With no Derrick Henry, and losing his top three receivers to injuries, the road for Ryan Tannehill has been rough in recent weeks.

Tannehill’s numbers reflect those struggles with five interceptions in the past two games. Tannehill was having a solid season before the two-week losing skid and must get back on track if the Titans are to regain their earlier success in the final five games.

Tannehill has to be better, coach Mike Vrabel says, but so do the players around him. That might be a tall order considering his top three receivers have been missing from the lineup, and his most reliable healthy target is Nick Westbrook-Ikhine, who has 25 receptions on the season.

With all due respect to Westbrook-Ikhine, Chester Rogers or any of the practice squad receivers who have been called up in recent weeks to fill in, throwing to them is not the same as throwing to A.J. Brown and Julio Jones.

For instance, no one in that group is going to get the type of separation Brown gets on a slant or skinny post. They can’t be counted on to make tight-window catches in traffic the way Jones has throughout his career.

They also haven’t had as much time to work with Tannehill to develop a rhythm.

That’s not to say that Tannehill hasn’t been at fault on some throws. Some of his league-high 13 interceptions have definitely been because of ill-advised passes.

But to resurrect the passing game, and perhaps the season, Tannehill needs his weapons back and healthy.

To his credit, Tannehill doesn’t cast aspersions to his lesser heralded cast. He knows he has to work harder to find ways to utilize them to the best of their ability.

“It’s an added element, no doubt about it,” Tannehill says. “Trying to figure out what guys that we have playing are doing well and how we can use their skillset to put us in a good situation. Then you’re also studying.

“So definitely an added element, but like I said, I’m proud of our guys,” Tannehill says.