The Tennessee Titans have officially won a game!
Well, technically.
The story here is more so that the Arizona Cardinals absolutely BLEW this game. They literally fumbled a precious win away to a poorly performing team.
The Cardinals seemingly iced the game when running back, Emari Demercado, split the gap for a glorious 72 yard touchdown. This would have made the game 28-6 in the 4th quarter and effectively buried the Titans. However, it was reviewed and determined that his celebratory ball-drop at the goal line was actually a fumble that went out of play through the back of the endzone. This not only removed the points off the board for Arizona, but it gave the Titans the ball at the 20 yard line. It was a dramatic change of possession and one that the young running back will be hearing about for a long time.
The Titans quickly moved the ball down field and capped off the drive with a Tony Pollard touchdown. Even with that happening, the Cardinals still had a great chance of winning because Titans kicker, Joey Slye, missed the PAT and the score was 21-12 with over 10 minutes left. The Cardinals failed to answer and even went 3-and-out while only ticking away a minute and 41 seconds off the clock.
The Titans then got the ball and started moving as Cam Ward started to dice them up a bit. He had moved the ball 61 yards in just about 3 minutes and found himself on the 20 yard line threatening to score.
Unfortunately for Ward, his next pass attempt was promptly intercepted by Dadrian Taylor-Demerson, giving Cardinals fans a breath of fresh air. Fortunately for the Titans, Taylor-Demerson FUMBLED the ball he just intercepted. It bounced forward about 6 or 7 yards into the endzone where Tyler Lockett was able to recover it for a mind-blowing touchdown. The extra point made the score 21-19 and had the Titans threatening an improbable upset.
After failing to gain more than 15 yards in nearly 3 minutes of game time, the Cardinals found themselves punting it away to the Titans. Cam Ward suddenly had an opportunity in front of him to lead a game-winning drive down the field in under 2 minutes. Highlighted by a 16 yard grab by Chig Okonkwo and a huge 38 yard completion to Calvin Ridley, Ward was able to drive the team down 71 yards and set Joey Slye up for a chip shot Field Goal.
Slye delivered and with time fully expired, the Titans pulled off an incredible 22-21 win.
This has to be the most unlikely series of events to ever occur to a team in a loss. The Falcons Super Bowl will always come to mind when thinking of blown leads, but at the very least, it was at the hands of Tom Brady. In this case, it was to the Tennessee Titans who are a horrible team and it all started with a 72 yard touchdown becoming a turnover. A score of 28-6 would have been too much for Tennessee to overcome, but 21-6 was clearly do-able. And even the way they scored that second touchdown was so wild, it was hard to even process as a fan.
Cardinals fans must be sick to their stomachs today following this performance. Especially in a week where the LA Rams lost a winnable game and they could have made some progress in the standings.
While the Cardinals mainly blew this game on their own, it should be noted that the rookie QB, Cam Ward, showed up when they needed him. He was in the middle of an absolutely horrible performance before the Cardinals started to collapse. He finished with 265 yards and notably made some big plays in the latter part of the game to move his team down the field and he put them in positions to succeed. This is absolutely one of those games that was crafted directly by the football gods and will likely never be replicated, but you have to hope that this gives the Titans something to build on.
A win is a win. Build on it.
Cam Ward continues to show glimpses of greatness in a mostly underwhelming season thus far, and it will be interesting to see how the remainder of the season pans out. Maybe the taste of victory becomes addicting to him and he ramps it up to the next level. Maybe the coaching staff finds a way to include Elic Ayomanor more and have Ridley perform like this consistently. Ridley woke up big time with 131 yards in his 5 catches and if he is back to his old form, the Titans could have a few more upsets up their sleeve this year.
On the flip side, this is a loss that could KILL a team. The Cardinals need to wipe the slate clean, forget this game ever happened and do everything in their power to get back in the win column. They will have a tough Indianapolis squad waiting for them in a road tilt next weekend, so the fear of this loss causing a downward spiral is very real.
The Titans, however, do have a fairly realistic chance of taking this miracle win with them next week as they head to Vegas to take on the struggling Raiders.
Football is crazy on a week-to-week basis, but this game will be hard to top as the “Weirdest game of the year” and it is not even Week 6.