Tennessee Titans rookie wide receiver Carnell Tate had a breakout performance in the Week 4 loss at the Baltimore Ravens. That breakout comes with a wet blanket on it.

Tate’s fumble right before halftime gave Baltimore at least a 6-point swing heading into the locker room. Not much good is coming out of an 0-4 Titans team right now. Tate was the exception.

The fumble wasn’t the only thing that frustrated Titans fans. The CBS broadcast also caught what happened next. Tate and fellow wide receiver Calvin Ridley were sitting on the bench laughing and smiling.

Both of those guys have great smiles. They show them often. Just maybe shouldn’t right then.

Carnell Tate’s fumble flipped the Titans’ loss in Baltimore

Here’s why fans were so frustrated. The play itself was a good one. Quarterback Cam Ward used his feet, made a great throw, and Tate beat Ravens safety Kyle Hamilton for a 33-yard catch-and-run.

Then Hamilton chased him down and punched the ball out from behind at the Ravens’ 35-yard line. Tennessee had 35 seconds left in the half to do something with it.

The score was 21-7 at the time. A field goal makes it 21-10. A touchdown, heck, makes it 21-14 going into halftime.

Instead, the Ravens turned around and hit a 64-yard field goal as time expired to go up 24-7. At that point, it felt like the game was over.

The Titans lost 24-18. That’s six points, and the possessions ran out at the end. Who knows how this one goes if Tate holds on to the football.

It wasn’t the only swing, either. The Titans failed to score on fourth-and-goal at the 2-yard line, a 14-point swing I touched on in my postgame column. Three big mistakes (two turnovers and a turnover on downs) helped Baltimore build its 17-point halftime cushion.

Why Tate laughing on the Titans sideline is actually a mature response

Fans have gone viral with their anger over the sideline moment. I get it. Nobody wants to see a rookie smiling after giving the ball away.

But when you actually hear Tate explain it, it’s a mature response.

“(My) same demeanor from Ohio State,” Tate told Buck Reising postgame. “I just go laugh off bad plays. I mean, at the end of the day, you got to go out there and play the next play. You can’t let the last play affect the next play. So just go out there, laugh it off, stay loose, and stay in the game.”

Every fan won’t agree with that at all. I can already see it happening in the replies. But I have to respect it a little bit.

The worst thing a player can do (the worst thing a person can do) is let one mistake become two, then three, and so on and so forth.

Tate didn’t let that happen. He finished with nine catches for 145 yards on 12 targets. Two of those catches went for 33 yards, including the one he fumbled on.

The second came on fourth-and-long with the game winding down, getting Tennessee to the 3-yard line. On the very next play, Ward hit wide receiver Wan’Dale Robinson for the late fourth-quarter touchdown that made this game a tad more interesting.

Tate’s 145 yards Sunday more than doubled his yardage from his first three NFL games (123 yards). His nine catches were only four fewer than the 13 he collected across those three weeks.

He didn’t dodge the fumble, either. Tate made it clear the guy coming up from behind can’t be the one who causes the problem.

“Like they always say, it’s the ones you don’t see. So Kyle (Hamilton) made a play. I thought I lost him on the route. I caught the ball, turned upfield, and then he was behind me still. So it’s the ones you don’t see that always cause the fumble.”

“Lesson learned,” Tate continued. “Gotta hold on to the ball. I mean, we were running to halftime, (if) I hold on to the ball, who knows, go out there, put 7 points on the (board). But instead I cough up the ball, they go out there and score a field goal.”

That’s the answer you want from a rookie.

What Robert Saleh said about Carnell Tate’s breakout day

Titans coach Robert Saleh weighed in on Tate’s overall performance, fumble and all.

“I think we’re going to see a young man who played well. I think we’re going to see a young man who blocked his tail off in the run game, and he made a couple of critical errors that he knows. He walked over (after the fumble)… He’s visibly upset about it. So, he knows that there’s still more meat on the bone with regards to his play, despite the fact that he had a decent day statistically.”

Saleh isn’t wrong. He’s a rookie who just produced the kind of stat line the Titans drafted him 4th overall to produce, alongside the quarterback he’s supposed to grow with.

The fumble put a damper on the day. The response to it, both on the sideline and at the podium, tells me more about Carnell Tate than the fumble does.

Titans fans can be mad about the laughing. They should also be excited about the 145 yards. . . because there’s a lot more where that came from.