BALTIMORE — Tennessee Titans coach Robert Saleh’s long face told another sad story as he slipped from his team’s locker room into the postgame press conference area.
The Baltimore Ravens were injured at multiple positions, penalty-prone, played without star quarterback Lamar Jackson for the entire second half, and still walked away with a relatively comfortable 24-18 victory over the Titans
on Oct. 4 at M&T Bank Stadium.The Titans (0-4) committed two first-half turnovers and turned the ball over on downs inside the Ravens’ 5-yard line that amounted to a 14-point swing after Baltimore (3-1) mounted a 98-yard touchdown drive the other way.
Must the Titans' costly errors always be fatal ones?
The Ravens are working through far worse offensive-line
issues than the Titans, who moved backup left guard Atonio Mafi to the right side this week after Fernando Carmona Jr. went out with an ankle injury.
Baltimore had an entirely different offensive line combination for the third consecutive game, and its injury report during the week read longer than ancient scrolls.
Sure, Tennessee suffered a couple backbreaking mistakes by the Chesapeake Bay.
Rookie receiver Carnell Tate had a fabulous day — 9 catches, 145 yards — but his fumble near the end of the second quarter in Baltimore territory helped set up Tyler Loop’s 64-yard field goal that gave the Ravens a 24-7 halftime lead.
Tate, who did not record a lost fumble in college at Ohio State, said the last time he remembers fumbling was his freshman year in high school.
Tough break.
“The frustrating one is to get the explosive (play to Tate) at the end of the half,” Saleh said. “We’re about to go score to make it 21-10 minimum. Then you look up and it’s 24-7.”
Hard luck, all of it.
But why do Tennessee’s opponents seem capable of overcoming setbacks while the Titans can’t?
“Against a team like Baltimore, I think 31 other (NFL) teams will have a slim margin for error. They’re so explosive,” Saleh said. “I think we’re capable of overcoming mistakes. I think we kind of did that today. But any team that shoots itself in the foot three times … you’re going to struggle with points.”
Tennessee recovered well from its first miscue, when quarterback Cam Ward’s forward lateral to running back Tony Pollard in the first quarter skipped off Pollard’s hands directly to linebacker Trenton Simpson for an interception. Ward led a game-tying drive on the next series.
Overall, Baltimore had it worse, with nothing more unfortunate than Jackson’s ankle injury that sidelined him the final two quarters.
Baltimore coach Jesse Minter, 43, came of age as a Ravens defensive assistant before guiding Michigan’s defense during the school’s 2022-23 national title run, and he responded to every wrinkle the Titans threw.
The Ravens had answers to their problems. The Titans didn’t, and that’s a theme early in Saleh’s tenure.
The Titans are running out of shoulda, coulda, wouldas. Only one team in history — the 1992 San Diego Chargers — has come back from an 0-4 record to reach the NFL playoffs.
Tennessee defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons might have been onto something when he brought up the Titans’ lack of forced turnovers afterward. That’s one way to gloss over mistakes.
The Titans are 26th in the league with a minus-3 turnover differential and just two takeaways in four games.
“It's also on the defense ... That’s one thing I think we can get better at,” Simmons said. “We didn’t give up any points in the second half, but if we could just tip some throws, if we could punch at the ball a little more. It’s one thing I think we should focus on this week.”
Tyler Palmateer covers the Tennessee Titans for The Tennessean. Have a story idea for Tyler? Reach him at tpalmateer@tennessean.com and on the X platform, @tpalmateer83.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee Titans struggle to overcome mistakes. Why don't their opponents?
