Winners and Losers from Chargers 20, Titans 19

What a heartbreaker. The Titans offense finally came alive, but it wasn’t enough in London. The two point try at the end will get scrutinized this week, but I like the decision to go for it even though I hate the actual play call on the second attempt.

Marcus Mariota’s first red zone interception and a missed field goal came back to haunt them in the end, but this was an encouraging performance overall against a very good Chargers team.

Winners

Darius Jennings

Jennings has been fantastic all year as a kick returner, but he was especially good today. He averaged 31.2 yards per return and constantly gave the Titans outstanding field position. He’s been a real bright spot for this team in 2018.

Tajae Sharpe

What a game by Sharpe. He was by far the Titans best receiver on the day, hauling in 7 catches for 101 yards with 5 of those catches being huge 3rd down conversions. It was clear that Mariota was looking for 19 when they needed to have it. It was his best game as a Titan and something to build on moving forward.

Dion Lewis

Lewis was absolutely phenomenal today. He was the leading rusher with 91 yards on 13 carries including this incredible 36-yard rumble.

He was also the team’s second leading receiver with 6 grabs for 64 yards through the air.

Jurrell Casey

Casey continues his fantastic season today with a half sack and two QB hits. He was his usual disruptive self on the inside of the Titans defense.

Malcolm Butler

In a game where the pass defense really struggled with the deep ball, Butler was not victimized. Additionally, he was rarely targeted by Rivers during the game, largely because of plays like this where he completely erased Mike Williams at the line of scrimmage with his jam.

We need to see more of “good Butler” moving forward.

Logan Ryan

Ryan had a terrible start, getting torched for a long touchdown by Tyrell Williams as he got caught peaking in the backfield on the very first defensive play of the game, but he recovered nicely and played well for the rest the day. He had two massive pass breakups in the endzone that saved touchdowns.

Marcus Mariota

I struggled with where to put Mariota because we saw some of the same things that he had struggled with the past couple weeks — pulling the ball down and taking unnecessary sacks — but he more than made up for that with some high effort plays and some clutch throws in the second half. The interception in the red zone hurt bad — and that’s a throw that’s likely picked even if Ingram doesn’t tip it at the line — but I thought Mariota was more help than hindrance in this one.

Losers

Kendrick Lewis

Lewis gave up the other long touchdown but didn’t have the great pass breakups to offset it. The good news is that Kenny Vaccaro will likely return after the bye week. The Titans need him.

Corey Davis

Woof. This was easily Davis’ worst game of the year. He had just 3 catches for 10 yards on 7 targets and had a huge drop that stalled out a 4th quarter drive. Davis has largely been good this season, but they need more from him than what they got today.

Taywan Taylor

Taylor is in the same boat as Davis. He was only targeted twice, catching 1 ball for 8 yards and dropping the other on a throw that hit him right in the numbers as he was running wide open. He was also targeted on the failed two point conversion but really had no chance to catch the high pass from Mariota.