Tennessee Titans lose close one to Atlanta Falcons 10-7

Nashville, TN – The Tennessee Titans (1-5) come up short in 10-7 loss to the Atlanta Falcons (6-1) at Nissan Stadium, Sunday. This was the Titans fifth straight loss this season.

With 1:31 left in the game, the Tennessee was on the Atlanta 42 yard line with a chance to go down and get a field goal to tie the game. However, Titans quarterback Zach Mettenberger’s pass intended for Kendall Wright was intercepted by Falcons safety Robenson Therezie. Atlanta ran out the clock to end the game.

“It was a poor decision by me. I should have hit Delanie (Walker) underneath. In that situation, all we needed was to get 12 yards to get in field goal range to push the game to overtime. Just a bonehead mistake by me to not fully grasp the situation and take Delanie,” said Mettenberger after the game.

The Tennessee defense held the NFL’s No. 3 ranked scoring offense to just one touchdown and picked off Atlanta quarterback Matt Ryan two times. The Titans held the Falcons to 5 of 14 on third downs, stopped them twice on fourth down and made a defensive stand late in the fourth quarter that gave the Titan’s offensive one last change to win or tie the game.

“That was a big play by our defense. All we can do is worry about what we do on our side of the ball. They work hard on the offensive side of the ball. They are going to get going and get it rolling. Our team is going to get out and make some plays. And as long as we do that on our side of the ball, those guys are going to get it going by the end of the season, and we’re going to get rolling,” stated Titans defensive tackle Jurrell Casey.

Mettenberger ended the day 22 of 35 passes for 187 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions. Running back Antonio Andrews was impressive getting 57 yards on 10 attempts. Wide receiver Kendall Wright caught four balls for 46 yards and a touchdown.

On Mettenberger’s performance, Titans head coach Ken Whisenhunt stated, “Well, I mean Zach (Mettenberger) hadn’t played in a game in a while, regular season game, but he made some good throws early and we didn’t catch the football. The one down the field to Justin (Hunter) and he made another good throw on a crossing route.”

“You know, there’s always things, throws you want back as a quarterback, but he handled the process. I mean he’s working with a third team center that has been in here two days and they were trying to pressure us. So, there were a lot of things going on that I thought he handled well. But you know, as we all saw there is probably a couple of throws he would like to have back.” said Whisenhunt.

“He ran well. He ran physical, did a nice job. That’s the number one run defense in the league and we had some good runs on them and Antonio (Andrews) did a nice job,” stated Whisenhunt on running back Antonio Andrews.

For Atlanta, Matt Ryan went 22 of 38 for 251 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions. Running back Devonta Freeman ran for 116 yards on 25 carries. Wide receiver Julio Jones had nine grabs for 92 yards and one touchdown.

“Well it goes without saying you are disappointed, with the out came after the way our guys fought today. I am proud as hell they way they did that. We had multiple situations happen especially with guys going down. Our defense just kept fighting, making plays, two huge stands for us at the end of the game to give us a chance, so, again against one of the better teams in the league,” stated Whisenhunt.

“But obviously, we got to get over that hump. We had the ball in our hand at the end with a chance to tie it or win it and we can make mistakes there,” said Whisenhunt.

The Tennessee Titans are on the road next week taking on the Houston Texans at NRG Stadium on Sunday, November 1st. Kickoff is set for 12:00pm CT.

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