Nashville, TN – The Tennessee Titans romped all over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Sunday on their way to a 42-14 victory. The Titans could not have asked for a better start to the 2015 season.
The game received a lot of hype as it featured the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL Draft Jameis Winston, with the Bucs, against the No. 2 overall pick Marcus Mariota with the Titans. The game was lopsided from the start.
The Titans defense then stepped up and held the Buccaneers to a three and out. On their next possession, Mariota marched Tennessee down the field capping the drive with a 12 yard touchdown pass to running back Bishop Sankey. The Titans were off the a fast 21-0 lead and never looked back.
Marcus Mariota finished the game completing 13 of 16 pass attempts for 209 yards and 4 touchdowns. His passer rating for the day was 158.3, perfect.
When asked about Mariota’s performance, Tennessee Titans head coach Ken Whisenhunt said, “He ran the offense, we had a lot of guys make plays though. Kendall [Wright] had a great day, he ran the football effectively at times, Delanie [Walker] made some plays for us; I mean we had a lot of guys make plays and that’s what we’ve been doing in camp. That’s what we’ve done in preseason games. We started fast, which that’s one of the things we haven’t done on the road in the preseason, so that was our focus coming in here, and it made a big difference for us.”
Jameis Winston, went 16 of 33 for 210 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions for a passer rating of 64.0. He also fumbled the ball twice, but the Bucs were able to recover them.
For Tennessee, Sankey ran for 74 yards on 12 attempts and a touchdown. He also caught two passes for 12 yards and a touchdown. Kendall Wright caught four passes for 101 yards and a touchdown.
Doug Martin rushed 11 times for 52 yards. Tight end Austin Seferian-Jenkins hauled in 5 balls for 110 yards and two touchdowns.
The Titans defense stood touch all day. They held the Bucs offense in check for most of the day. Tennessee sacked Winston four times, intercepted him twice, and held Tampa Bay to 30of 14 on third downs.
“Obviously a good day for us, we got good news on Delanie [Walker], his hand is not broken, that’s what we thought on the field, so we’ll get him back. I don’t know how long that’s going to be, we’ll know more as the week progresses,” stated Whisenhunt.
“A lot of good things today, but we still have a lot we have to clean up, a lot of things we have to work on. If we didn’t learn anything from last year then that’s on us, so we just got to get back to work and move on to next week,” said Whisenhunt.
The Tennessee Titans are on the road again next week as they face the Cleveland Browns at FirstEnergy Stadium. Kickoff is at 12:00pm CDT.
Box Score
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Final | |
| Tennessee Titans | 21 | 14 | 7 | 0 | 42 |
| Tampa Bay Buccaneers | 0 | 7 | 0 | 7 | 14 |
