Tennessee Titans: Ryan Tannehill and A.J. Brown a top-10 combo

The Tennessee Titans offense has hit a midseason lull, but that’s not hindering Pro Football Focus’ opinion of the group, especially the QB-WR combo.

Coming into the 2020 season, Tennessee Titans quarterback Ryan Tannehill needed to prove that he can be a leader as a starter in the NFL. So far, he’s done a good job at proving he can be the leader that the Titans need moving forward and that he wasn’t a one-hit-wonder last season.

He’s had some bad games, including a couple of bad games recently, but for the most part, he’s hanging around as a top quarterback in the AFC, which is what the Titans expect out of whoever their quarterback is at this point.

Second-year wide receiver A.J. Brown had a stellar rookie season, and a lot of that credit can be attributed to Tannehill’s breakout season last year. Brown had just as high expectations as Tannehill coming into this season.

An injury put Brown out early this season, but since returning, Brown hasn’t missed a step and has continued to be the No. 1 receiver that the Titans need while different receivers pick up the slack where needed each week.

Pro Football Focus’ Anthony Treash has rewarded Tannehill and Brown for their dominance since Week 7 in 2019. Treash named the Titans’ duo the No. 6 QB-WR duo in the NFL.

"“Brown is right there with his college teammate Metcalf as one of the biggest steals of the 2019 draft class,” Treash wrote. “He has been an explosive weapon since stepping foot on an NFL field as a rookie in 2019 and has gotten even better alongside Tannehill in 2020.“Those two have connected on some big plays in their patented play-action offense, with Brown bringing in 22.6 yards per reception on play-action passes this year — the second-highest in the NFL. That’s been a big reason why Tannehill ranks first in the NFL in yards per attempt with play-action, at 10.5.“Overall, the Tennessee bond has generated a 134.0 passer rating, the eighth-best in the league. It’s reasonable to say Brown is doing more of the heavy lifting in this relationship with what he brings to the table in after-the-catch ability. He ranks sixth at the position in both broken tackles after the catch (seven) and yards after the catch per reception (6.7).“Tannehill still has to deliver a catchable ball, though, and he has done that across the board this season when throwing downfield, posting the sixth-best uncatchable pass rate when attempting a pass over 10 yards.”"

The Titans have some work to do if the offense wants to get back to where they were in the first half of the season and most of last season, where the offense is putting up 30 points per game. The Titans won’t have a lot of time to do it either as they have the Ravens on the schedule next and another date with the Colts the week after.

Brown and Tannehill have the opportunity to be an elite duo if they can figure things out for the rest of this season. Luckily for the Titans, they’ll have at least a couple more seasons after 2020 with Tannehill and Brown working together on offense.