It was a dog of a game, subjected to national ridicule and promoted as little as any prime time game in recent memory. It ended up being one of the most competitive Thursday Night Football games of the season, within one score for most of the game and in some doubt until the final play, when the Titans failed to force overtime. In the end, the Jaguars walked away with a 21-13 victory to move to 3-12 on the season. The Titans are now 2-13 and a loss against Indianapolis next week and some help from the #1 overall pick in a lost season.
The Titans actually started out playing well, moving down the field with reasonably efficiency after receiving their opening kickoff. Charlie Whitehurst repeatedly exploited the middle of the Jacksonville pass defense in a strategy reminiscent of the “97 shallow crosses to Kendall Wright” I mentioned in my pregame post. He found Leon Washington, who played what felt like an even bigger role with Dexter McCluster out, for an 8-yard score on third-and-goal to make it 7-0. Following a couple exchanges of punts, a couple Whitehurst passes, including a 20-yarder to Delanie Walker and another third-down conversion to Washington put them in field goal position to make it 10-0 late in the first half.
At that point, the Titans had stifled the Jacksonville offense, throttling the run game and bringing pressure against Blake Bortles, forcing him to make plays to beat them. He could not. The defense then cracked. The play that signaled it was a Toby Gerhart run for 14 yards on second-and-10 after an incompletion. Quentin Groves jumped the snap illegal, while on the other side Gerhart, contained so far, broke a couple tackles. He got 9 yards the next play up the middle on another physical run, and the Jaguars had second-and-1 in the 43, their best field position of the night. Bortles had his first big play of the night, an 18-yard pass to Marqise Lee the next play, and tack on 15 more from a George Wilson face mask. An offensive pass interference penalty would seem to shut down a bad Jaguars offense, but Bortles scrambled to convert third-and-9 to keep the drive alive. Three plays later, he hit Marcedes Lewis for a score to cut it to 10-7 with just 41 seconds to play in the half.
The Titans understandably did nothing before the half, which gave Jacksonville a chance to completely turn the game around with a score to start the second half. They didn’t waste, as Bortles moved them down to scoring territory through the air. The Titans got a stop on third-and-goal, and Jacksonville would have a field goal attempt to tie the game. Except they didn’t-Avery Williamson was flagged for defensive holding, and once again the Titans opponent took turned a chance granted by a defensive penalty into points as Toby Gerhart plunged into the end zone the next play for a 14-10 lead.
Tennessee did just enough to keep things sort of interesting, getting to third-and-1 at the Jaguars 43 the next possession before Leon Washington lost two yards (yes, Leon Washington carried on third-and-1, really), third-and-8 at their own 49 the next drive, and then failing on fourth-and-2 at the Jaguars 39 after that, when Whitehurst’s pass to Kris Durham only gained one yard. Jordan Todman went 62 yards for a 21-10 lead the next play, breaking tackle attempts by Michael Griffin and George Wilson while Coty Sensabaugh provided the humor by following the wide receiver motion even while Griffin was whiffin’ as Todman burst through the hole.
The Titans weren’t done, though. They quickly moved down to field goal range with a couple big passes, then kicked a field goal on fourth-and-5. Jacksonville moved the ball some, but the Titans got it back with 80 yards to go and 67 seconds to get a touchdown and a tying two-point conversion. They made it to the Jacksonville 35 with :17 to play. Then Chris Clemons blew by Jamon Meredith, trying to play left tackle while Byron Stingily lined up on the right side, and Whitehurst stepped up right into Sen’Derrick Marks, who got the sack he needed to earn a $600,000 bonus. Game over.
What to say about tonight’s game? Two bad teams, sure. Whitehurst had moments where he looked like an NFL quarterback, then moments where you realized why he had rarely been permitted to attempt a regular season pass in the first eight seasons of his career. Bishop Sankey got good work at times and finished 14-44, a sparkling 3.1 yards per carry with a long of 8; as noted, Washington, not him, seemed to be the beneficiary of McCluster’s absence. Washington-Leon, that is, not Nate (2-18)-led the Titans with seven grabs, though the Jaguars did a better job containing him after the first series. Kendall Wright led them in receiving yards with 73, thanks to a 39-yard grab on a nice seam throw from Whitehurst on the FG drive that made it 21-13, though his most important catch may have been a 13-yard gain on third-and-long to set up Ryan Succop’s 50 yarder to make it 10-0. Derek Hagan actually caught a couple of the passes thrown his direction (3-47), unlike last week. Jamon Meredith continued to play like an offensive tackle who was on the street in December; at least three of Jacksonville’s four sacks came because he got beat, though it wasn’t always his man that got the sack.
Defensively, there were long stretches where it looked like a typical December Titans-Jaguars game when a Tennessee pass rush took advantage of an injury-depleted Jacksonville offensive line. Derrick Morgan was the main beneficiary of that, abusing fill-in right tackle Sam Young, playing with Austin Pasztor on IR, for two of Tennessee’s four sacks. Jurrell Casey was his typical force at times, though the box score doesn’t really reflect how well he played. On the demerit side, Todman’s long scoring run was not the only play where Griffin and Sensabaugh in particular looked bad. I was particularly peeved by Griffin jumping offside on Bortles’ TD pass to Lewis on third-and-1 from the 4; simply an inexcusable play from a veteran in my book. Avery Williamson had his typical mix of solid-I remember one play where he beat right Brandon Lindner’s second-level block to make a tackle, but the D-holding on third-and-goal from the 14 (and not in the end zone!) is another play that, as Ken Whisenhunt might put it, you just can’t have. I don’t think the Titans D played that badly tonight, but they needed 60 strong minutes, or at least a full game without any drive-extending mistakes, and they didn’t get it.
With that, the Titans are one game, against an Indianapolis team that will probably have something to play for, from a 2-14 record and with a very legitimate shot at getting to the #1 overall pick. At this point in the season, that’s about all I’m hoping for. Snap report tomorrow, then whatever content the press of other obligations and my desires feel like providing as the franchise’s worst season in two decades comes to its end.
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