In a playoff competition where you can only start each player one time, I'm thinking about using Joe Burrow this week. He's a great young quarterback, of course, but there are a lot of great quarterbacks playing this week -- highlighting why teams are willing to give up so much to land such players. But Burrow might have the best matchup of anyone in Week 20.
The second-year quarterback is on the road against a solid Titans defense, but it's one of the two worst still playing in terms of defending the pass. (The other is Cincinnati itself.) Tennessee was ranked 26th in pass defense during the season, and it had a season-long knack, with just a few notable exceptions, for making good quarterbacks look great and bad quarterbacks look good.
Way back in Week 1, Kyler Murray (who just had a horrific outing against the Rams) went into Tennessee and threw for 289 yards and 4 TDs. Several other top quarterbacks went in and put up big numbers in the ensuing weeks, including Russell Wilson and Josh Allen. (Patrick Mahomes had about his worst game all season; that one's tougher to explain. Bad day at the office.)
But what's more remarkable, to me anyway, are the number of middling or poor quarterbacks who put up very strong numbers against this defense -- guys who struggled in most of their other games. The way Tennessee plays defense, stuffing the run and encouraging opponents to pass, yielded good or great performances from the likes of Zach Wilson, Trevor Siemian, and many other lesser lights.
Ultimately, two-thirds of opposing quarterbacks passed for at least 273 yards against Tennessee. Two of the lesser performances, by Trevor Lawrence and Carson Wentz, came from players who in their other games against Tennessee either threw for good yardage (Lawrence) or tossed 3 TDs (Wentz). Nice matchup for a quarterback.
| QUARTERBACKS VERSUS TENNESSEE | ||
|---|---|---|
| Quarterback | Yards | TD |
| Kyler Murray | 289 | 4 |
| Russell Wilson | 343 | 2 |
| Carson Wentz | 194 | 0 |
| Zach Wilson | 297 | 2 |
| Trevor Lawrence | 273 | 1 |
| Josh Allen | 353 | 3 |
| Mahomes/Henne | 288 | 0 |
| Carson Wentz | 231 | 3 |
| Matthew Stafford | 294 | 1 |
| Siemian/Hill | 309 | 2 |
| Tyrod Taylor | 107 | 0 |
| Mac Jones | 310 | 2 |
| Trevor Lawrence | 221 | 0 |
| Ben Roethlisberger | 148 | 0 |
| Jimmy Garoppolo | 322 | 1 |
| Tua Tagovailoa | 205 | 0 |
| Davis Mills | 301 | 3 |
Burrow, of course, is one of the best young quarterbacks in the league, and in his last three games he threw for over 400 yards and 4 TDs twice, and in his third -- against Las Vegas last week -- led scoring drives on his first five possessions, held down only by an ultra-conservative coaching staff that seemed determine to keep the Raiders hanging around rather than burying them. Assuming they don't tie Burrow's arm behind his back this week, he should have a very good performance.
--Andy Richardson