The Tennessee Titans were looking to bounce back as they returned back to Nissan Stadium to take on the Buffalo Bills after evening out their record in Atlanta the previous week.
But the Titans missed on several scoring opportunities and beat themselves in an otherwise very winnable game.
Here’s a look at what went right and what went wrong as the Titans fell to 2-3 on the season.
The Good.
• Mariota has another solid performance in this one, and didn’t turn the ball over. He was 13-of-22 passes for 183 yards.
• The defense harassed Josh Allen and brought him down for four sacks. The Bills had only slightly more success on offense than the Titans in a defensive game.
• Safety Kevin Byard an outstanding game, and came away with a pick that shifted the momentum back in the Titans’ favor. The effort wasn’t quite enough for the Titans to come away with a win, though.
The Bad.
• The offensive line struggled, allowing five sacks on Mariota. Last week against the Falcons, they allowed none.
• While Mariota had a good showing, he made a critical mistake in the red zone, throwing an illegal forward pass. He had a clear path to the end zone if he would have used his mobility.
The Ugly.
• The Titans opened the game with two back-to-back penalties.
• The penalties didn’t stop there, along with Mariota’s forward pass and a holding call also canceled out a touchdown on the play before. The Titans totaled eight penalties for 60 yards.
• If it was just one or maybe two, Cairo Santos’ missed field goals may have been just “bad.” But four misses is plain ugly, and cost the Titans this game.
• In unusual fashion, the Titans lost the battle of field position. The offense seemed to constantly start drives inside of their own 20, despite a good day for punter Brett Kern.
