The Tennessee Titans may be 2-0 in the preseason under Robert Saleh, but Sunday night in Nashville came with a blunt reminder: there’s still plenty to clean up.
Tennessee erased a 13-point hole and slipped past the Seattle Seahawks 19-16 behind D’Ernest Johnson’s 2-yard touchdown run with 5:45 left. Joey Slye did the rest, knocking through four field goals, including a 55-yarder, as the Titans kept rolling in Saleh’s preseason home debut.
“It’s got to be better,” Saleh said. “Guys, I’m not trying to sugar coat it.”
Seattle, playing without its starters after a joint practice and with coach Mike Macdonald resting key pieces, still came out sharp enough to build a 16-3 lead. Drew Lock passed for 103 yards and a touchdown, and Jacardia Wright broke loose for a 69-yard score as the Seahawks’ backups made life difficult early.
“It was a successful week, but ultimately you want to be able to win these games,” Macdonald said. “But we definitely made an improvement from last week, so let’s keep going.”
Tennessee’s night started messy from the coin toss. The Titans won it, deferred, and watched Seattle move 70 yards in seven plays before Lock hit a wide-open Elijah Arroyo for a 36-yard touchdown.
Cam Ward got the start for Tennessee with the rest of the first unit and went 8 of 12 for 69 yards. He helped set up Slye’s first field goal, but his third and final drive ended when linebacker Chazz Surratt punched the ball free as Ward scrambled to his right early in the second quarter.
Both Saleh and Ward praised Surratt for the play. Ward, though, sounded upbeat about where the offense is headed.
“We’re actually right there to getting where we want to be,” Ward said. “And the coaching staff, they continue to push us to that standpoint where we want to be, but it’s going to end up paying off.”
The Titans also gave away too much on defense early, including three first-quarter penalties. One of them, an illegal contact call on cornerback Cor’Dale Flott, erased safety Kevin Winston Jr.’s interception at the Tennessee 3.
Even when Tennessee got a break, the sloppiness kept showing up. Jalen McMurray recovered a muffed punt by Seattle’s Cody White at the Seahawks 11, but a holding penalty wiped out Mitch Trubisky’s 4-yard touchdown pass to Xavier Restrepo and forced the Titans to settle for another field goal.
Seattle had its own costly moments. After Wright’s touchdown, the Seahawks were flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct while celebrating too hard. Jason Myers then missed the extra-long extra point try wide right, and later hooked a 44-yard field goal wide right in the second quarter.
The biggest blows for Seattle, though, came from injuries.
Jake Bobo’s knee injury, suffered during Friday’s joint practice, landed him on injured reserve Saturday. Left guard Mason Richman went down on the opening drive and had to be helped off after his right leg was stretched out. Macdonald called it a “major injury, a long-term injury.”
Then, on Seattle’s first defensive snap, rookie safety Bud Clark broke his right ankle. Trainers placed his leg in an air cast before he was carted off, and players from both teams came over to check on him. Macdonald said Clark, the Seahawks’ second-round pick and 64th overall selection out of Texas Christian, will miss months.
“Two guys that we love, that play our style of ball, that are our type of guys,” Macdonald said of Richman and Clark. “Teammates love ’em, great teammates, great guys, great football players.
They have great futures. It’s a heartbreaker, honestly.
We’ve had three heartbreakers this week, which is tough.”
The game itself was choppy from start to finish. Seattle was penalized 14 times for 129 yards, while Tennessee drew 11 flags for 100 yards.
The Seahawks close out the preseason Friday night at Kansas City. The Titans are back home Saturday night against Chicago.
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