While the Colts moved to 2-0 on Sunday (and moved to first place in the AFC South) in an exciting, last-minute comeback, the Tennessee Titans and Jacksonville Jaguars played intense games of their own – but suffered the opposite result. The Titans dropped to 0-2 on the season with their 33-19 loss to the Los Angeles Rams, while the Jaguars made some costly late-game mistakes that allowed a Cincinnati Bengals comeback to put the Jaguars at 1-1 on the season.
The Houston Texans will look for their first win of the season Monday night as they take on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Titans unable to sustain momentum in second half
The first half of the Titans' game against the Rams had all the makings of a back-and-forth affair. The Titans entered the locker room up 13-10, thanks to rookie quarterback Cam Ward's first touchdown pass of his NFL career and two field goals from kicker Joey Slye.
After the Rams tied it at 13 early in the third quarter, the Titans rallied to put three more points on the board. From there, though, the Rams took firm hold of the momentum as they scored three touchdowns on four possessions and Matthew Stafford led the Rams to 439 total yards of offense, compared to the Titans' 252 total yards.
The Titans were also whistled for 10 penalties for 62 yards throughout the game, self-inflicted mistakes making the outcome more painful.
"As a team, whether it's offense, defense, special teams," linebacker Cody Barton said, "We didn't do enough to win the game. We didn't do enough as a team to win the game, that's it."
Ward was sacked three times in the second half (five times in the game), including a strip-sack in which he lost the ball at the Tennessee 21-yard to set up a Rams touchdown drive. The rookie finished the game 19-of-33 for 175 yards and a touchdown
Defensively, the Titans recorded one sack and one interception – after an impressive showing against the Denver Broncos in Week 1, they didn't make enough plays (and gave up too many) to secure a win.
The Titans next take on the Colts in Week 3, in an important division matchup.
"We have to come back ready to work," defensive lineman Jeffery Simmons said. "This is how we can turn this season around, by winning a big game in our division, against the Colts. We know that is going to be a tough one – it is always tough against those guys. We just have to come back with a mindset that we need to go 1 and 0. That is the mindset and hopefully that is the message. We are still in this thing. After two games, do we want to be 0 and 2? No. But the goal and the message should be: Let's go 1 and 0 this week."
Jaguars' first loss of season comes after costly mistakes
By all accounts, the Jaguars believe they could have – and should have – beat the Bengals on Sunday. They held the lead until just 18 seconds remained on the clock, scored three touchdowns and recorded three interceptions and three sacks.
But at the same time, they ultimately hurt themselves in failing to score twice from the red zone and committing six penalties for 55 yards, not to mention multiple dropped passes and missed opportunities; Trevor Lawrence had 271 passing yards and three touchdowns, but completed just 24 of 42 attempts. He also threw two interceptions in the 31-27 loss.
"We competed, played physical, and just didn't make enough plays at the end," head coach Liam Coen said. "Players and coaches alike, we gotta go look at ourselves in the mirror and go figure that out."
And on Lawrence's play, Coen said this: "I thought he competed his tail off. I thought he was getting us in and out of the right things and made a lot of good throws. He made some really good throws for us. I gotta go look at it, and some of the ones he missed, and see what that looked like, but we can win with him playing like that and limiting — obviously — the turnovers. Whether it's who's fault ... Is it my fault as the play-caller? Was it a bad design? Was it an errant throw? Was it a missed block? Who knows what that looks like. I was very proud of the competitor that he was today."
On fourth down in the red zone, up three points with just over three minutes remaining in the game, Coen elected to go for a touchdown instead of kick the field goal; the Jaguars ended up turning the ball over on downs after wide receiver Brian Thomas Jr. dropped the ball at the two-yard line.
Rookie Travis Hunter, who played 39 snaps on offense and 42 on defense on Sunday, also had a costly pass interference call on a fourth-down play that extended what would turn into another Bengals' touchdown drive. The Jaguars' secondary struggled as a whole throughout the game against the Bengals' talented receivers – something they'll look to change next week against the Texans.
"We showed we can make plays, just the consistency piece is still lacking at times," Lawrence said. "I think just continuing to make plays down the stretch, that's what really good teams do. I think there were times today that we did that today, and times we didn't. So we'll watch it and learn from it, and get better from it."
