Titans Get First Win Of The Year Over Jacksonville 30-17

NFL News - November 2nd, 2009 - Written by Scott

After starting the season 0-6, the Tennessee Titans were looking for some sort of spark to bring their struggling offense back to life. On Thursday, head coach Jeff Fisher announced that he would make a change. Fisher elected to go with quarterback Vince Young over Kerry Collins on Sunday, after Collins had failed to lead the Titan's dormant offense through six games. Young got plenty of help from running back Chris Johnson as the Titans picked up their first win of the year over Jacksonville 30-13. Johnson ran for 228 yards and 2 touchdowns in the win for Tennessee. Young played well, completing 15 of 18 passes for 125 yards and 1 touchdown. Titans owner Bud Adams had encouraged Fisher to start Young earlier this week and it looked as though the head coach's move payed off.

"He looked all right out there," Adams said. "I think he's coming around a lot. I think there's some things that happened to him early in his career that didn't let him concentrate on football. I think he realized he needed to work at it hard. And he has shown that."

The Titans jumped out to a 13 point lead through the first quarter and a half. Tennessee got two field goals form Rob Bironas and Nate Washington scored on a 6 yard touchdown pass from Young to put the Titans ahead 13-0. Jacksonville would answer on a 80 yard touchdown run from Maurice Jones-Drew to bring the Jaguars within 6 heading into halftime.

Jones-Drew would strike once again on the opening drive of the second half on his second touchdown run of the day from 79 yards out. The extra point kick was blocked and the scored was tied at 13. Johnson responded with his first of two touchdowns on a 52 yard run and Bironas would add another field goal to give the Titans a 10 point lead heading into the fourth quarter. Johnson would strike again on the opening drive of the final period on a 89 yard touchdown run to put Tennessee ahead 30-13.

The difference in the game was a strong defensive effort by the Titans. Half of the Jaguars 330 total yards came on Jones-Drew's two long touchdown runs. They hassled Jacksonville quarterback David Garrard, who finished with only 139 yards, by sacking him 4 times and intercepting him twice.

The Jacksonville Jaguars dropped to 3-4 on the year and will now face Kansas City next Sunday and Tennessee will play at San Francisco. The Titans ended an eight game skid dating back to last season and overcame the NFL betting odds, as they were 2 1/2 point underdogs heading into the game.

"It's just one week at a time now we got the first win," Fisher said. "Unfortunately, it took us a little bit too long. Now we're going to take it and just move on."

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