Titans Lose A Tough One

By Randy Sharber | Sep 27, 2015

The Titans gave the Colts a gift this afternoon in Nashville today.

The Titans carried the curse of Tennessee football into Sunday for fans all over the State. Again a Tennessee team allowed an opposing team to come back from a 13 point deficit late in the fourth quarter. Again, everyone saw it coming.

The Titans played pretty well in defeat. Marcus Mariota played extremely well, but threw one bad pass late in the fourth quarter that was picked off and returned inside the twenty. The Colts were up by one at the time. They scored yet another touchdown soon after to score their 21st point of the fourth quarter. Meltdown complete.

Mariota made it interesting. With just over 2:00 left Mariota drove the Titans the length of the field and Jalston Fowler scored from the one. The Titans were forced to go for two since they were down by two. Mariota tried to hit Kendal Wright on a slant who was open, but interfered with by a Colt defender.

The ball was placed at the one. The Titans elected to go into their jumbo package and handed the ball off to Fowler. Fowler ended up back around his own 15 as he was met at the line of scrimmage and ran backwards to try and extend the play. He had a chance to get the ball back to Mariota, which would have been fun, but was tackled soon after. Fowler was also injured on the play, and it did not look good.

Of course the Titans onside kick was unsuccessful as expected by any Tennessee fan, and the game was over. Heartbreak again.

Honestly, the Titans were the better team on the day. Mariota outplayed the Luck glaringly. Mariota was 27/44 for 367 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions. One was taken back for a touchdown for the Colts. That pass was not Mariota’s fault.

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Delanie Walker was blasted and the ball went off of his hand right into Dwight Lowery of the Colts hands. Again, a higher power is at work against Tennessee football. I’m convinced of that. Lowery took it back to the house to give the Colts a 14-0 lead.

But Mariota and the Titans did not quit. Mariota hit receivers all over the field. Justin Hunter made a beautiful grab. Delanie Walker had catches all over the field. Dorial Green Beckham had a touchdown catch and made a few plays. Kendall Wright had a huge day. It was spread around beautifully. Mariota set a NFL rookie record for the most touchdown’s thrown in the first three games at 8. He shares that with Mark Rypien of Washington.

The Titan run game was not bad, but not great today. The Titan fans got to finally see Antonio Andrews. He ran hard, and showed some explosiveness. Andrews finished with just 88 yards on 27 carries. The bad thing was that big runs by Sankey, McCluster and Andrews were brought back by holding calls on the offensive line. One was a tic tac holding call on Poutasi that should not have been called.

The Titans inability to score a touchdown from the one in the second half hurt pretty bad. The Titans had to settle for a field goal. The rest was history.

I was impressed by the pressure that the Titans put on Luck today. He was hit early and often. He was hard to watch early, and the Titans made the quarterback pay for some errant throws due to that pressure. Perrish Cox picked one off as did linebacker Zach Brown. Both had returns that set the Titans up in the red zone.

The achilles is still the secondary. Blidi Wreh-Wilson was beaten again for a touchdown. Marqueston Huff had a touchdown thrown on him when he never turned his head to the ball. He was in position to intercept the ball, but poor technique allowed a late Colt score. This secondary just keeps giving this up. Perrish Cox and Coty Sensabaugh had good days on the other hand.

This will be a tough loss to swallow, but this one does not have the feel that the Vols had yesterday. The coaching staff did not lose this game. It was just a combination of Titans not finishing, and Luck making plays like the quarterback he is. Against the Titans secondary, I’m surprised it wasn’t worse.

All in all it was a good performance that leaves you with this thought. The Titans are improving. I am also impressed with Mariota. This kid is better than I thought. The Titans may have gotten a steal in the draft. He looks like a playoff type of quarterback now. The Titans can build around this guy for sure.

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