Tennessee Titans head coach Mike Vrabel made a pair of questionable decisions during the team’s Week 1 loss to the New Orleans Saints.
The first came in the third quarter with the Titans leading 9-6. The defense made a stop on third down, leaving the Saints with a 52-yard field goal try.
However, a flag was thrown for an offensive holding that would have pushed the Saints back 10 yards and out of field-goal range in exchange for another third-down attempt.
Instead of trusting his defense to make another stop, Vrabel decided to not take the penalty, which resulted in New Orleans kicker Blake Grupe nailing the field goal to knot the game up at nine.
In that situation, Vrabel said he liked his chances with the rookie kicker rather than putting it in the hands of the defense to make another stop.
“(The Saints) got a rookie kicker, 52-yarder, wasn’t thrilled with the third down, (New Orleans) getting down there,” he explained, per Paul Kuharsky. “So I made a decision and he made the kick.”
The other questionable call came in the fourth quarter with the Titans trailing 16-12 with a little over two minutes remaining and the ball on the Saints’ 11-yard line.
The Titans kicked a FG down 4 on 4th-and-6 with 2:20 remaining….ESPN Analytics saw that as a massive error:
Win probability go for it: 33%
Win probability kick FG: 24%— TURRON DAVENPORT (@TDavenport_NFL) September 10, 2023
Instead of going for it on fourth-and-6, Vrabel decided to kick the field goal and trust his defense to get a stop on the next series, which the unit failed to do.
As we suspected, the decision had everything to do with the struggles of the offense.
#Titans HC Mike Vrabel says the decision to kick the 5th field goal was “not a difficult decision” down by 4.
Mentions flow of the game & what gave TEN best chance to win.
“You can run the numbers, but we all watched the same game. Points were hard to come by.”
— Sam Phalen (@Sam_Phalen) September 11, 2023
While frustration with the fourth-down decision is certainly warranted, it wasn’t as easy a decision to make as it normally would be considering how bad Ryan Tannehill was on Sunday.
But the decision to trust the defense in that situation makes the decision not to do the same in the third quarter even less excusable.
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