NASHVILLE, Tennessee – Preseason wins don’t matter.
Brian Callahan said this after the Titans beat the 49ers 17-13 on Saturday night in the first week of the NFL test season at Nissan Stadium.
But he is a new coach with a new staff and squad and many new players.
In this respect, the coach and his quarterback attached importance to the result.
“It takes habits to win,” Brian Callahan said. “…I think right now those things are important. I think you’re trying to build a winning team and a winning culture. It validates the work you put in, and that helps.”
“We have to get used to winning,” said Will Levis. “Winning is fun and it brings with it a certain responsibility. Hopefully we can play our best in all these games, get a feel for the winning atmosphere and just keep going.”
Here are some reflections on some of the factors that helped the Titans finish well, and would have been present even if the 49ers’ final possession had ended in a losing touchdown rather than a Chance Campbell pass to Josh Dobbs on fourth-and-6 at the Tennessee 36-yard line:
Timing: I thought there was a lot of good timing in the passing game on offense, especially on the units that mattered the most.
Levis found Calvin Ridley in the middle on a third-and-10 attempt, which Ridley converted into a 22-yard play.
“You see how explosive he can be with the ball in his hands,” Callahan said.
Several other plays, including a 16.5-yard pass from Mason Rudolph to David Martin-Robinson on the right side, seemed to go exactly the way the Titans wanted.
This also went hand in hand with the defense of Levis and Rudolph – in a total of 24 dropbacks, neither of them was sacked.
“I think timing-wise it was good,” Callahan said. “I was intentionally trying to keep the quarterbacks out of harm’s way to a certain extent, so the ball got out pretty quickly. Some of those ply-action passes were really efficient for us, they got open. I think our timing in the passing game is developing really well.”
“A few more weeks and a few more games and I think I’ll feel really good about where we are now starting the regular season. But it was nice to see that we were there on time, played on time and worked together.”
Malik Willis took the 49ers’ only sack of the game early in the fourth quarter. The right side of the third line of attack had some problems, but he seemed ready to escape before he was taken down by Kalia Davis for a loss of one yard.
The Titans allowed an average of four sacks per game in last year’s preseason.
NPF on how the #Titans‘ The night went from OL’s point of view. pic.twitter.com/M4Jh201wHb
— Paul Kuharsky (@PaulKuharskyNFL) 11 August 2024
Consequences of revocation: The Titans’ new special teams are off to a great start.
Kearis Jackson returned the 49ers’ first kickoff 63 yards, turning twice out of danger to set up a 15-yard touchdown drive for the Titans. And Jha’Quan Jackson returned the Titans’ first punt of the preseason 26 yards with a nice start.
Both resulted in touchdowns. Kearis Jackson made a second kickoff return of 18 yards.
Consider this: In the 2023 preseason, the Titans returned seven kickoffs for 167 yards with a length of 33 and ten punts for 97 yards with a length of 17.
Here, freshman Jha’Quan describes the work of second-year student Kearis:
“When he caught the ball, I knew he was going to come back good because we had been planning all week and knew what we were going to do and we trusted our training. When I saw him make a spin move, then I made a block, then everyone else blocked and then he made another spin move, I thought, ‘Ooh, he’s out of the gate!’ We benefit from that. The whole team benefits from that.”
Big shot: Will Levis attempted to get into the end zone on third down from the 3-yard line after the Titans’ first possession, but was hit hard by Dee Winters.
He said he needed to be smarter, but Callahan agreed.
“I think there’s something to that, a guy who makes a good throw early and feels like he’s ready to play,” he said. “All quarterbacks will tell you they like to get the first hit over with, so we got it over with early. Hopefully we don’t have to take many more of those. What he did didn’t bother me, it wasn’t really egregious, he put himself in danger. The fewer hits the better.”
San Francisco was flagged for defensive holding, and Levis dug out from under the pile on the next play and scored a 1-yard touchdown.
Sacking, picking and more: Chance Campbell, playing as the second-team inside linebacker, ended the 49ers’ final drive before halftime with a hard sack of backup quarterback Brandon Allen on third-and-six, breaking through the middle and dropping him to the ground for a 10-yard loss. Caleb Murphy was right next to him on a well-planned tackle.
Thomas Rush missed a great sack opportunity on Joshua Dobbs as Dobbs scored a 6-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter, making the Titans 17-13.
Campbell was the defensive player of the game, as he also made the aforementioned game-winning interception and tied the 49ers’ Tatum Bethune with nine tackles.
Campbell, a sixth-round pick in 2022, missed his rookie season due to injury and only played in four games last year.
Healthy and successful, he could flourish in the new defense because his position is treated differently.
Chance Campbell feels well suited to the downhill aggressiveness of the ILBs in #Titans‘ new D. pic.twitter.com/HrvhYt1j19
— Paul Kuharsky (@PaulKuharskyNFL) 11 August 2024
“He made plays all night long and I think he made a lot of tackles,” Callahan said. “He hit the quarterback a couple of times. … It was great to just see him a little bit more alive because we’re looking for guys to keep coming into that room to get more depth.”
Endurance: The first drive, initiated by Rudolph and the second offense, lasted 17 plays and 8:43 minutes and covered 78 yards before the Titans lost the ball at the 49ers’ 2-yard line.
“That’s a lot, that’s a long drive for the guys to go out there and play,” Callahan said. “I think it was good for everybody to go out there and feel what that feels like and how our conditioning is after 17 games. I thought we looked pretty good. I didn’t think we looked tired at any point. I thought we looked fresh. So that was good to see.”
