Jaguars @ Titans: The Home Losing Streak Is Over
By Les Bailey
If you tuned into the Tennessee Titans vs Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday afternoon expecting to see another 19-13 field goal contest like we got 19 days ago, you had to be happy with what you saw.
If you are a Tennessee Titans fan, you have to be even happier after the home team extricated a couple of monkeys from their backs.
This game turned into a shootout that saw a lot of scoring, very little defense from either team, and it actually turned on two missed extra points by Jags kicker Jason Meyers, and a failed two-point conversion called by coach Gus Bradley in an effort to make up for the missed extra points.
The big story, and a play that should make the ESPN highlights was 112 rushing yards by rookie quarterback Marcus Mariota with a 78 yard touchdown scamper on what looked to be a busted play.
This coming on the heels of a sack and fumble that turned into a Jacksonville touchdown.
Mariota carried the rock nine times for 112 yards and one touchdown while throwing for 268 yard in a 20 for 29 effort and one interception, that one going through Dorial Green-Beckham‘s hands. The rookie ended the day with a 118.2 passer rating.
It was a coming out party for the Titans second-round draft pick after he gave up the interception. Green-Beckham snagged five passes for 119 yards and a touchdown. He finally started to pay some dividends in the game and posted a 23.8 yard average.
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Mariota spread the ball around by targeting six different receivers and hit touchdown passes to tight ends Delanie Walker and Craig Stevens.
Kendall Wright dropped an early pass that he should have caught, and caught only three passes for 28 yards. It appeared that even after the interception on the Green-Beckham interception, Mariota kept targeting him for the remainder of the game.
Harry Douglass caught one pass for eight yards and running back Antonio Andrews caught one pass for 10 yards.
Both Antonio Andrews and David Cobb carried the ball 13 times with Andrews totaling 58 yards with a big 22 yard run for a first down and scored one touchdown. Cobb made 40 yards for a 3.1 average on the day.
Both teams were efficient on offense, but it was a big day for the Titans. They ran up 467 yards of total offense with 26 first downs and for a change, converted on third down on 8 of 13 opportunities.
What was missing from the game at Nissan Stadium today was the pass rush we have been used to seeing from the Dick LeBeau defense. They had one sack form defensive lineman Jurrell Casey and on a bungled snap by Steve Wiesnewski that went over Bortles’ head Da’Norris Searcy and Karl Klug picked up a half of a sack each.
Next: ESPN's top coaching candidates: Who should the Titans grab?
Marcus Mariota has shown fans all year that he is indeed the future of this franchise, but today he showed the rest of the league. He showed them what they can expect to see in the future from this team and what they can expect in 2016.