Red Zone Woes Cost Titans in 16-15 Loss to Saints in Season Opener

The Tennessee Titans were inside the red zone several times on Sunday, but never scored a touchdown and wound up losing 16-15 to the New Orleans Saints, wasting several opportunities to steal a victory in Week 1.

Tom Brew | Sep 10, 2023

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NEW ORLEANS, La. — Sometimes simple math doesn't even add up.

The Tennessee Titans learned that the hard way on Sunday. Unable to execute well enough in the red zone all day, they were forced to settle for five field goals without scoring a touchdown in the season opener against the New Orleans Saints.

Settling for three instead of earning seven on too many trips into scoring territory added up to a 16-15 loss to the Saints at the Caesers Superdome. They came up a point short in a game where they had plenty of chances to do more damage — and didn't get it done.

"We've got to play a lot better, we have to come up with some more plays on third down defensively and we didn't do very good in the red zone offensively,'' Titans coach Mike Vrabel said. "We'll have to play better, and we will. We have to coach better. I don't think we gave one away. Just too many mistakes.''

Veteran Titans quarterback Ryan Tannehill chimed right in with Vrabel. He knows he needs to be better, too. He was just 16-for-34 passing for 198 yards with three killer interceptions. He had a 28.8 passer rating, the worst of his career. That's saying something, considering this was his 146th NFL game.

His second interception led to a game-tying field goal by the Saints and his third pick led to a go-ahead New Orleans touchdown, the only one of the game for either side. All the rest of the scoring came on field goals, five by Tennessee's Nick Folk and three by the Saints' Blake Grupe.

"I'm not going to get into all the interceptions and what caused them all, but at the end of the day you've got to clean them up,'' Tannehill said. "We did some good things, but the drives where we move it down in the red zone, we've got to finish those with touchdowns.

"All around, there are certain areas where I had open guys and I missed them. We've got to clean that up and just being in tuned when everything that's going on. I'm excited that it's just Week 1. It wasn't all bad. There were some good things in there, too, and some things we can build on. It wasn't pretty but we were still right in it at the end, and I thought we were going to get one more chance in two-minute.''

That never happened. The Titans, thanks to a mostly-good defensive effort for 60 minutes, didn't trail until there was 1:23 left in the third quarter. After that third Tannehill pick, the Saints quickly went 33 yards in just five plays, with quarterback Derek Carr hitting Rashid Shaheed on a 19-yard scoring play on third-and-7. That gave the Saints a 16-9 lead.

The Saints answered with a 12-play drive early in the fourth quarter, capping it off with a 45-yard field goal by Nick Folk that made it 16-12 with 11:12 to go.

Tennessee forced a punt and got the ball back with 6:42 to go. Tyjae Spears started off the drive with a nice 8-yard run and Tannehill found Nick Westbrook-Ikhine twice on big gainers, once for 21 yards and again for 24. On third-and-12 from the 17, Tannehill hit DeAndre Hopkins over the middle for 6 yards, leaving the Titans in a fourth-and-6 situation from the 12, trailing by four points.

Vrabel opted to kick a field goal with 2:17 left, trusting his defense to get the ball back, instead of trying for the go-ahead touchdown — or at least a first down — and going for the win.

They never did. The Saints converted two third-down passes and the Titans never got the ball back.

"When we needed to get a stop, we were counting on our defense because they played well all day,'' Vrabel said.

Titans safety Kevin Byard said the big third-down throws on the final drive were killers, ''because we were in a position to give our offense the ball back with a shot to win the game.

"There's going to be a few plays where they got some chunk yardage, but the rest of the day we played some pretty dominant defense,'' he said. "It's something we've always preached the past couple years, those chunk plays we have to quit giving them up, regardless of what our offense is doing. We can be a dominant defense if we don't give up those big plays.

"We just couldn't get a play at the end of the game.''

Derrick Henry had 63 yards rushing on 15 carries, and also had two big plays in the passing game in the first half, including one screen pass that went for 46 yards.

Hopkins led the team in receptions (7) for 65 yards, but he was targeted 13 times and Tannehill forced passes to him twice that led to interceptions. Nick Westbrook-Ikhine had four catches for 58 yards.

They did some good things, just not enough.

"We were real close on a lot of plays and there are opportunities out there. We've just got to go back and figure out what we've got to do to hit on them,'' Westbrook-Ikhine said. "At the end of the day, we've got to be on our details and lock in and get those things fixed.

"It sucks. You want to score touchdowns in the red zone and that's something we've done before. And we're looking forward to doing that the rest of the season. We hold ourselves to a higher standard. It's tough, because you want to score. We got down there, we just need to score. But sometimes that's just how it is in this league. It's not easy some days.''

The Titans are back home next week, taking on the Los Angeles Chargers at Noon CT at Nissan Stadium.

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