The Titans won the meaningless game in Minneapolis last night 24-16. Meaningless or not, it's always great to see a Titans win!
Malik Willis played the entire game due to Will Levis being injured. Malik played ok overall, but as a pure passer Malik still was a bit underwhelming.
Malik did deal with some drops, including two pretty bad ones by starter Chig Okonkwo, and of course preseason games are full of changing players on both sides of the ball. But Malik simply didn't look super sharp throwing the ball. I was hoping he'd build upon his last performance in Chicago but that wasn't the case. It was not horrible, just not great.
Malik rushed the ball well, and performed better overall later in the game when the lesser talent was on the field.
Malik finished the day completing 10/17 passes for 85 yards and 1 TD - 1 INT. He ran for an impressive 91 yards on 11 attempts.
The leading receiver of the day actually was WR Mason Kinsey. Kinsey has steadily been on the practice squad over the years so it's nice to see him play decent. He had 4 receptions for 37 yards. He also played a single snap at QB and ran for six yards. He was the team's emergency QB in case Malik got hurt. Pretty funny because he didn't play QB since he was a sophomore in high school.
Rookie running back Tyjae Spears continues to run like a BEAST as did the team's fourth running back Julius Chestnut.
Tyjae is literally so fun to watch, I'm not sure if I've seen him not gain yardage whenever he gets the ball. They handed the ball off to Spears on third and six and Spears managed to actually CONVERT the third down! He later had a SWEET 33 yard touchdown run where he HURDLED a dude! The Titans got themselves a BACK in Tyjae. I just love to see it!
Running back Julius Chestnut also had himself a heck of a day. He had nearly 100 yards on 13 carries and two touchdowns. One rushing AND one receiving! I love that the Titans running backs all seem to look good.
Defensively the team looked overall improved since getting wrecked last week against the Bears. Teair Tart played as a punishment after getting kicked out of practice for throwing a punch. While in the game, Tart dominated like you'd hope your starting defensive lineman would amongst back ups, third stringers or worse.
Overall it was a solid night for the Titans, they scored touchdowns, defense looked decent. The defense didn't force any turnovers but were good overall.
Our QB depth is looking a bit suspect, but it wasn't like Malik was horrible, he just doesn't look like a 'franchise QB' caliber QB at the moment. Need to see more of Levis.
But hey, the roster as a whole looked stronger, and that's what matters. QB matters a lot, but so does every position.
