DETROIT – Here, Lions’ offense. 

Take the ball at our 23-yard line. Our 25. Our 12. Our 22. Our 26.

With giveaways and big returns allowed, the miserable Titans made it so easy for the Lions to find their way to touchdowns that their fans poured out of Ford Field by the time the third quarter was over, a 52-14 blowout well in hand. 

Four giveaways were big contributors. And special teams were especially awful.

Detroit Lions punt returner Kalif Raymond (11) is tackled by Tennessee Titans linebacker Luke Gifford (57) during the first half of an NFL football game Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
Luke Gifford drags down returner Khalif Raymond/ ASSOCIATED PRESS

I’ve never been one to call for firings. But what exactly is Colt Anderson, who oversaw a special teams unit that had punts blocked in the first two games of the season, doing? We watched kickoff and punt coverage teams give up 262 yards and a touchdown and Mason Kinsey earn a flag for an illegal formation penalty on a kickoff. Meanwhile, the Titans’ tepid return game countered with 53 yards.

Amy Adams Strunk intervened last season when the long, inexplicable reign of Craig Aukerman finally came to an end the day after the Colts blocked two Ryan Stonehouse punts, breaking his leg and tearing up his knee on the second one. Surely Brian Callahan had to have been asked to put more of a premium on the unit.

But Anderson was one of the last of his significant coaching hires. Mike Vrabel was bashed for hiring and hanging on too long to “friends.” Anderson worked on the Bengals staff with Callahan for four years, all as an assistant special teams coach. Perhaps he was ready to take over as the top guy, but the results of his unit's work would suggest he’s not.

“Yeah, I’m not going to get into all that,” Callahan said after the game. “That’s a little bit too much for after a game. Look I think Colt’s a good football coach. We haven’t played well enough, we haven’t coached well enough so there’s really nothing else to say about that.”

Strunk is close with Lions owner Shelia Ford Hamp, and has based the collaborative front office and coaching model in part on what Detroit is successfully running. Strunk surely left town embarrassed that her team showed itself to be 38 points worse than her friend’s. (Here she is with Hamp pregame.)

One thing working against Anderson is that special teams units are typically composed largely of bottom-of-the-roster guys, and the Titans are a thin team with depth issues. That bad depth includes Jack Gibbens, who was back as a starting inside linebacker following the trade of Ernest Jones, and Julius Chestnut, kept as the third running back because he’s a better runner than Hassan Haskins, a better special teamer. Each allowed a blocked punt earlier this season.

That supply of back-end players is on Ran Carthon, who’s got power over personnel and was unable to do much in that area. The Titans have achieved a standard they have touted for their returners for too long – they don’t fumble. Aukerman talked of that as a standard and Anderson does too. 

BryMakThey are nowhere near capable of what the Lions showed NFL kick and punt returners can produce: big explosive plays that set the offense up for easy times or take it out of the picture altogether by scoring. Also worth noting: Kalif Raymond, who had five punt returns for 190 yards including a 90-yard touchdown was a 2021 Titans castoff.

With a 49.3-yard average, Ryan Stonehouse may have been outkicking his coverage, but that's something that should be coordinated by now.

“Obviously, I’ve got to watch it, but it was all bad,” Mike Brown said. “Lane integrity. Somebody’s got to go out there and make a play. I take full responsibility. We’ve just got to be a lot better. It got to the point where it was so bad, really people were just looking at each other trying to find the answer. I think we’ve just got to get back to doing the basic things right.”

Special teams captain Morgan Cox echoed Brown on the basics.

“On the ones where we gave up the returns, it’s a matter of working together, finding lanes and getting the guy stopped,” he said. “…Colt is very organized in teaching the game and stuff when we get in meetings. What it comes down to is the players on the field. We have to take ownership of each play and understand we affect the game in a big way. We’ve seen in our games special teams has affected the game a lot. We have to take ownership of that as a group. We’re doing as much as we can in the meeting room but it comes down to in between the lines.” 

I asked Calvin Ridley, who finally had his breakout game with 10 catches on 15 targets for 143 yards if he’d said anything along the way to encourage the special teams unit.

“We’re all a team,” he said. “We’ve got to play better.” 

We cannot discount the four Titans' turnovers that hurt badly too -- two picks by Mason Rudolph and lost fumbles by Ridley and Chig Okonkwo. We know how bad the offense is and that it's a consistent problem. The topic here is special teams, however.

Is removing Anderson the solution? I can’t say it is. His assistant, Anthony Levine, is a Vrabel holdover. He had less experience than Anderson after a 12-year playing career, with one season in player personnel and as a coaching assistant for the Ravens before joining the Titans in 2023 as one of two assistants for Aukerman. It was Tom Quinn who took over when Vrabel was prompted to make the change.

What I do know is while Callahan has been respectably steady, he talked about how things just haven’t fallen into place in a variety of categories for the Titans through seven games with just one win.

The Titans need some sort of a jolt.

Maybe he sits back and expects it will come Sunday at Nissan Stadium when the Titans play a team of a similar caliber. The Patriots are 2-7 after Sunday’s win over the Jets.

Marcus Jones had a 64-yard punt return in that game. It set up a touchdown.

Tennessee has not shown itself to be quick problem solvers. Do you think New England and Jones are going to be excited to go against the Titans' punt coverage unit next?

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