All over the N.F.L.

Bengals 41, Ravens 17: It’s formal. The Bengals are for genuine. In opposition to the same protection that stifled Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert a single 7 days in the past, Joe Burrow threw for 416 yards and a few touchdowns. Practically 50 percent of that creation (201 yards) went to his previous higher education teammate, Ja’Marr Chase. This connection on your own should really scare everyone else in the A.F.C.

Packers 24, Washington Football Workforce 10: Who claims Aaron Rodgers doesn’t have weapons? Huge receiver Allen Lazard and tight stop Robert Tonyan combined for 123 yards and two touchdowns, and Inexperienced Bay cruised with relieve at home.

Falcons 30, Dolphins 28: Miami suffered a different heartbreaker, getting rid of on a wander-off subject aim. Tua Tagovailoa’s two interceptions did nothing at all to silence the Deshaun Watson trade rumors.

Patriots 54, Jets 13: Dates with the N.F.L.’s worst teams usually seem to come at the suitable time for Invoice Belichick’s club. Soon after a further devastating loss, the Patriots faced the hapless Jets and rolled to 31 to start with downs and 551 overall yards. New England did not switch the ball around and punted as soon as.

Giants 25, Panthers 3: Following tearing as a result of the smooth element of their timetable early, the Panthers have come crashing back again to earth. This is about as pathetic as it will get on offense in today’s N.F.L. Sam Darnold averaged 4.4 yards per pass try, Chuba Hubbard averaged 2.3 yards for every have and Carolina transformed 2 of 15 on third downs. Against, uh, the Giants.