Titans look great in defeating the Raiders regular season opener
After going 0-6 to start last season, it sure didn’t take the Tennessee Titans long to get their first win of the 2010 regular season, as they crushed the Oakland Raiders 38-13 on Sunday.
"That's one of the biggest games of the season, getting that first win in the first week," said Vince Young, who finished 13 of 17 for 154 yards. "We did a great job executing the plays today. Our defence did a phenomenal job putting a lot of pressure on them."
Contrary to his usually slow starts, Young was decisive with the football and showed his maturity, not allowing Oakland’s pass rush to affect him early on. Young got things rolling for the Titans as he threw a perfect pass to receiver Nate Washington for a 56-yard touchdown strike in the first quarter.
The Raiders came in Sunday’s opener with a new quarterback and a few new faces on a defence, but it was the same lackluster run-defence that ranked 29th in the NFL last season. Everyone runs on the Raiders, so the Titans predicted that Chris Johnson, the NFL's Offensive Player of the Year last season, would have huge running lanes all day and they were right.
Johnson rushed for 142 yards and two touchdowns and the Titans finished with 205 total yards on the ground. "You can't sit around and feel bad about it or be shocked by it," Oakland coach Tom Cable said. "You really have to deal with it. This was unexpected, but we'll fix it and get it right pretty quick."
With Johnson going over the century mark, he extended his streak to 12 consecutive 100-yard games to break a tie with Marcus Allen, and trails Barry Sanders by only two games for the recond. But Johnson isn’t concerned about the record books. “I'm really not going into any game right now thinking about any records, making sure I get over a 100 ... My main focus is winning.''
Raiders quarterback Jason Campbell did not have the start he envisoned as Oakland couldn’t avoid falling behind early, and simply didn’t have the offensive weapons in the passing game to come from behind. Campbell was under pressure all day and was sacked four times by the Titans defence.
With Campbell unable to get things going, the defence mimicked their offence as Tennessee scored 24 straight points in the first half to put the game out of reach.
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