NASHVILLE \u2013 Cam Ward and most of the Titans starters were decked out in warmups, not uniforms and helmets, on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
They were all spectators for the preseason finale, when the Titans lost 24-15 to the Bears.<\/p>\n
Will Levis started at quarterback for the Titans, and Hendon Hooker finished the contest.<\/p>\n
With the loss, the Titans finished the preseason with a 2-1 record.<\/p>\n
Now, things are about to get serious, with roster cuts, and the regular season on the horizon.<\/p>\n
Coach Robert Saleh initially planned to play the team’s starters in the preseason finale, but he changed course leading up to the game.<\/p>\n
Saleh instead decided he was happy with the amount of work and reps the team got in Thursday’s joint practice against the Bears, and coupling that with the fact the team had a short week following the second preseason game vs Seattle, the decision was made to sit most of the starters for Saturday night’s contest.<\/p>\n
So, last night’s game provided guys fighting for roster spots a longer look.<\/p>\n
It was a tough start for the Titans defense, who were playing without most of their starters.<\/p>\n
The Bears scored on a 97-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Tyson Bagent to Zavion Thomas on their first snap on offense, which made it 7-0.<\/p>\n
Levis directed a 13-play, 68-yard drive that was capped off by a 28-yard field goal by kicker Joey Slye, which made it 7-3 at the 7:11 mark of the first quarter.<\/p>\n
Slye continued his hot streak not long after when he made a 56-yard field goal, which capped off a short drive that was set up by a Jacob Martin fumble recovery for the Titans.<\/p>\n
But the Bears answered back with a 16-play scoring drive, capped off with a two-yard touchdown pass from Bagent to receiver Maurice Alexander to make it 14-6.<\/p>\n
Slye’s third field goal of the night, from 25 yards out, made it 14-9 at the half.<\/p>\n
The Bears then extended their lead to 21-9 in the third quarter on a three-yard run by running back Raschon Johnson. A 37-yard field goal by kicker Cairo Santos made it 24-9 near the end of the third quarter.<\/p>\n
A nine-yard touchdown run by Titans running back D’Ernest Johnson made it 24-15 with 3:50 left, but the two-point conversion try failed.<\/p>\n
The Titans must trim their roster to 53 players by the NFL’s 5 p.m. deadline on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The Titans open the regular season on September 13 at Nissan Stadium vs the New York Jets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASHVILLE \u2013 Cam Ward and most of the Titans starters were decked out in warmups, not uniforms and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":986847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2061],"tags":[129574,129229,7,17420,786,6,1018,526,394,2411,527],"class_list":["post-986846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennessee-titans","tag-2026-08-29-postgame-stories-bears-at-titans","tag-chicago-bears-at-tennessee-titans-2026-pre-3","tag-football","tag-game-recap","tag-homepage-centerpiece","tag-nfl","tag-team-football-news","tag-tennessee","tag-tennessee-titans","tag-tennesseetitans","tag-titans"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117181793111737031","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986846","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=986846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/986847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=986846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=986846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=986846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}