Associated Press photo by Wade Payne / Indianapolis Colts quarterback Jacoby Brissett leaves the field after leading his team to a 19-7 win against the Tennessee Titans on Sunday in Nashville.NASHVILLE - Another Indianapolis Colts quarterback. Another victory against the Tennessee Titans.
Jacoby Brissett became the latest Colts QB to top Tennessee, throwing a 4-yard touchdown pass to T.Y. Hilton with 4:38 left to lead Indianapolis to a 19-17 victory Sunday in the Titans' home opener that also kicked off AFC South play for both teams.
Brissett came up empty two years ago when he lost both games he started against the Titans. Former Colts quarterback Andrew Luck, who surprisingly retired during the preseason, left with a perfect 11-0 record against Tennessee.
Brissett, thrust into a starting role again - Luck missed the 2017 season after shoulder surgery - picked up right where his predecessor left off. He passed for 146 yards and three touchdowns to overcome an interception and a lost fumble.
"Honestly, I wanted to see what he's made of," Indianapolis tight end Eric Ebron said of Brissett when the Colts got the ball back for what turned out to be the go-ahead drive. "I've wanted to see because he's one of my great friends, and I just wanted to see what kind of person he was going to be in that situation, and he showed us all."
The Colts (1-1) also stepped up on defense by sacking Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota four times on a day their special teams showed some cracks. Adam Vinatieri, at 46 the NFL's oldest player and its career scoring leader, missed two extra-point attempts, including clanking the ball off the right upright after the final touchdown.
Vinatieri left Nissan Stadium without answering questions from the media, although he told a reporter he would speak Monday despite that not being a day when the Colts usually do so. He missed two field-goal attempts and an extra-point try in the season opener.
"I have zero concern," Colts coach Frank Reich said after Sunday's game. "I mean, he hit the upright on the one. You probably saw the first one. It was not a good operation. The snap and hold was not clean. I've held for kicks. The ball was barely on the ground, it was not clean. Zero concern."
It was the Colts' 14th win in its their past 16 games against the Titans, and it followed an overtime road loss to the Los Angeles Chargers.
"That's a big start for us," Reich said.
Associated Press photo by James Kenney / Tennessee Titans running back Derrick Henry dives into the end zone for a touchdown during Sunday's home opener against the Indianapolis Colts. Henry finished with 81 yards on 15 carries and caught two passes for 12 yards.The Titans (1-1) missed their chance for payback against Indianapolis after losing the 2018 regular-season finale with a playoff berth on the line for the winner. They haven't started 2-0 since 2008, when they won their first 10 games and their most recent division championship.
Said Mariota: "We let one slip for sure."
The Titans had one last chance, getting the ball back with 1:07 left, but Mariota threw incomplete to rookie A.J. Brown on fourth-and-2 with 11 seconds left. The quarterback took the blame for spiking the ball on third down, choosing to stop the clock with 15 seconds left rather than run another play.
"That's totally on me," said Mariota, who is in the fifth and final year of his rookie contract.
Brissett provided the game's first points with a 3-yard shovel pass to Ebron in the first quarter, and he capped a 12-play touchdown drive in the second with a 12-yard pass to Parris Campbell. Vinatieri pulled the extra-point kick wide left, leaving the Colts with a 13-7 lead.
Tennessee was up 17-13 after Derrick Henry ran for a 1-yard touchdown and Cairo Santos kicked a 49-yard field goal in the third quarter. The Titans had scored their first touchdown of the game on Mariota's 1-yard pass to lineman David Quessenberry, the first in an NFL career delayed by a fight with cancer.
Santos, who was signed just before the season to fill in for the injured Ryan Succop, missed a 45-yard field-goal attempt wide left in the fourth quarter.
Sunday was the hottest home game in Titans history, with a temperature of 93 degrees at kickoff, and it got hotter when a mechanical failure caused pyrotechnics equipment to burst into flames about five minutes before kickoff. Workers quickly extinguished the fire near the 5-yard line on the sideline near the Titans' locker room as Taj George, a member of the group Sisters With Voices, sang the national anthem.
The Titans said nobody was hurt, with only minor field damage.
George is the wife of former Titans running back Eddie George, whose No. 27 was retired during a halftime ceremony in which the late Steve McNair's No. 9 also was retired. It marked the first time in NFL history either of those numbers were retired, and members of the quarterback's family were in attendance.