4 Winners and 3 Losers from Titans ugly first win over divisional rival Colts in Week 6
The Titans left Indianapolis with a win, But there was just as much to worry about than to celebrate. Here’s who earned a spot on each side of the ledger.
The Tennessee Titans beat the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday, and it was… ugly! But a win is a win, and Lord knows this team desperately needed one.The Titans’ offense was buried for a full half, then rallied behind Carnell Tate, a revived special teams unit, and a defense that refused to break. Cam Ward and the coaching staff left plenty of questions behind.
So let’s break down the winners and losers from this one. And even though they won, let’s start where the Titans started:
Loser: The entire first half
That first half was the worst football we’ve seen from the Titans this season. Ward completed four passes. Tennessee managed something like 87 total yards and averaged 2.5 yards per carry on the ground. The first-half possessions went punt, punt, punt, interception, and a kneel-down to end the half. Truly the only redeeming part of the first two quarters was the defense bending without breaking for the most part. But my goodness, it was miserable hopeless football.
Winner: Not giving up
As much as you may have wanted to hate this team today, they didn’t quit! I tweeted before halftime wondering whether the Titans would even come out of the locker room. They did, and every second-half possession ended in points: field goal, field goal, touchdown, field goal, field goal.
Loser: Cam Ward
Ward’s final line won’t win anybody over: 11-of-22 passing for 102 yards, one touchdown pass, one interception, a 59.3 passer rating, and 4.6 yards per attempt. Even his second half was just 7-of-15 for 65 yards. The batted balls were a massive problem too, including two on back-to-back plays.
The pro side of the list is real. Ward didn’t crumble when it felt like he was about to implode, and he made clutch plays in clutch moments. We were bordering on hockey goalie territory in that first half (pull him to save him from himself), and he avoided it. The touchdown to Tate was the best throw of his day. Zach Lyons encapsulated it perfectly on X:
That’s the good stuff! But most of Ward’s success came in plus territory, after special teams and the defense handed him a short field. The con side of the list is, respectfully, just about everything else in this game. He has to play better.
Winner: Bones Fassell’s special teams redemption
Bones Fassel’s special teams unit finally showed up. This group led the league in EPA lost on special teams for most of the season, but today it played with a serious edge. Fassel kept spamming the punt block button. The first attempt drew a penalty on Truman Jones, but the slow-motion replay shows he was so close to blocking it. Two punts later, Tennessee blocked one, and Femi Oladejo scored it. Chimere Dike looked like himself in the return game again, and Joey Slye was banging field goals from long range. That’s the weapon of a unit we got used to seeing from Bones last season!
Winner: The defense battling
The defense battled from start to finish. Outside of one eight-play, 72-yard Colts touchdown drive, Tennessee held up and flashed the kind of consistent disruption Saleh has been promising. Jeffery Simmons had two sacks plus a forced fumble that he recovered himself. Jermaine Johnson added two sacks of his own in a big second half. Tony Adams racked up eight tackles and a sack, and Amani Hooker picked off a pass. The Titans forced three turnovers. Amani Hooker in particular looked like his old self quarterbacking that secondary.
Loser: Decision-Making
The coaching staff lands here as well. In the first half, Robert Saleh’s group ran an interior handoff to Tony Pollard on third-and-4, gained three yards, and punted on fourth-and-1 from its own 43. There’s nothing that gets me hotter than bad process, and that’s bad process! The conservatism carried over into the second half, when the Titans played for field goals rather than trusting Ward to finish drives. That tells you how they feel about this offense.
And it’s fair to wonder about Brian Daboll too. The first half and second half looked like two different offenses, which keeps happening. Every drive almost feels like an anthology series, a Black Mirror episode with no common thread. This needs to be one cohesive television series with a plane that lands in the finale.
Winner: Carnell Tate
Then there’s Tate. He caught six of seven targets for 70 yards and the game-winning touchdown, with 17 yards after the catch. YAC wasn’t his game in college, and he’s quietly adding that dimension in the NFL. We said all offseason that there were a lot of things we we’re sure of with this team, but Carnell Tate being epic was not one of them. He is, in fact, epic.
