The Tennessee Titans, in the end, went for broke and came up broken, suffering their third straight loss, 20-19 to the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday in Wembley Stadium.
The Titans scored what would have been the tying touchdown with 31 seconds to play when Marcus Mariota hit tight end Luke Stocker on a 1-yard pass on fourth-and-goal. That brought Tennessee, which had trailed virtually the whole game, back to within a point. But head coach Mike Vrabel elected to go for two points and the win.
Tennessee’s try for two points wound up in a defensive holding penalty against the Chargers’ Casey Hayward, which gave the Titans another shot after Mariota’s pass fell incomplete. The second try, a pass for Taywan Taylor in the back of the end zone, also fell incomplete, allowing Los Angeles to escape with the win.
After the game, Vrabel explained his decision to decide the game right there and not play for overtime by kicking the extra point.
“I told the team that we made a decision that we’re going to be aggressive. And early in the drive, when the drive started, I thought that if we scored – when we scored – if there was less than 40 seconds, we were going to go for two and win the game. If there was a minute and 30, we were going to kick the extra point and go play defense,” Vrabel said. “I’ve got a lot of faith in our players. They had been converting third downs and converting in those situations. Marcus was doing everything he needed to do and keeping plays alive. I’m not going to second guess the call it just didn’t work out.”
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