Recap: Tennessee Titans edge Seattle Seahawks 33-27
The Tennessee Titans hosted the Seattle Seahawks in Week 3 and beat their NFC counterparts 33-27 in a thrilling 60-point affair.
In a game that featured two Tennessee Titans touchdowns wiped off the board, the Titans still hung on to beat the Seattle Seahawks by six points and extend their season record to 2-1, good for a first-place tie in the AFC South.
Going into this game, a defensive slobber knocker was expected. The Seahawks offense had been struggling immensely and the Titans had just come off a dominant defensive performance against the Jacksonville Jaguars. At least for the first half, fans got what the expected, but it shouldn’t have been so close.
On the first play of the second quarter, the Titans ran a read option to perfection, unleashing QB Marcus Mariota on the left and springing him for a touchdown. But a flag on Eric Decker for “holding” brought the play back and the Two-Tone Blue had to settle for a field goal instead.
On the next offensive possession, some fireworks ensued. Mariota scrambled to the right for a modest gain and got drilled late as he was going out of bounds by CB Richard Sherman, who had already been flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct earlier in the game. Nearly the entire Titans sideline got in Sherman’s face at the end of the play and LT Taylor Lewan was close to blowing a gasket. The Titans could only get three points on the drive.
With the Seahawks stalling on the subequent possession, Adoree’ Jackson returned their punt 80 yards for a touchdown, but another penalty called it back, this time an illegal block above the waist that was highly debatable. This was the second punt return for touchdown that Jackson has had nullified, the other coming in the preseason.
After a 9-7 first half in which the Titans led at the break, the scoring got out of hand over the final two frames.
The Titans scored 24 points thanks to a 55-yard Rishard Matthews touchdown on a screen play, a 24-yard touchdown catch by rookie Jonnu Smith (second-straight week with a touchdown), and a weaving 75-yard touchdown run by DeMarco Murray, who looked fully over his hamstring injury. The Titans scored 21 unanswered in an unstoppable third quarter.
Mariota, in particular, was incredibly sharp, completing 20 of 32 passes for 245 yards and two touchdowns. He also ran for 27 yards. The Titans running game was on fire, racking up a whopping 169 yards on 27 carries between Murray and Derrick Henry, good for a 6.26 yards per carry average.
The Seahawks never went away, with QB Russell Wilson making some incredible plays from inside and outside the pocket. Wilson threw for 373 yards and four touchdowns, but it wasn’t enough to overcome a stellar offensive performance by Tennessee.
The final scoreline and the stats might tell you one story, but the Titans were flat-out the better team on Sunday. It feels weird to say, but the Tennessee Titans are a better football team than the Seattle Seahawks at this point in time, and it showed today.
The Titans get their division rival Houston Texans next week on the road.