Titans' QB battle enters round two

Tennessee Titans coach Mike Munchak said he saw some good work from Jake Locker in Saturday night's 27-17 preseason opening loss at Seattle.

But he isn't about to tip his hand yet on who will be his starting quarterback for the regular season. Or who will start the second preseason game Friday night in Tampa Bay, for that matter.

“I want to name a starter as soon as we're ready to name him. We're not looking at the calendar. There's obviously deadlines and one has to be named by a certain time,” Munchak said. “The sooner we make it the better as we go through the process. We're not really giving ourselves a deadline. I'm not looking at it that way. We're just kind of moving forward like we have been.”

In moving forward, Munchak might want to see Locker run with the first team Friday night after he completed 7 of 13 for 80 yards playing with the second group against the Seahawks. Munchak said that decision would be made soon, but he was not ready to declare that just yet on Sunday.

As for the race itself, Munchak said the Titans are comfortable with either quarterback at the controls.

“If they're competing, there isn't a big gap,” Munchak said. “Going in, they're close enough to where they're competing. If I pick another position, and there's a position where the backup obviously can't beat the guy out, then there's a big gap. They're competing because they're close enough that we feel we can win with both of them.”

As for Hasselbeck, he completed 5 of 9 for 45 yards in playing the first three possessions for Tennessee. But the veteran quarterback was victimized by a pair of interceptions.

One was simply bad luck on the first play from scrimmage of the game, where the football went through the hands of a diving Nate Washington, bounced into the air and was returned 23 yards for a touchdown by Seattle's Brandon Browner.

“We need to be sharper, the first play of the game you never want to start with an incompletion, never mind a turnover, never mind a turnover for a touchdown,” Hasselbeck said. “It was one of those things where I saw it happening like it was in slow motion and I was just like, ‘No’… But yeah it happened and it was disappointing.”