Marcus Mariota’s poor decisions in 4th quarter
Mariota made a pair of bad decisions in the fourth quarter that were costly.
His first mistake came on a third-and-5 play halfway through the fourth quarter with the Titans in the lead, 17-13. Mariota made the decision to throw a pass deep down the middle of the field to Delanie Walker, who was triple covered and had no chance to catch the ball.
Zero clue what Mariota was seeing here. He decided very quickly that he was going to Delanie, in triple coverage. No chance. #Titans pic.twitter.com/ZQPDnRFYxH
— AtoZ Sports Nashville (@AtoZSports) September 16, 2019
The Titans were forced to punt it away after that.
Then, on the team’s last drive of the game with the Colts holding a 19-17 lead, Mariota had a third-and-2 with about 20 seconds left, the clock running and no timeouts.
The Oregon product admittedly made a bad mistake here, as he decided to spike the ball instead of trying to run a play.
Mariota kicking himself for spiking the ball on 3rd down on final drive, which gave @Titans one play to get a first down.
— Jim Wyatt (@jwyattsports) September 15, 2019
The spike stopped the clock at 15 seconds, and instead of getting two cracks at a first down in that situation, the Titans were only afforded one because of this decision — and we all know how that turned out.