By BLAKE BEDDINGFIELD, special correspondent

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The Titans were not the better team Sunday. And looking forward to the rest of the schedule, outside of Sunday against the Carolina Panthers, that will be the case in the rest of Tennessee's games. 

Playing against their division rival makes these comparisons even more important because they play them twice a year. 

A 2022 late-season trade by the Jaguars and Atlanta Falcons was a shrewd move giving the Jaguars and their young offense another playmaker.  

The Jaguars' addition of Calvin Ridley was exactly what Trevor Lawrence has been missing and his production of seven receptions, for 103 yards and two touchdowns is a big lift for a team needing red-zone production.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- The losses tend to blend and a lot of them feel the same. This one felt worse.

The Titans scored two touchdowns in their 34-14 loss to the Jaguars, doubling their road TD total, and they were both passes, the first two touchdown throws away from home this season. Does that get you charged up?

Of course not. There was little here that felt like progress. What's getting better about this team inside of the losses? Two trick play TD tosses?

As I wrote in my game column, it's hard to find anything.

It's a miserable time to be following this team, and if it somehow loses to Carolina next week as a 4-point favorite at home, then we will be in a Ken Whisenhunt area.

Many of you joined me to talk about it, releasing some of what you are feeling to get through it and feel a bit better. You can head to the private Facebook page or head below to YouTube to rewatch it and feel better yourself.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Even many bad teams have slivers they can look to, areas they’re improving in, markers of progress, statistical categories they know will be reliable in.

Sift through the Titans’ 34-14 loss to the Jaguars at EverBank Stadium -- their third in a row, their fifth in six games, their seventh in 10 games this season and their 14th in their last 17 dating back to last year -- and it’s difficult to find those threads or glimmers.

“When you lose, it's hard to identify those types of things,” Mike Vrabel said, then pointing to some plays that hit on offense and in the red zone as well as defensively before third-down penalties. 

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The door recently fell off my actual mailbox, necessitating a full replacement. I expected more than eight years of life out of it. I'm funny that way.

My online mailbox is much more durable, and you are pretty good at filling it.

I am pretty good at urging you to listen to or watch the podcast before I start answering your questions.

The new episode awaits you on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, iHeart and YouTube.

Please be sure to check it out between now and kickoff Sunday, and to subscribe, rate and review.

Onto your best stuff.

In your post-Bucs YT broadcast, you mentioned #Titans  wouldn’t spend all of their 100M in next year’s FA.

Why not? What would they be saving some of that 100M for, future contracts for Levis & some others?

Won’t spending all they can, help them improve faster? https://t.co/SoDBPmtQ0g

— 💙❤️CHVRCHΞS Fans’Papa❤️💙 (@VaderJaws) November 17, 2023

By BLAKE BEDDINGFIELD, special correspondent

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The Titans need to spend the remaining time in 2023 building toward next year.

This would include evaluating all players on the roster, and creating a mentality to build on in the offseason.

There are a number of prominent players on existing contracts and in all likelihood won’t be back, but they can help with the immediate success of the young players on the roster and also the personality this team wants to have going into the 2024 season whether they are on the roster or not.

It starts with the core players.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The Titans have eight games left. They'll play to win all eight. We have no idea if they can recover from the issues that ail them to get that done, though DraftKings has it at +130 that they get over 6.5 wins.

I think two games rank as more important than the rest: The two against the Texans.

Amy Adams Strunk may have a solid understanding of the roster issues and be willing to give Mike Vrabel a chance to rebuild the roster with Ran Carthon with another draft and a lot of salary cap money. But the Adams family, Of the Houston area, didn't like the way things ended there and doesn't like the team that replaced the Oilers and got the stadium they couldn't.

That the Texans are an NFL sweetheart at 5-4 with a rookie quarterback a year after a 3-13-1 season must sting, and good showings against them might soften the Titans' poor season.

That's where we commence this week's episode of The Paul Kuharsky Podcast.

The new episode awaits you on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, iHeart and YouTube, which is also embedded below.

Other subjects I dive into:

By MIKE HERNDON, columnist

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but the 2023 Tennessee Titans have a major offensive line issue on their hands. Jake Downard gave a great detailed breakdown of some numbers that illustrate just how acute that issue is for Tim Kelly’s offense here at PK.com earlier this week, but here are a few more.

Out of 36 quarterbacks with at least 100 dropbacks this season, Will Levis has been under siege the second most often, seeing pressure on a whopping 46.6 percent of his dropbacks. Only Justin Fields’ 49.5 percent rate is higher per PFF charting.

However, that number becomes even more damning when you consider the fact that Levis is currently the sixth quickest passer out of that group when it comes to average time to throw at 3.05 seconds per dropback. Fields, by contrast, is the seventh slowest, taking 3.87 seconds in the pocket on average. Levis is the only one above a 40 percent pressure rate among the ten fastest quarterbacks from snap to throw. The next closest is teammate Ryan Tannehill, who was pressured on 38.6 percent of his dropbacks.

By JAKE DOWNARD

Jake Downard is a law student who creates NFL and NBA content focused on analytics on Twitter as @JakeAndBall. He also works with fanspo.com. 

In my previous pieces, I’ve said it does not take a spreadsheet to identify clear issues. You would be hard-pressed to find anybody who watches Titans games and does not believe the offensive line is a massive problem. It jumps off the TV as we sit at home on Sunday and watch the games, it is a clear concern when we sit in our seats at Nissan Stadium and see Joey Bosa winning on the edge over and over, and it scares the hell out of fans as they re-watch highlights of their QB of the future.

As the Titans cross over into the second half of the season with a record of 3-6, what better time to get into an in-depth review of the offensive line? [Unlocked]