Titans-Falcons Winners and Losers: Van Jefferson roars back, trouble at RB, Joey Slye breaks a record, and the linebacker battle

He finished the night 3/3 for 102yds and a touchdown. His first 100-yard performance as a Tennessee Titan, if you will. He's making this team, and especially early in the season, he's going to be involved in the passing game.

Loser: Dumb Stuff That Hurts The Team

The 2025 Titans are desperately trying to leave the 2024 Titans in the past. A significant part of that, aside from the whole losing games thing, is cutting out the SINs in their lives: Self Inflicted Negatives. This was a massive part of their offseason program. No more pre-snap penalties, drops, holding calls, exchange issues, fumbles, or sacks allowed.

And while they've seemed to have cut down on the stupid stuff that they can control, their nasty old ways have popped up a couple times in the preseason. In the first half of this game with primarily starters and second stringers on the field, we saw a kick out of bounds penalty, a return team block in the back penalty, a holding call on the OL, and CB Jarvis Brownlee Jr. got flagged for suplexing a guy. Turns out, they still aren't letting you do that to guys in 2025.

If this team wants to win games this year, they simply must get out of their own way. They don't have the margin for error to succeed otherwise.

Winner: Linebacker Depth

It's shocking what a month has done for the narrative on the Titans linebacker room. Before camp, we were talking about this group as a massive weakness and potential achilles heel of the defense. Today, it actually seems like this group is three deep with serviceable players. Perhaps we've swung too far too fast, but at least for now, I'm no longer super worried about them.

Cedric Gray got the start for the second week in a row, and as I wrote in my game preview, he was one more good showing away from solidifying himself as the starter. Well, consider him solidified.

Grey had 5 total tackles before ending his night, including this nice tackle for loss. In fairness to his competitor James Williams, thought, he had the lone interception of the night on a James Lynch hit that led to a fly ball. Both young linebackers had a good night, and their apparent development heading into Year 2 is both a credit to the coaching staff and great news for the future of the position. Now they just need to keep it up in the regular season...

Loser: Running Back Health

The Titans saw RB2 Tyjae Spears go down with a high ankle sprain in Preseason Week 1, and tonight they saw RB3 Kalel Mullings knocked out of the game with a lower body injury of his own. He went to the ground in the middle of the contest, and stayed there for a while. He was pounding on the turf in pain at one point, before walking off very gingerly under his own power.

Brian Callahan didn't sound overly concerned yet in the postgame press conference, but Mullings' availability in the immediate future could certainly be in question. With cutdown day right around the corner, the math in the running back room could get tricky. Julius Chestnut was already considered a roster inclusion due to Spears' injury, but they can't go into the regular season with just Pollard and Chestnut available to play. Do they roll with Jermar Jefferson or Jordan Mims? Do they add somebody on waivers? Do they consider IR for one of the hurt players? We'll find out soon.

Winner: Joey Slye

When I released my 53-man roster projection this week, I mentioned that I could see the Titans paying close attention to kickers who become available next week. While Slye hasn't been a disaster of any kind, he hasn't totally inspired confidence this month either. But on friday, he kicked the lights out.

Slye was 3-for-3 from 30, 53, and 63 yards. The 53 yarder was a rare double-doink make!

And the 63 yarder was the longest made field goal in the history of Nissan Stadium. Pretty cool! This range is why they like and will probably keep him this year. Nick Folk offered great stability, but his range didn't come close to Slye's. Hopefully trading consistency for range doesn't come back to bite this team this year.