Tennessee Titans at Buffalo Bills: Stevie Johnson Redemption?

This week the Tennessee Titans will travel to Buffalo to take on the struggling Buffalo Bills, fresh off a disappoiniting loss to the New York Jets where Steive Johnson and the offense couldn’t pull out the game at the end.

Every week I take a look at a few teams and pick out some interesting aspects of the game, while trying to focus on first and second year players, and if you’re like me and enjoy watching the young guys you’re in luck because the Titans and Bills are going to play a lot of them.

Marcell Dareus vs Chris Johnson/Javon Ringer

Of Course Dareus won’t actually be lined up against Chris Johnson and Javon Ringer, but it will be Dareus job to clog the middle of the field to help contain the Titans run game. Chris JOhnson is picking up steam the last few weeks of the season, finally getting stuff together. The Bills are 21st against the run and if Dareus can’t collapse the middle, the Bills could be in for a long day.

Jurrell Casey and Karl Klung

Last year we wrote a lot about how some scouts really loved Jurrell Casey who has started 10 games for the Titans this year. I’m interested to see just how well he’s playing for the Titans. The Bills don’t have a great offensive line, but Fitzpatrick gets the ball out quickly so sacks are hard to come by. This game would be more of a challenge for the young front seven for the Titans if Fred Jackson were healthy.

One player that wasn’t as highly thought of was Iowa’s Karl Klung. Klung is a bit of a tweener, but has 3 sacks for the Titans in his rookie year.

The Titans, quietly, have a pretty young defensive line: Klung, Casey, Sen’Derek Marks, Derrick Morgan are all pretty young players. This could be a pretty good group in another year.

Akeem Ayers against C.J. Spiller and the quick passing game of the Buffalo Bills

I liked Ayers as a prospect last year, but he had a terrible combine and ran really slow which hurt his stock a bit. So far this year Ayers has 49 tackles 2 sacks and 2 passes defensed and has played pretty well. Spiller hasn’t had the greatest career through his second season, but he has dynamic speed. If he is able to get the edge on the Titans defense it could be trouble for the Titans. On top of that the Bills throw a lot of short passes and force the linebackeres and secondary to make tackles in space so Ayers should be in line for a good amount of tackles today.

Colin McCarthy

McCarthy has started two of the last three games. While I liked the drafting of Akeem Ayers last year in the second round I wasn’t the biggest fan of the McCarthy pick. I haven’t watched the Titans in the last three weeks so I’m not sure how McCarthy has been playing, but it will be an interesting matchup to watch. McCarthy is on the depth chart as the Titans MLB.

Derrick Morgan against Chris Hariston

As a Giants fan I was hoping that the Giants would draft Derrick Morgan in the 2010 N.F.L. draft, but they drafted Jason Pierre Paul. Boy was I wrong. Morgan was considered the most pro-ready defensive end in the 2010 N.F.L. draft and a good combo pass rusher and run stopper. He’s battled injuries early in his career, but is probable for Sunday. Morgan has good size/strength and he’ll be lining up against Chris Hariston unless Demetrius Bell can actually play (not listed on the injury report this weekend).

The emergence of Damian Williams

When mocking for the Titans I have been under the assumption that one of their biggest needs heading into next year was wide receiver… but perhaps I was being a little too harsh to the guys behind Kenny Britt. Since week 5, Williams hasn’t been too bad. He’s averaged 45 yards per game and has four touchdowns. That’s not a great season, but it his only his second year. I’d like to see how much he’s developed since last year.

Da’Norris Searcy, Kelvin Sheppard in the run game

The Bills spent a lot of their draft picks on trying to improve their run game. Marcell Dareus was an early pick, but they also spent picks in the third and fourth round on a run stopping linebacker from LSU (Kelvin Sheppard) and a strong safety from North Carolina (Searcy), this is a big game for these players. With Dareus Searcy and Sheppard really need to stay disciplined in the run game or they could get burned badly by the speed of the Titans running backs.

As you can see both teams, though struggling a bit this year have a lot of young talent and this list of course doesn’t even include the Titans talented young rookie quarterback: Jake Locker. So perhaps these teams aren’t playoff bound this year (Titans can be with a real strong finish) but moving forward the next few years these teams might be ones to watch out for.

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