Nashville, TN – Going into the 4th quarter, the Tennessee Titans (2-8) held a 24-13 lead over the Pittsburgh Steelers (7-4) at LP Field. However, the Steelers were able to score early in the 4th on two back to back drives to go ahead 27-24.
The Titans had the ball with a chance to tie or take the lead. However, after getting one first down, Tennessee was forced to punt the ball back to Pittsburgh.
Pittsburgh started the game taking their first drive down to the Tennessee 31 yard line where kicker Shaun Suisham kicked a field goal giving the Steelers a 3-0 lead.
On the first play of the Titans first drive, quarterback Zach Mettenberger’s pass to Justin Hunter was intercepted by corner back William Gay. Gay ran the ball back 28 yards for a touchdown.
“I know Justin (Hunter) slipped a little bit on that, but that’s one of the things that we have to work on with him (Mettenberger) throwing. He gets a little closed when he throws to his left sometimes. We’ve talked about that,” said Titans head coach Ken Whisenhunt. “Obviously, he didn’t make a great throw, but I was very impressed with the way he responded from that point.”
On their next drive, Tennessee drove the ball down to Pittsburgh’s 9 yard line. Running back Bishop Sankey ran the ball in off right tackle for the score.
The rest of the half was all Titans, who scored 17 unanswered points to go into the locker room up 17-10.
“Yes, a tough outcome for us tonight. I thought that our team fought hard. We made couple of mistakes early, but we were able to bounce back from that and had a couple of missed opportunities in the second half that really hurt us,” stated Whisenhunt. “But, I felt like our guys played hard and extremely disappointed that we weren’t able to pull it out at the end.”
Mettenberger went 15 of 24 for the Titans for 263 yards, two touchdowns, an interception and a 110.2 passer rating in his first career prime time performance.
Mettenberger connected with wide receiver Nate Washington in the second quarter for an 80-yard touchdown pass. It was the longest reception of Washington’s 10-year career. It was also the Titans’ longest completion since October 2nd, 2011 against the Cleveland Browns (80 yards from Matt Hasselbeck to Jared Cook).
For the Steelers, quarterback Ben Roethlisberger completed 21 of 32 passes for 207 yards, a touchdown and one interception. Wide receiver Antonio Brown hauled in 9 balls for 91 yards and a touchdown. Tight end Heath Miller had 71 yards on 5 catches.
The story of the game was Le’Veon Bell running for 204 yards and a touchdown on 33 carries.
“I thought our guys fought hard. I was impressed with Zach (Mettenberger) coming back from after that first pick for a touchdown to start the game. I thought he responded well there, led two scoring drives, made some good throws in the red zone,” said Whisenhunt. “But, you know, it’s tough. When you go against a good football team that has a lot of weapons offensively and play really good defense against them in the first half and then you know they made some plays in the second half that really hurt us, so it’s tough.”
The Tennessee Titans are on the road next week visiting the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field Sunday, November 23rd. Kickoff is at 12:00pm CST.
Box Score
Pittsburgh Steelers 27, Tennessee Titans 24
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Final | |
| Pittsburgh Steelers | 13 | 0 | 0 | 14 | 27 |
| Tennessee Titans | 7 | 10 | 7 | 0 | 24 |
| Pittsburgh Steelers | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Passing | CP/AT | YDS | TD | INT |
| B. Roethlisberger | 21/32 | 207 | 1 | 1 |
| Rushing | ATT | YDS | TD | LG |
| L. Bell | 33 | 204 | 1 | 27 |
| B. Roethlisberger | 3 | 2 | 0 | 4 |
| Receiving | REC | YDS | TD | LG |
| A. Brown | 9 | 91 | 1 | 17 |
| H. Miller | 5 | 71 | 0 | 23 |
| L. Bell | 2 | 18 | 0 | 10 |
| L. Moore | 1 | 15 | 0 | 15 |
| M. Bryant | 2 | 11 | 0 | 8 |
| M. Wheaton | 1 | 6 | 0 | 6 |
| D. Archer | 1 | -5 | 0 | -5 |
| Kicking | FG | LG | XP | PTS |
| S. Suisham | 2/2 | 49 | 3/3 | 9 |
| Punting | NO | AVG | I20 | LG |
| B. Wing | 2 | 40.0 | 0 | 43 |
| Kickoff Returns | NO | AVG | TD | LG |
| M. Wheaton | 5 | 24 | 0 | 32 |
| Punt Returns | NO | AVG | TD | LG |
| A. Brown | 1 | 14 | 0 | 14 |
| Tennessee Titans | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Passing | CP/AT | YDS | TD | INT |
| Z. Mettenberger | 15/24 | 263 | 2 | 1 |
| Rushing | ATT | YDS | TD | LG |
| B. Sankey | 11 | 38 | 1 | 9T |
| S. Greene | 3 | 6 | 0 | 3 |
| D. McCluster | 1 | 5 | 0 | 5 |
| Receiving | REC | YDS | TD | LG |
| N. Washington | 1 | 80 | 1 | 80T |
| K. Wright | 4 | 70 | 0 | 23 |
| J. Hunter | 2 | 48 | 0 | 36 |
| C. Coffman | 3 | 32 | 1 | 18 |
| D. McCluster | 1 | 17 | 0 | 17 |
| B. Sankey | 1 | 7 | 0 | 7 |
| D. Hagan | 1 | 5 | 0 | 5 |
| J. Battle | 2 | 4 | 0 | 9 |
| Kicking | FG | LG | XP | PTS |
| R. Succop | 1/1 | 20 | 3/3 | 6 |
| Punting | NO | AVG | I20 | LG |
| B. Kern | 4 | 31.8 | 2 | 51 |
| Kickoff Returns | NO | AVG | TD | LG |
| B. Sankey | 3 | 27 | 0 | 31 |
| J. Battle | 1 | 22 | 0 | 22 |
| K. Klug | 1 | 20 | 0 | 20 |
| Punt Returns | NO | AVG | TD | LG |
| D. McCluster | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
