Three Keys To Titans Potentially Upsetting The Ravens Sunday

The Ravens are favored by double-digit points against the Titans this weekend.

But we all know what happens when these Ravens build double-digits leads more than any other team in the modern NFL, especially at home. They lose them. And they succumb to poor tackling and silly penalties, and they lose their cool and lack a killer instinct and they find a way to come up short in games they most definitely should win.

So whether or not you want to call Week 4, coming off a tough game in Brazil with arduous travel and a triage unit along the offensive line, and a trap game or not, this is most definitely a game the Ravens could lose. This defense doesn’t look as “good” yet, frankly, as ones that lost to Gardner Minshew at home, twice (Colts and Raiders) in recent years, and this franchise is no position to be assuming it’s going to walk all over anyone after blowing 11-point leads is successive weeks and getting bailed out by Lamar Jackson in one of them.

There is a path the Titans could take to pull off a stunner. And it goes like this:

Jeffery Simmons Dominates

Jeffery Simmons might be the best defensive tackle in the NFL right now. Heck, he might be the best defensive player.

He is coming off a 10 tackle, one sack effort and he leads all DTs in pretty much any and everything this season and since the start of last season. Oh, and he is up against a rookie offensive coordinator who already got too cute for his own good once, and he is getting a rookie guard lined up against him trying to snap for a full game for the first time at center and the likely return of guard Andrew Vorhees, who has been beyond suspect to this point, as a starter due to injuries and John Simpson, off to a brutal start as a highly-paid free agent, on the other side.

This could get ugly quickly. They need to adopt a game plan similar to what the Steelers did against Bengals DT Dexter Lawrence last week with constant double teams and a mix of running at him with power and trying to make him chase speed on the perimeter. Under center passes plays at your own risk. Dropping back more than 20 times at your own risk.

“Defensive line is probably as good as anybody’s,” Minter said.

Ravens are bottom three in pressure rate allowed and it’s getting worse each week as they run out of (suspect) center options and here’s what Simmons has been up to and his ranks among all defensive tackles:

20 Tackles (1st), 10 Solo (1st), 10 Asst (T-2nd)

12 Pressures (1st), 3 TFL (T-4th), 2 Sacks (T-4th)

5 QBH (T-1st), 165 Snaps (2nd), 1 Missed Tackle

Since ’25: 13 sack, 76 Press, 20 TFL (1st among DTs)

Mental Meltdowns

This Ravens team lacks clarity and emotional and physical maturity in close-and-late and has for years under a host of coordinators and now two head coaches. And that manifests more acutely when they are home struggling to put away bad teams with lesser QBs. Um, these Titans check a lot of those boxes.

“I think they lack a maturity in the fourth quarter,” is how NFL analyst Bucky Brooks put it to me when discussing the Ravens’ ongoing woes with him this week. That is proving hard to shake and the Titans, winless, have nothing to lose here. This is like a proverbial 15 seed vs 2 seed in the NCAA tournament; the longer the Titans hang around and muck it up and keep it close and low scoring, all the pressure shifts on to one sideline.

And the Ravens do not handle pressure until proven otherwise.

Titans Out-Rush The Ravens