Tennessee Titans Offense Displays Red Zone Creativity with Unique Plays at Monday's Practice

The Tennessee Titans focused on the red zone at Monday's practice and that brought some unique and exciting plays out of the playbook for Tim Kelly's new offense.

NASHVILLE — The Tennessee Titans' offense should see some big changes this year with the promotion of Tim Kelly to offensive coordinator and we got a taste of what that could look like at practice on Monday when the Titans displayed a ton of unique plays during red zone work.

We have seen the Titans use the read option before with Derrick Henry and Ryan Tannehill. With the threat of Henry, it is easy for Tannehill to fake a handoff only to run it in himself in a short-yardage or goal line situation. Looks like Kelly wants to expand upon that creativity. 

We got an early idea of what was to come during individual drills when we quarterbacks Malik Willis and Will Levis worked on the read option with their running backs. We even see Willis at one point run a triple option, faking a handoff to one back before getting outside and pitching to the other back.

We have seen the read option before from recent Titans teams, but not like this.

#Titans Malik Willis running the option. 🔥 pic.twitter.com/bI6NPDCNi6

— AtoZ Sports Nashville (@AtoZSports) July 31, 2023

Yes, we see the traditional read option with the running back going through the middle and the quarterback going around the outside, but we also see an inverted version where the running back is going to the outside and the quarterback has the choice to keep it and go up the gut. Add it to the triple option we saw Willis execute earlier and that's three variations the Titans are practicing for red zone use.

#Titans running inverted veer??? https://t.co/iL2DAYiXZP

— TicTacTitans (@TicTacTitans) July 31, 2023

We saw this creativity bleed into team periods where the Titans went 11-on-11 in red zone drills. We got a toss sweep to wide receiver Treylon Burks after he came in motion, a jet sweep to wide receiver Kyle Philips. 

That was with the first team, but when the second-team went out there, Willis used the warmups and put them to good use. Willis was able to run in two scores on the day. One was a read option where Willis faked a pitch to a running back which fooled a defender and allowed Willis to trot in. Willis also gave the ball to running back Tyjae Spears on a read option for a big gain.

The Titans clearly want to get more athletic at quarterback and utilize the quarterback in the run game a bit more based on the selections of Willis and Levis in consecutive drafts. This is that thought being put into practice. Coincidentally, we didn't see starter Ryan Tannehill in these clips and for good reason.

Leaves you to wonder whether the Titans will look to get these quarterbacks on the field some in the regular season to execute these looks. If Tannehill goes down during the year and one of the young passers has to play, it would be smart to have these kinds of plays in the playbook as well.

Whether this is proper planning, a special wrinkle in the weekly offense or both, we can't know, but it will be fun to find out come the regular season when we surely see some of this creativity in action at some point.

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• Vrabel Praises Fulton: The Tennessee Titans need a big year from cornerback Kristian Fulton and Saturday was a nice sign that he is ready to deliver just that. CLICK HERE
• Levis Catches Fire: The Tennessee Titans' rookie pass Will Levis comes out on fire at training camp and throws five touchdown passes including three straight scoring throws in 7-on-7 drill. CLICK HERE