Titans top winless Vikes 31-30; Gostkowski has 6 FGS
Ryan Tannehill and the Tennessee Titans have had little reason to sweat these tight finishes.
That shaky start with his new team now a distant memory, Stephen Gostkowski had this lategame part down a long time ago.
Gostkowski made his careerhigh sixth field goal of the game, a 55-yarder with 1:44 left that lifted undefeated Tennessee to a 31-30 victory over the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday after Tannehill directed another comeback.
“Every phase of our team has to improve and get better, but there’s no panic,” said coach Mike Vrabel, who took the Titans to the AFC championship game last season.
Derrick Henry rushed 26 times for 119 yards and two third-quarter touchdowns for the Titans, who improved to 3-0 for the first time since 2008 after trailing for a total of 32:07 in the game including a 12-point deficit until late in the third quarter.
Tannehill passed for 321 yards, guiding the Titans on a go-ahead drive in the fourth quarter or overtime for the sixth time in 16 games
MINNEAPOLIS —
since becoming the starter. The Titans are 12-4 behind Tannehill, including the playoffs, and they’re 15-0 when Henry — the NFL rushing leader last year — hits the 100yard mark.
“We just kept chipping away chipping away, believing in each other,” said Tannehill, whose streak of nine straight games — the fourthlongest in NFL history — with two or more touchdown passes and one or fewer interceptions ended.
Tannehill, who was picked off in the end zone by Harrison Smith in the second quarter, hit Kalif Raymond three times for a career-high 118 yards and connected with seven different receivers in the absence of star A.J. Brown for the second straight game to a knee injury.
“There was no hesitation by anyone in the huddle, a lot of confidence we were going to get it done,” said Tannehill, the 2019 comeback player of the year.
Gostkowski, the four-time Pro Bowl pick and three-time Super Bowl champion with New England Patriots who signed with Tennessee just 10 days before the regular season began, missed three field goals in the 40 to 49-yard range and two extra points over his first two performances with the Titans. The 15-year veteran has three gamewinning kicks with less than two minutes left in three games, though. The Titans have a net scoring margin of just six points.
“I had my back up against the wall, just kind of the emotions and feelings I never had before,” Gostkowski said. “To just keep my head down and grind and have some good results the last two weeks definitely means a lot.”