Transcript of Titans-Dolphins Recap: QB Change Sparks a Turnaround

Fourth and goal at the four. Give Pollard around right in, trying to score. Pollard dives.

He's in there. Touchdown, Titan.

The 30-point streak is broken. And the Titans fans who dominate the remainder of Hard Rock Stadium, celebrate. I've never been so happy with 30 points, and the Dolphins fans are booing. That is really Boohoo. Mike, Keith, and former Titans interim head coach Dave McGinnis. Wg, F, X, Tony Pollard scores in the most hilarious part of that call, and put that on the call of the year list, Eric, behind the glass, is that it was to make the score 31 to 12 with under 2 minutes to go, with under 30 seconds to go. Shout out to Brian Callahan there for going for it and probably changing a lot of fantasy fortunes. He must have known that 30-point score thing. They had not top 30 in over a thousand days, nick Shook. The Titans are winless no more, one and three over the hapless Miami Dolphins.

I'll tell you what, he's lucky that Arthur Smith wasn't on the other sideline. He might have a bit of an altercation in midfield, if that were the case. The cackling in that call was fantastic, but I think that also paints the picture of where the Titans have been so far through three weeks, where they've been in games. They've had opportunities to win, they just haven't closed the deal. You can go back to Week One and think about that with Will Levis in his pick six that lost them that game. The difference tonight, though, is they lose Will Levis after he throws a pick to Emmanuel Agba, of all people, who makes one of the greatest catches in the history of Thunder Thies. The ball falls out of his hands right in between both those thick thighs, and just squeezing them, and he hands on the football. It was not a good start for them. Levis goes out because of a shoulder injury. Mason Rudolf comes in. He throws for 85 yards and somehow studies the ship enough for the Titans to basically cruise to victory over a Dolphins team that is searching for answers on the offensive side of the football right now.

Yeah, so that's the biggest story. We'll get to the Dolphins part of it in a minute. But Will Levis was hurt after an early third down where he dove for the first down marker, the most Will Levis' play of all time, just trying to make something happen, passes up a throw to run, looks very athletic doing it, but comes up like half a yard short. It didn't seem like a great spot, but he came up just a half a yard short. So it's like he tries so hard and he comes up short and he came up and you could read his lips saying something about his shoulder. Yeah, I think it hurt my shoulder. Yeah, I hurt my shoulder. He's very expressive. His lip reading was a major feature of this game because on that Emmanuel Agba interception, you could see him saying, I didn't see him at all. And it's like, Yep, we know Will Levis. So he goes out with that injury. He's in pain. They get it checked out. Rudolf comes in, and he has a field goal drive. Nothing crazy. It's like a moderately long field goal, but just a couple plays where he got to his second read and made normal football plays, normal passes.

And it was like Brian Callahan saw that and was like, Oh, I like that. Someone who's just doing what he's supposed to within the framework of the offense I might want to see a little more of that if Will is not feeling 100%.

I also think that given the situation that they stepped into on Monday night, 0-3, desperate for a win, see some stability at quarterback, not a high ceiling. We know what Mason-Rudolf is, but just some stability there to keep the offense going. I think at that point, he was just like, Dude, we need to go get a win. We desperately need to go get a win. Let's just ride this out for the rest of the night. We know that the Dolphins probably aren't going to score a lot of points. Let's ride this out and ride the running game, which is what they did to perfection or near perfection. I mean, statistically, they did a fantastic job between Tajay Spears and Tony Pollard. Pollard goes 22 for 88 and a shutdown. Spears, 15 for 39. Not a great average, but also scores a shutdown. A bit of a boomer bust running game for them, but it did the job. And in a game where you can expect that your defense is going to play well enough to limit the opposing offense. That's really all you need, provided you don't turn the ball over. And with Rudolf in there, you can basically count on you're not going to turn the ball over.

So it worked out for him. Big win, not in the fact that they won by so many points, but just a big win to get a win in the column at this point after a month.

