Tennessee Titans Handle St. Louis Rams 27-14
By Les Bailey
The Tennessee Titans welcomed former head coach Jeff Fisher, several coaches and players back to Nissan Stadium on Sunday night and in front of nationally televised audience, they treated the St. Louis Rams to an old-fashioned butt-kicking.
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Not only was rookie quarterback Marcus Mariota inspired in front of the hometown crowd, but the 27-14 victory was the result of a full team effort.
The Titans kept Rams starting quarterback, Nick Foles off-balance while one of the top-ranked defenses in the NFL was unable to rattle the 2014 Heisman Trophy winner.
The Rams were unable to get on the board until most of the starters were wearing ball caps on the sideline, and the game had turned into playing time for players on both sides of the field who are trying to survive the roster cuts that are coming soon.
Marcus Mariota survived a pass rush that was stout at times, and a loss of his headset during the first quarter to manage three impressive drives. During the headset outage, Mariota didn’t panic, and said after the game that he just reverted to his days in Pop Warner and went to the sideline to get the plays.
If we are waiting for something to rattle this kid, we might just be waiting for a while.
There was no butterflies Sunday night, there were no interceptions, and there were no fumbles to put the team in a hole to dig out of.
Mariota was on the field for 19 snaps, managed three impressive drives of 39, 16 and 61 yards respectively. He was 5 of 8 for 59 yards and a passer rating of 84.9. He still has not thrown a touchdown pass.
In his final drive, he went through his reads under some pressure and found Dexter McCluster in the endzone, but McCluster dropped the ball. Mariota made one bad throw, and like the pass to McCluster, was dropped by the defense.
Cornerback, Perrish Cox got the scoring started with a Nick Foles interception on the first St. Louis drive and the Titans never trailed in this game.
It was a full team effort. The re-vamped offensive line experiment worked, Bishop Sankey looked great and the defense shut down the the Rams bread and butter running game. It doesn’t get much better.
Through Sunday, Aug. 23, the Titans offense is ranked fifth in the NFL in yards per game (375.0), second in passing yards per game (276.5), sixth in third down efficiency (47.6), sixth in time of possession (32:35), tied for first in yards per play (6.6) and tied for fourth in points per game (25.5) during the preseason.
It will be a quick turnaround this week, as the Titans will travel to Kansas City to take on the Chiefs at Arrowhead stadium on Friday night.
Next: Tonight is no preseason game