Ward played three series against the Falcons, and he completed 2-of-7 passes for 42 yards before being replaced by back-up Brandon Allen in the second quarter.<\/p>\n
Ward’s first throw of the night was a strike to receiver Elic Ayomanor for 35 yards. His second throw was a beauty downfield to Van Jefferson, who wasn’t able to bring it in. But the Titans first-team offense, playing without receivers Calvin Ridley and Tyler Lockett, running back Tony Pollard, and guard Kevin Zeitler, couldn’t get into rhythm here on this night before back-ups took over.<\/p>\n
Ward completed 5-of-8 passes for 67 yards while directing a touchdown-scoring drive in the team’s season opener against the Buccaneers.<\/p>\n
Ward was pleased with how things went, in limited work.<\/p>\n
“I think it went pretty good, in terms of operation-wise, getting in and out of the huddle,” Ward said. “I think the biggest thing we have to build from is just not starting backed up, and not shooting ourselves in the foot with penalties, and unnecessary stuff we don’t need.”<\/p>\n
Friday night’s game capped off a 10-day road trip, when the Titans practiced and played preseason games on the road against the Buccaneers and Falcons.<\/p>\n
The Titans made a big play early on defense.<\/p>\n
The Titans took a 6-0 lead in the first quarter on a pick-6 from defensive back Kendell Brooks, who stepped in front of an Easton Stick throw and returned it 53 yards for a touchdown.<\/p>\n
“I just undercut the receiver, caught the pick, and took it to the house,” Brooks said. “I didn’t know if somebody was chasing me or not. Once I turned around and saw my guys coming to congratulate me, it was surreal.”<\/p>\n
After Allen was intercepted in the second quarter, the Falcons cut the lead to 6-3 on a 42-yard field goal by kicker Younghoe Koo.<\/p>\n
Rookie tight end Gunnar Helm made one of the best plays of the night when he fought off two Falcons defenders while making a 25-yard touchdown catch on a ball thrown by Allen.<\/p>\n
The catch gave the Titans a spark, and a 13-3 lead at the half.<\/p>\n
“It was a great feeling,” Helm said. “It capped off a great drive, where it was eight plays, no negative plays. (Brandon) threw a great ball, and I just tried to make my play.”<\/p>\n
The Falcons cut the lead to 13-10 in the third quarter on a 43-yard touchdown run by Nathan Carter.<\/p>\n
Then, after a fumble by TJ Sheffield on the ensuing kickoff, the Falcons cashed the turnover in for another field goal to make it 13-13 in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
Titans running back Jermar Jefferson then busted loose for a 16-yard touchdown run with 2:35 left in the third quarter to give Tennessee a 20-13 lead.<\/p>\n
But the Falcons answered back on a 52-yard touchdown pass from Stick to Chris Blair to make it 20-20 with 34 seconds left in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
Titans kicker Joey Slye then made a 23-yard field goal to make it 23-20 with 9:03 left in the contest.<\/p>\n
The Titans stopped a pair of late Falcons drives to preserve the win.<\/p>\n
The Titans return to action<\/a> for preseason game No.3 against the Vikings next Friday night at Nissan Stadium. – BUY TICKETS<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ward played three series against the Falcons, and he completed 2-of-7 passes for 42 yards before being replaced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2061],"tags":[56174,7,17420,786,6,1018,526,394,54286,2411,527],"class_list":{"0":"post-292720","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennessee-titans","8":"tag-2025-08-15-postgame-stories-titans-at-falcons","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-game-recap","11":"tag-homepage-centerpiece","12":"tag-nfl","13":"tag-team-football-news","14":"tag-tennessee","15":"tag-tennessee-titans","16":"tag-tennessee-titans-at-atlanta-falcons-2025-pre-2","17":"tag-tennesseetitans","18":"tag-titans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115038471204005661","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}