Oh, it's huge. Callahan was thrilled after the game. He just got the game ball from his owner. It's such a heavy thing when you're winless. And now that they have won a game, the Jaguars are the only winless team in the league. By the way, with the Seahawks losing that game, there are only two undefeated teams in the league. That's the Vikings and the Chiefs. Let's actually listen to what Callahan said at halftime to ESPN when he was asked about the quarterback situation.

Mason Rudolf came off the bench, gave this offense a spark. Who's your starting quarterback in the second half?

We'll see. Will's got an injury he's dealing with, so we'll see how it comes out. We weren't sure how he was feeling, so we just let Mason finish the half, and we'll figure it out when we get in there.

What will be the determining factor about who should be your starting quarterback?

It's just a matter of who can physically play. And then if he can play, he'll go. But Mason has done a really nice job for us. Yeah. After the game, he said something similar, whereas if Will Levis is 100 %... I mean, if Will Levis is healthy, he's 100 % our quarterback. He also mentioned the upcoming buy played into his thinking so that even though it was pretty clear Will Levis could have returned to the game, maybe wanted to return to the game, I think he understood the situation, and they just didn't want to rock the boat. And look, if Will Levis hadn't thrown that interception, he might have stayed in the game. But it's just been a rough start for Levis. I think as inconsistent as he was last year, I think he's been worse this year because it's just been more consistently bad. You see stretches, you see big plays. He can throw the ball down the field, but they really struggle on the short and intermediate area with Levis. To have that brain fart right off the bat to start this game, I think Callahan was happy. Look, Rudolf didn't do great.

He went 9 for 17 for 85 yards. It really wasn't a great performance. They had four punts early in the third quarter, but after that, they started at least getting some field goal drives going. He made a really nice play right before half-time. Maybe that played into Callahan's thinking they actually got the ball back, shook with 22 seconds around their own 40-yard line, and he delivered a strike, his best throw of the night to Boyd for 27-yard lines. They run up, they spike it, and nick Foulke, who's on fire this year, hits a 47-yarder. He had three 50-yarders in this game. Nick Foulke is absolutely ageless. And that was the offensive highlight of the night until that late Pollard TD.

Yeah, it was nice to see nick Foulke bang through a few of those field goals because I still remember when he was with the Patriots and couldn't hit a 50-yarder and just kept coming up short.

Yeah, they wouldn't even let him Why? I don't know what happens. These kickers are getting better and better as they get older. They're kicking the ball further. Youngway Kuh used to not be able to kick that far. Now he's piping 58 yards. I don't know what's going on here.

Yeah, the Levis thing, though, it's hard because doing QBI every week, I just watch him and I think, yeah, there it is. There's the potential, there's the potential, and there's the boneheaded mistake. And we saw what the F are you doing turnover in week two. We saw the turnovers that he made in week one. And it's just like, man, if you could eliminate that from your game, then you could actually take a hold this job potentially long term. It's just not there yet. And again, in a situation like this where you desperately need to go get a win, you go with the guy with the lower ceiling who's steadier, and especially in a muggy night. Did you see, by the way, those of you who watched on YouTube saw, but those listening on podcast, it was hot in Miami on Monday night, so much that Brian Callahan sweat through most of his shirt in the first half. So with these type of conditions, you don't want to let any variables get involved. So good on them.

Yeah, you got to do the the thing that tennis players do and have a change. Francis Tiafa will change it 20 times in one match or whatever, but just have a second half T-shirt if you're Callahan, who did say that the injury was bothering Levis significantly. I mean, this was an ugly game. There's some crazy stats in this game. Sixty-one first half plays between the two teams. Twenty-one of those, this was according to ESPN stats and info, 21 of the 61 went for zero or negative yards. I mean, that's freaking insane. Twenty-one negative or zero yard plays in a single half between the two teams. So that's why the Titans running game doesn't look as good on paper as you would expect because their offensive line on the right side just gives up huge penetration. I mean, Spears had a negative four, negative eight, where he had no chance. It's been happening all year. The left side of the Titans' offensive line, Skaransky and Latham, something to build off in their center. They're getting something going there. The right side is a total disaster with Petit Fréere. There was 18 penalties between these two teams.

