One of the more head-turning decisions of the Tennessee Titans’ Week 3 win over the Las Vegas Raiders came on defense, where the Titans opted to roll with Terrance Mitchell over Caleb Farley when they needed an extra defensive back.
Mitchell, who just joined the team’s active roster in the middle of the week, went on to have a terrible game. He surrendered six receptions on eight targets for 102 yards and one touchdown.
Meanwhile, Farley didn’t see a single defensive snap until late in the fourth quarter when Kristian Fulton got hurt. In fact, he had more snaps on special teams (seven) than he did on defense (one).
On Monday, head coach Mike Vrabel revealed the team decided Mitchell was the route they wanted to go in Week 3. He also hinted that more changes could be coming at cornerback, although wouldn’t say if those changes included more playing time for Farley.
“That’s just the approach that we took last week and prepared [Mitchell],” Vrabel said after the game. “We will have to see what it looks like this week. Every week is a different week. We have got to find some guys that can go out there, cover, challenge and compete. We’ll keep searching and we’ve got some guys here that we will give another look to this week.
“We are just trying to get guys ready to play in the game, and just trying to get everybody ready on a short turnaround after what happened in Buffalo,” Vrabel added. “We were just getting back and making sure that we decided who we were going to go with and then get them ready with the limited amount of reps. We will evaluate this week.”
The fact that the Titans thought Mitchell gave them a better chance to win says a lot about what the team thinks of its 2021 first-round pick, who is on pace to be general manager Jon Robinson’s latest Day 1 whiff.