The Titans held a one-point lead when they started a drive with 9:45 left in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s season opener against the Bears.
Tennessee’s defense had played well, with Chicago’s only touchdown coming from a blocked punt that the home team returned for six.
But a disastrous play from Will Levis changed the game, as the second-year quarterback tried to backhand flip a ball away to avoid taking a sack.
Unfortunately for Levis, the ball ended up in the arms of cornerback Tyrique Stevenson, who returned it to the end zone for a go-ahead score — the difference in Chicago’s 24-17 victory.
“Just a bonehead play,” Levis said in his postgame press conference of the pick six. “I think recency bias from getting away with it the last time I did it in a game, just trying to throw it in the dirt. And when you’re getting taken down, you don’t know what’s going to happen to the ball as it comes out. I was really just trying to dirt it.
“[I]t might be one of those times to just take the sack. So, one of the things — of a lot of things — that I can learn from, from this game.”
Levis was 9-of-15 for 67 yards with a touchdown in the first half. He ended the game 19-of-32 for 127 yards with a touchdown, two picks, and a lost fumble as Chicago’s defense clamped down in the third and fourth quarters.
“We just weren’t as efficient,” Levis said of the difference between halves. “The penalties and stuff that we were emphasizing trying to eliminate in that second half kept happening. [We] kept leaving ourselves in third-and-long, just not being efficient on first and second down — which is what one of our keys to this game was. And credit to them, they did a good job of stopping the run and closing the coverage.
“Yeah, we’ve just got to be better. That’s not us. The first half was a winning offensive football game. the second half, that can lose you games. So, just not good across the board.”
Levis and the Titans will try to get in the win column with a home matchup against the Jets next Sunday afternoon.