And yeah, let's get to the dolphins of it all. Tyler Hunt somehow didn't throw an interception in this game, but he also did not throw for 100 yards despite some garbage time yards, 96 yards on 22 attempts, missed open receiver, and more to the point, just didn't seem like he knew what was going on in the playbook that well, which makes sense. It's It's a very complicated playbook, and he's only been there for six weeks.

Yeah, and he had some inaccuracy issues, which you come to expect from a guy making a first start when he hasn't been there very long. But they also can't do the small things very well. I mean, he found Jalen Waddle open over the middle, and Waddle drops it. Even the pass to Tyreek Hill that picks up a nice gain in the second half that he might break for a countdown, he gets cut down. They go for it on fourth down, and Tyreek goes around the end on a jet sweep, and he gets cut down short of the sticks.

Nice play by Quandre Diggs there. That was one of the few real highlights. I guess their defense had plenty of highlights.

I take that back. Yeah, but the small things are just not working for the Dolphins right now, which is why they... They had 84 yards of offense going into the fourth quarter. That's not the Miami Dolphins we expected to see this season, but that's what happens when you lose your quarterback and you throw two different guys in there in two weeks.

Okay, that's true. And yet on the other side of the ball, Mason Rudolf comes in, and it was operable. They go for 2:44. Actually, it wasn't that much better, to be fair. Malik Willis, he's still in this coaching. We're in this coaching tree. I mean, they had the number one ground game in the NFL when Malik Willis was the coach. I mean, was the quarterback in Green Bay. And that's one of his rivals there, Lafleur. I think some of this has to go down on McDaniel. Joe Flacko comes in and plays well. Who's another one? There's been a bunch of backup quarterbacks that have come in and been good enough. Andy Dalton, I know that's a different type of situation, but you can say that they've lost their starting quarterback, but it shouldn't all fall apart like this when that happens.

But it falls apart when you don't have a trusted veteran option who's familiar with the offense, which is a-Right.

That's on them, though, because Skyler Thompson has literally been there for three years.

But he's Skyler Thompson.

But he's been there for three years. That was their choice. So that's on McDane. That's on them. You could put it on Greer a little bit, I guess. It's hard. But when it comes to quarterbacks, I think it's on McDane. But I think more is on McDaniel. This Dolphins team was on my radar of not really being what we expected coming into the season because of the offensive line. And the running game could be better. They had the seventh... This was from Austin Gale at the Ringer. They had the seventh best rushing offense in EPA in the last 10 years last year. That's how good their rushing offense was last year. They are 31st now. They're 31st in the NFL now. And even when Tua was in for those six quarters, it was an up and down game against Jacksonville, where they had to come back to win late against a team that right now has the 32nd ranked defense, according to DVOA. So that game does not look good. And the two and a half quarters with two against Buffalo wasn't good either. So you can't collapse this bad. They're the worst team in the NFL.

I don't even think there's a question. I mean, I guess the Jaguars could be because they're 0 and 4, but I would take the Jaguars right now against the Tyler Hunt Dolphins.

Yeah. I mean, if you want one defining moment of where the Dolphins are offensively and how lost they are, just go back to last week when they played the Seahawks, and they got a turnover inside the 10 and came away with a field goal. That's just not enough. That's not enough, but that's who they are right now.

It's tough. 4.4 yards per attempt for Hunt. Jordan Brooks, I think he's been good. Trying to think of some positives to say Jalen Phillips, this is not a positive, got hurt again tonight. He was frustrated. He was in and out of the game. He was banged up last week, too. He was coming off that serious injury and got back for week one. You do wonder if you're going to hear another offseason article at some point of Philip saying, I rushed back too quickly off of such a serious injury, and he hasn't quite been right. They've gotten some good linebacker play. Like, Seeler has played well, but the defense has been bad, too. They were 30th in efficiency coming into tonight. According to the DVOA. That will improve after this performance, but their defense hasn't been good, too. It's depressing. They're playing the Patriots next week, and actually, those might be the two worst teams in the league, I would say. Dolphins, Patriots. Get excited.