CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO/AP) — Coach Mike Vrabel has been warning his Tennessee Titans they had reached a crossroads after losing back-to-back games.
Ryan Tannehill threw two touchdown passes, and the banged-up Tennessee Titans responded Sunday by never trailing in beating the Chicago Bears 24-17.
The Titans (6-2) avoided their longest skid since Tannehill took over as starting quarterback and stayed atop the AFC South going into Thursday night's division showdown against Indianapolis.
Still, Vrabel clearly wasn't very happy after his Titans failed to build on a 17-0 lead after three quarters.
"We just have to finish games better," Vrabel said. "We're up, dominating the football game and make it too close."
Amani Hooker recovered the Bears' onside kick attempt for Tennessee with about a minute left to seal the victory after Nick Foles made it interesting with a pair of late TD passes for Chicago.
Tennessee got a big boost from an undermanned and struggling defense missing three-time Pro Bowl linebacker Jadeveon Clowney with an injured knee days after linebacker Vic Beasley Jr. and starting cornerback Johnathan Joseph both were waived.
Cornerback Desmond King picked up a fumble and ran 63 yards for a TD only days after the Titans picked up the 2018 All-Pro from the Chargers for a sixth-round pick. King didn't join Tennessee until Saturday after clearing COVID-19 testing protocols and put the Titans up 17-0 late in the third quarter.
Once he picked up the ball, King said he knew he had to score. It was the third defensive TD of his career.
"I knew I had a short week of getting this down and not letting it be a distraction and using it as motivation knowing I have to get this done to go out there and play and have my teammates trust me while I'm out there," said King, who studied his new playbook and met with his new team virtually from his hotel room.
The Bears (5-4) came in trailing Green Bay in the NFC North dealing with their own injuries and COVID-19 issues. Chicago lost its third straight despite the defense coming up with three sacks and holding the NFL's fifth-best offense averaging 407 yards a game to a season-low 228.
"When you're sitting 5-1, to be 5-4, it hurts," Bears coach Matt Nagy said. "But now we've got to make sure, whatever those issues are, we just at some point in time get this thing back on track."
Tennessee came in as the NFL's worst on third downs by a big margin, but stopped the Bears on their first nine third downs. The Titans also were among the NFL's worst sacking the quarterback, and they sacked Foles three times. They recovered two fumbles.
This was the first game for punter Ryan Allen in Tennessee, reunited with his former Patriots teammate Stephen Gostkowski with three-time Pro Bowl punter Brett Kern put on injured reserve Saturday. Matt Overton also took over as long snapper after Tennessee also made a change at that position.
Foles was playing behind an offensive line missing center Cody Whitehair currently on the reserve/COVID-19 list. Foles threw for 335 yards.
The Titans' defense got a big confidence boost on Chicago's first drive. Foles hit Allen Robinson II for a 4-yard pass, but Robinson was marked out at the Tennessee 34 just shy of the first-down marker. The Titans stopped David Montgomery for no gain, sparking a big celebration by Tennessee defenders.
That gave the NFL's sixth-best scoring offense time to shake off a sluggish start.
Tennessee settled for a 40-yard field goal in the first quarter from Gostkowski. Then the Titans started their best drive by giving the ball to Derrick Henry five straight times, and they converted four third downs on a 12-play, 91-yard drive.
Tannehill capped the drive with a perfectly thrown ball to A.J. Brown covered by Buster Skrine, and Brown scored by reaching the ball out to the goal line. Tannehill also found a wide-open Jonnu Smith for a 2-yard TD in the fourth quarter.
"I'm proud that we got a win," Tannehill said. "I think it wasn't pretty. We didn't execute well enough. Too many missed opportunities offensively. The defense came out and played stout from the jump and kept us in it, and the offense was able to make enough plays to get the win."
WBBM Newsradio's Josh Liss and Pat Cassidy spoke with Bears coach Matt Nagy on Monday following the team's loss to the Tennessee Titans.
Liss: How are you feeling about how this game unfolded in Nashville? Does it feel like the season is slipping away a bit?
"No, it does not feel like the season is slipping away," Nagy said. "This is all apart of the roller coaster ride of this league and so for us to be at 5-4, we are here to make sure that we fix problems that we have and stay positive and keep doing everything we can to find the answers and that's what we are going to do."
Cassidy: As you said the Bears are still 5-4, but there's long list of offensive problems. How are you making sense of all these offensive problems?
"Yeah there's no doubt about it. There's a lot of stuff when you watch the film that you will see that you just understand that it's gotta be better. It's frustrating for everybody and that's completely understandable, and so what we need to do is make sure these coaches, these players all understand that we can't have this. And I know it has been most of the season that this has been going on, and so we need to figure out in regards to what the answers are, and I think the biggest thing when you are in these ruts like this is you gotta focus on the togetherness and just trying to find answers. If you start getting negative, it becomes divisive and it could get ugly and we don't want that," Nagy said. "We need to stay positive and you need to handle adversity. It's what we have to do."
Liss: How far might you be willing to go, how desperate can you get, maybe even sharing play calling duties? That has been a hot topic. How far are you willing to go to get your offense straightened out, Matt?
"I think for us right now, everything's on the table. And when I say that, it's everything. So we will go ahead, and we have an extra day here this week before we play on Monday night to regroup and look to see what is the best thing for this offense," Nagy said. "It's obviously been a struggle, and so what we will do as a staff is talk about everything and see where it takes us."
Liss: If we are making excuses, you did have a patchwork offensive line in front on Nick Foles. How do you expect your front five to get better? Where can they improve in time for Monday night's game with Minnesota?
"Well like you said, I don't think there is any reason to look for excuses. These guys are all good football players and there's going to be times where you have some younger guys that are on that line, like we had yesterday, and it is going to be a challenge, but I think in those moments when you have that, you really look to your leaders - the vets that aren't rookies - to step up and take their game to a higher level and I think that might be what my biggest challenge is right now with those players on offense is when you have some young guys, you as a leader needs to step up; and that's going to be my challenge moving forward," Nagy said.
Liss: Defense remains a bright spot, containing Derrick Henry like they did. Failing to pull away any turnovers - that would have been huge. If you could count on anything in your team, it's your defense and your kicker. I'll throw that out there. And Dwayne Harris on punt returns is pretty cool to watch too.
"Yeah you are right, Dwayne Harris - it's kinda sneaky how good he was yesterday with that field position and protecting that ball and some of the returns he had. We had the fake punt, which is a shame we couldn't turn that into anything...And I will say this, watching our defense yesterday against that offense, I am not so sure that was our best game of the season on defense. Some guys really stepped up yesterday and I thought as a unit collectively we...the defense played really hard and really well," Nagy said.
You can hear more from Matt Nagy on the Bears Coaches Show on Mondays at 7 p.m.
The Chicago Bears take on the Minnesota Vikings next Monday night at 7:15 p.m. for Game 10.
