Tennessee Titans survive continued kicking woes

Despite missing three field goals and a PAT, the Tennessee Titans survived the Denver Broncos thanks to a game-winning field goal.

After watching Sunday’s slate of Week 1 games, I thought that the Tennessee Titans’ offense wouldn’t be too affected by not having a preseason. Could I have ever been more wrong?

The Titans and Broncos both suffered from not having a preseason as both teams were very sloppy on the offensive side of the football on Monday night. The Titans also suffered in their kicking game.

Stephen Gostkowski was signed as a free agent ahead of the Titans’ Week 1 matchup as a veteran addition to the Titans’ special teams. He quickly became the leader in the clubhouse for the kicking job and made his Titans debut on Monday night.

He nailed his first kick of the game, which was a PAT. He proceeded to miss three straight field goals and a PAT before he made the game-winning field goal to lift the Titans 16-14 over the Broncos.

If there’s any kick to make, it’s the one to win the game, but if he wouldn’t have missed the four kicks in between his first kick and his last kick, then the Titans wouldn’t have been in that situation. The same could be said if the offense wasn’t lackluster throughout the game.

Last season, the Titans’ worst position was its kicker. As a team, the Titans went 8-for-21 on field goals, and it looks like that bad luck has carried over into 2020 already as they start 1-for-4. You know it’s bad luck at the position because this is the first time in Gostkowski’s career that he missed three field goals in a game.

On the flip side, the Titans’ defense looked pretty good throughout the game. They came out fast to start the game and Jadeveon Clowney wanted his name called early as he flew around the field.

The issues should be very clear to the Titans coaches and it should all be fixable. If the Titans continue to struggle to get going on offense, they could fall victim to a loss against the Jaguars next week like the Colts.

With the season finally back, we’re going to breakdown different parts of the game, and some of the storylines coming out of Week 1 throughout the week and leading into Week 2.