Titans: Work Travis Kelce with safety coverage
In Kansas City’s Week 10 loss to the Titans, Travis Kelce caught seven passes on seven targets for 75 yards and a touchdown, and another touchdown catch was disallowed due to an offensive pass interference penalty on receiver Tyreek Hill. In particular, Kelce was able to exploit matchups with Tennessee’s linebackers with routes that sliced through the Titans’ zone coverages. Kelce was particularly open on this 16-yard reception, as Kansas City’s motion concepts seemed to send Tennessee’s defenders into a tizzy.
Jayon Brown, Tennessee’s best coverage linebacker, was out with a groin injury in Week 10, and he’s trying to recover from a shoulder injury he suffered in the wild-card win over the Patriots. That injury prevented him from playing in the divisional round against the Ravens, and if Brown’s out again, it’s a real problem. Rashaan Evans and Wesley Woodyard, Tennessee’s most-targeted linebackers this season, have four touchdown passes allowed and no interceptions between them. They are both good attack linebackers, but coverage is not their strong suit.
Also, Kelce presents challenges most tight ends don’t, especially in Andy Reid’s set of schemes. If you try him with straight coverage from a cornerback or linebacker, you’ll get eaten alive, because Kelce is so savvy when it comes to getting open against any coverage, especially with the Chiefs’ array of rub routes, crossers, and drags. The Texans tried playing man coverage against Kelce in the divisional round, specifically with cornerback Gareon Conley, and that was a fairly epic mistake. Kelce caught 10 passes on 12 targets for 134 yards and three touchdowns.
The answer for the Titans may be to put their safeties on Kelce across the field, especially if Brown can’t go. Top safety Kevin Byard can’t beat Kelce in the size category — he’s five-foot-11 and 212 pounds, while Kelce is six-foot-5 and 260 — but from a coverage standpoint, Byard plays bigger than he looks. Safety Kenny Vaccaro, who is a secret weapon for defensive coordinator Dean Pees in that he can play everywhere from box defender to slot corner to free safety, showed on this 11-yard Mark Andrews catch in the divisional round that he has the closing speed to limit after-catch gains from top tight ends.
This will be crucial to keeping Kelce in check. Vaccaro could be the point man for Kelce if Byard is positioned to help take the deep pass away from Patrick Mahomes, but one thing’s for sure — the Titans can’t depend on base zone coverage to limit him, much less stop him.
Touchdown Wire editor Doug Farrar previously covered football for Yahoo! Sports, Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report, the Washington Post, and Football Outsiders. His first book, “The Genius of Desperation,” a schematic history of professional football, was published by Triumph Books in 2018 and won the Professional Football Researchers Association’s Nelson Ross Award for “Outstanding recent achievement in pro football research and historiography.”