In the NFL you have to complete plays to set up other plays.

The reality was that our short passing game was not nearly as effective as it should have been. You need to complete those plays 70 or 80 percent of the time. The majority of our passing game was short routes and we were sub 500 completions for the game due to drops, bad throws, and our oline allowing the dline to disrupt the passing lanes.

When you don't execute the short passing game effectively, the linebackers will stay back in the intermediate passing lanes allowing your safeties and corners to play deep leaving your down field opportunities few and far in between.

If you can effectively execute the short passing game, you force the linebackers to cover the short passing game leaving the safeties and CBs to cover both the intermediate and the deep routes which spreads them out much thinner creating opportunities down field that can be exploited.

Bortles did miss some plays downfield, but you also have to understand that sometimes the first read is designed to be an underneath guy and the OC is looking for a breakdown in coverage down field. If there is a breakdown, the OC will run that same play a few plays later except the guy running the route that the coverage broke down on will be the first read. The key to being able to do that is you have to give yourself a few plays in between so the defense doesn't catch on to what is happening which means getting first downs to extend the drive. If you can't do that and the defense gets off the field before you can re run that play, the defensive coaching staff will get a chance to show them the break down and correct it and that route won't be open again.

Coaching staffs do at times have poor game plans or make poor play calls, but I can't fault Hackett for last Sunday. Not executing the short passing game or the run game made throwing the ball down field throwing into the teeth of the titans coverage creating more turnovers and likely a blowout.

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