NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Contested catches and catches on the boundary are two things the Titans are really trying to improve this summer.
Late Thursday afternoon, the Titans had consecutive plays in which they had learning moments instead of production on the sideline.
Play one: Quarterback Marcus Mariota stood in under a big and complicated blitz. He faced a front where everyone up front was in a two-point stance at the snap -- linebackers Wesley Woodyard, J.R. Tavai and Yannik Cudjoe-Virgil and defensive linemen Ropati Pitoitua and Karl Klug.
Mariota kept his bearings and fired perfectly to Kendall Wright on the left sideline. Wright reached up to grab it. But he didn’t come all the way down with the ball and the officials on the sideline signaled it was incomplete.
“Marcus, he’s good at throwing the ball off anticipation, when I turned my head, the ball was already there,” Wright said. “I just had to try to make a play for him without falling real hard. I had it; I just didn’t want to fall on my shoulder. It’s the same shoulder I separated a couple years ago. I just didn’t want to fall on it hard. If anything it was a fumble, not a drop. I caught it.”
Said coach Ken Whisenhunt: "Great throw. That was really good. The defense was really coming after us today with the pressure. and that's really about as close of a test as you're going to get to what you'll see in a game. It was good to see him step up and make that throw."
Play two: Another play with significant pressure. Mariota threw left again, this time to tight end Anthony Fasano, who had room to make a catch with Perrish Cox in close proximity. But Fasano, facing back toward Mariota, caught the ball out of bounds.
“I asked Fasano, ‘Were you in bounds?’ He said, ‘I was before the ball got there,’” Whisenhunt said. “I don’t quite know what that answer is. So he was aware, but he didn’t get his feet in. Is that what that means?”
The two plays hurt Mariota’s numbers for the day, as he finished 11-for-17 in 7-on-7and team periods. He is 68-for-102 through camp, with no interceptions.
In one well-contested red-zone period, he threw a touchdown to Justin Hunter streaking out the back left corner of the end zone and another to Hakeem Nicks at the goal line in the middle of the field between two defenders.
Cox nearly ended the interception-less streak, jumping a pass intended for Harry Douglas and getting his hands on it, but failing to corral it for a play that could have been a pick-6.
A few other practice observations:
Field judge Buddy Horton gave tight end Chase Coffman a hard time after a red-zone incompletion short of the goal line on the right from Alex Tanney. “Wide open,” Horton told Coffman as he begam his trip back to the huddle. “Wide open.”
In a team two-minute-drill period when the offense needed a field goal, Mariota couldn’t get the offense in range. They had to try to convert a fourth down and Mariota had to run up the middle. He dove forward, but came up short.
No. 2 kicker Mike Meyer had three chances in that two-minute-drill period, connecting twice and missing wide right from 52 yards.
Two starters left practice with injuries: Tight end Delanie Walker suffered a cut at the base of his left thumb that required 12 stitches. He planned to get it looked at by a hand specialist to make sure it was strictly superficial. Right tackle Byron Bell was down for a time and walked off with a jaw injury.
