Rapid reaction from the Tennessee Titans' season-opening 23-10 loss to the New York Jets at Nissan Stadium:
Talking points
- Ugh.
- Yup, it was bad. It was booed. It should’ve been. An important opener couldn’t have gone much worse for the Titans. Robert Saleh’s old team simply came in and spanked his new one, leaving nothing for the Titans to feel good about after Week 1. Defensively, they too often looked slow and without a pass rush. Offensively, they lacked explosiveness and a reliable run threat to help Cam Ward, who was routinely flushed from the pocket by the Jets’ pass rush and never looked comfortable or confident. There were special teams mistakes, too. This was an awful debut for Saleh, and as evidenced by the boos, it’ll surely prompt fans to start tuning out on another Titans season before the weather turns cold.
- Ward was 19 of 32 for 140 passing yards, and that stat line flatters his performance. He missed short throws. He held the ball too long. He wasn’t good, obviously, until the game had already been long decided. In fairness, though, he did spend most of this game running from defenders behind shoddy pass protection. The Titans’ run game wasn’t good, either. In other words, what we’d initially feared about this offensive line (and been deterred from worrying about by a stronger-than-anticipated preseason) showed up in this game.
- Conversely, the Jets’ offense was able to do much of what it wanted against a Titans defense that gradually wore down on a hot afternoon because it couldn’t get off the field. Quarterback Geno Smith completed 19 of 24 passes for 215 yards, as any NFL quarterback should be capable of doing with ample time to throw.
- Titans rookie Anthony Hill Jr. started at inside linebacker in place of UTV enthusiast Cedric Gray, who might not be guaranteed a spot upon his return. Hill played well from the jump, making a tackle on the Jets’ first play and getting an important third-down pass breakup to limit a 19-play Jets drive to a second-quarter field goal. Hill also knocked away a first-quarter pass that was called incomplete despite looking an awful lot like a fumble (that would've been forced and recovered by Hill). Even with the incompletion being upheld by replay, it was nice to see a Titans defensive player out there making something happen. Hill was probably the MVP of a game in which he wasn't even supposed to be out there starting.
- While special teams was a bright spot for the Titans last season, this wasn’t a stellar debut for the unit, starting with Joey Slye sending the opening kickoff out of bounds. Chimere Dike fumbled a first-half kickoff to put a tired defense back on the field. New punter Tommy Townsend wasn't very good, either, though his leg was probably getting tired from being overused.
- Coaching-wise, the Titans had to burn a timeout in the first half because there were 12 men on the field in their goal-line package. The Jets scored a touchdown on the next play. Then in the third quarter, the Titans again had 12 men out there on the goal line. The Jets scored anyway.
Where the game turned
After the Jets left points on the field to close the first half, the Titans got the football to start the second and held it for a whopping 1:59 before punting it to the Jets, courtesy of the Titans’ inability to convert a second-and-3 into a first down. The Jets, in turn, drove 80 yards in only five plays for a touchdown to make it 17-3.
Key number
14 — The longest gain of the afternoon for the Titans' offense (a pass from Ward to Carnell Tate on a cosmetic TD drive in the game's final moments).
What I liked
It was encouraging to see the Titans' defense step up to pick up Dike when he fumbled a kickoff return — after the defense had just endured a Jets scoring
drive of nearly 12 minutes. Previous Titans defenses would’ve allowed that untimely miscue to snowball into a larger deficit at the time. So there was at least that.
What I didn’t like
Pretty much everything.
Given how much Saleh has publicly exuded confidence in the Titans’ offensive line and defensive lines, it was disheartening to witness a first half in which the Jets handled the Titans up front on both lines of scrimmage. Defensively, the Titans didn’t generate enough of a pass rush. Offensively, they didn’t run the ball as well as they had for much of the preseason (and Ward was consistently pressured).
So the visitors built big halftime advantages in total plays (37 to 17), total yards (172 to 55), rushing yards (82 to 24), first downs (11 to 3) and time of possession (21:12 to 8:48). That last one loomed especially ominous, considering this game featured the second-warmest kickoff, temperature-wise, on record for a Titans game at Nissan Stadium.
Reach Tennessean sports columnist Gentry Estes at gestes@tennessean.com and hang out with him on Bluesky @gentryestes.bsky.social
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Titans spanked by Jets for an embarrassing start to the Robert Saleh era | Estes
