Mettenberger, a sixth-round draft pick in 2014, started six of the seven games he played in last season, all of them Titans losses.
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Giving away a late chance at a win or overtime against the Falcons on Sunday didn’t qualify as better than most of that.
Tennessee drops to 1-5, and Atlanta improves to 6-1 and will have another divisional game next week versus Tampa. Sadly, touchdowns will still be hard to come by if Tennessee continues to average 10 points per game like they have over the past three weeks. He wasn’t surprised the struggling Titans kept it close.
Defensively, the Titans stopped the Falcons on fourth down not once, but twice, with the second on an interception in the end zone in the fourth quarter.
Olivier Vernon wasn’t kidding when he said he had been fined “a decent amount” for hitting Tennessee quarterback Marcus Mariota last weekend. “There was a couple of turnovers our defense got. I feel like when we went out there, we should have made plays and we didn’t”. Tennessee won its opener but has lost four in a row, and now the Titans must worry about a knee injury to franchise quarterback Marcus Mariota.
Zach Mettenberger filled in nicely for Mariota, although he did have two costly interceptions.
“He’s frustrated because he wants to play”, Whisenhunt said of Mariota. I remember that because that was the first run that we hit and it was a big run. After Mettenberger underthrew a fourth-down pass with 3:30 remaining, a few 5,000 patrons got up and left – even as their team was within three points.
Coach Ken Whisenhunt said there are packages for each running back and that the Titans simply didn’t run any packages for Sankey on Sunday.
Matt Ryan threw for 251 yards and a touchdown pass, and Devonta Freeman had 116 yards rushing, his third consecutive game with at least 100.
“At the end of the day, a win’s a win”, Ryan said. The Falcons couldn’t get much going on offense, but they got two nice drives, and that was enough to pull off the victory. Yet, with the game on the line he threw a costly interception that ended the game.
The Falcons (5-1) have studied Mettenberger, and coach Dan Quinn said what is most noticeable on film about Mettenberger is his arm strength. Mettenberger perhaps got a bit greedy on the pass picked off by safety Robenson Therezie, as he went downfield for wide receiver Kendall Wright instead of taking the safer play to tight end Delanie Walker.
Mariota came out briefly and took the field with a knee brace.
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Atlanta took control in the third quarter, outgaining the Titans 134-35. Now Matt Ryan and Julio Jones and the Falcons look to regroup.
