Struggling at 0-3, Tennessee looks to a volatile special teams unit to spark a turnaround before a daunting revenge matchup against former superstar Derrick Henry.
The Tennessee Titans have not been an impressive team through the first three games.
They are now 0-3 with a lot left to play for, but it won't get any easier. They couldn't even beat a New York Giants team led by Jameis Winston. The Titans lost 12-7, despite the Giants' only points coming from field goals.
Now, they have to prepare to take on Derrick Henry and the Baltimore Ravens. Henry has already said he won't take it easy against his former team.
This Titans team has had a lot of issues so far.
Last week, it was the offense. The Titans couldn't move the chains in the first half and didn't get their first third-down conversion until the third quarter.
They had a chance at the end of the game to win, but Cam Ward threw an interception.
In Week 2, the defense was the issue. The Titans led 20-17 with 1:56 left against the Philadelphia Eagles. The Eagles continued converting long third downs until they eventually scored the go-ahead touchdown with nine seconds left.
In the season opener, they couldn't do anything right.
The game started with a special teams mishap. Joey Slye sent the ball out of bounds on the opening kickoff.
The offense and defense fell apart after that.
Those issues continued in Week 3, as Chimere Dike fumbled the opening kickoff after diving for more yards.
Special teams coordinator John Fassel was asked about the issues his unit has faced at Thursday's press conference. He was confident that his group would turn things around and believed the Titans had a "sleeping giant" waiting on special teams.
"I feel like there's an element of chemistry that I think is so critical to the component of special teams that isn't lacking, but it's certainly developing, and that just can't be manufactured," Fassel said. "It just takes time to practice and play together. And we have had multiple, you know, lineups. And I think that's good in the long run to get a lot of guys playing, especially different positions or different in-n-outs. But it does disturb a little bit of the element of chemistry. And so, I feel like, you know, you can't compare this year to last year to three years ago because everything changes so much. But I feel like, I maybe not want to this, but we're kind of special teams-wise, I feel like there's a little bit of a sleeping giant that's kind of tossing and turning and ready to awaken at some point. And we've talked about that. And so there's tremendous optimism on my side, but at the same time, you know, we got to produce some better results for our team. And I think that's going to come."
A lot has changed for the Titans on special teams compared to last year. Dike went from making the Pro Bowl as a rookie returner to having multiple games this year with ball-security issues on punt and kick returns.
Tommy Townsend leads the NFL in punt yards (768) but also leads the league in times punted (16). Punting the ball away so often isn't a good sign for where the team is headed.
Then, you have the issues with Slye on kickoffs. He opened the year by kicking the ball out of bounds against the New York Jets in Week 1. That gave the Jets better field position on their first drive.
When people think of what leads to wins in the NFL, special teams isn't always the first thing they mention. Doing the little things right on special teams can have a massive impact on the game's outcome.
Special teams aren't the only reason the Titans have had issues, but they're part of the bigger picture for this team.
We saw how detrimental special teams woes can be during the Mike Vrabel era. The Titans went through multiple special teams coordinators before finding Fassel.
Figuring things out on special teams could be the first step in turning things around for the Titans.
