For weeks, the Tennessee Titans had been living on the edge.
Sunday in Arizona, they fell off the cliff, losing an ugly 12-7 game against the Cardinals, falling to 8-5 and out of first place in the AFC South in the process. Tennessee’s loss, combined with Jacksonville’s win over Seattle, dropped the Titans into second place and into the wild-card race in the AFC.
While the Titans defense held up its end of the bargain with seven sacks and holding the Cardinals without a touchdown, the offense was pedestrian at best and inept at worst.
Marcus Mariota threw two more interceptions in the second half of Sunday’s loss, as he went 16 of 31 for just 159 yards on the day.
The game was scoreless in the first quarter and the Titans finally broke through to take a 7-0 lead on Derrick Henry’s 6-yard touchdown run with 7:16 left in the first half.
After that, the Titans offense did nothing but sputter the rest of the day, leaving the defense to try and protect the precarious lead.
The Cardinals took the ball to start the third quarter and got a field goal from kicker Phil Dawson to get on the board, cutting the Tennessee lead to 7-3.
Then, the Titans made a questionable fourth-and-1 fake punt call from their own 35 with Eric Weems initially being ruled as having picked up the first down only to have the Cardinals challenge the play and the call be overturned.
That turned into three more Cardinals points, as the game slowly began to unravel for the Titans.
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