DENVER — Seconds after Marcus Mariota threw his second interception of the game, a frustrated Mike Vrabel turned his eyes toward backup Ryan Tannehill and uttered a few simple words.

He told Tannehill to get ready, to get loose, and that he was going in the game.

With that quick directive, Vrabel may or may not have effectively brought an end to the Mariota era in Nashville. The second overall pick of the 2015 draft is in the final year of his contract, after all, and getting benched less than halfway through the season is not an ideal predictor of long-term happiness between the two sides.

But let’s put the future on hold for a minute, focusing first on the here and now.

Benching Mariota on Sunday was absolutely the right decision. It had to happen.

This was not an impulsive move made by Vrabel, but one that took into consideration just how horrendous the Titans’ offense has been for all but six quarters this season — the first four against Cleveland and two more against Atlanta in Week 4.

The Titans couldn’t even hit the 20-point mark against Indianapolis, Jacksonville or Buffalo before Sunday’s 16-0 loss, and they managed just seven points in the losses to the Jaguars and Bills. Since the start of the second half against the Falcons, the Titans have scored a grand total of seven points over the past 10 quarters.

That’s God-awful stuff.

Is that to say the struggles should all be dumped in Mariota’s lap?

Absolutely not. It’s been a tremendous team effort.

The offensive line has been spectacularly poor, especially for a group that features two first-round picks (Taylor Lewan, Jack Conklin), a high-priced free agent (Rodger Saffold), a newly extended center (Ben Jones) and a third-round pick (Nate Davis). Who could blame Mariota for being a little jittery in the pocket, when it seems as if he was running for his life every third or fourth drop-back?

The Titans gave up seven sacks Sunday to a Denver team that had totaled a combined five in the previous five weeks. They’ve allowed 29 sacks in six games, which has them on pace to finish with a staggering 77 through 16 contests.

“You’ve just got to win one-on-one matchups and you’ve got to be better,” Jones said. “It’s on us. No matter how long it takes or what it takes, we’ve got to hold up and do our job.”

The receivers have to take their share of the blame here as well. How many times did we watch Mariota hold the ball longer than necessary, simply because there weren’t enough available targets downfield?

Saffold noted as much, saying “sometimes it feels like we’re blocking there forever, but when the game’s on the line, we just have to do what we can do.”

Vrabel and Arthur Smith can take a bow in the blame game, too, as the Titans’ play-calling has hardly been inspiring, far from the kind of smooth-running system that gets the ball into the best players’ hands on a regular basis.

But let’s keep in mind two things here: One, it’s much easier to change quarterbacks than it is to revamp an entire offensive line, to magically make receivers get open, or to speed the learning process of a first-year offensive coordinator.

Second, the Titans drafted Mariota with the No. 2 overall pick because they expected him — even when nothing is going right around him — to find ways to lead his team to win, or at the very least to produce a moderately successful offense.

That just hasn’t happened with enough regularity this season.

Mariota badly misfired on a couple of screen passes to Derrick Henry in the early going, and in the second quarter, he threw a pass to Corey Davis that landed nowhere near the receiver.

Given all that — not to mention Mariota’s first interception of the season — the logical choice would have been to yank Mariota at halftime. It would have given Tannehill a few more minutes to prepare himself mentally, the team a few more minutes to adjust to the sting of a quarterback switch.

But Vrabel still gave Mariota one more chance (actually two) before making the move heard ’round Music City. How could you blame him at that point? Mariota had a quarterback rating of 9.5, had completed just 7-of-18 passes and the Titans were going nowhere fast.

“We were just trying to find a way to move the football and score some points,” Vrabel said. “I felt like we were in the game and we just needed to find a way to score. That’s the only way that you can win.”

Let’s keep in mind, too, that replacing Mariota with Tannehill is hardly a case of bringing in some stiff who’s hardly played. A seven-year veteran and former first-round pick himself, Tannehill had started all 88 games he’d ever played in before 2019. Why not give the guy a chance when there’s still — at least in theory — a chance to save the season? Should Mariota be so untouchable that a player with a comparable winning record over the years doesn’t even get a look?

I don’t think so.

Ryan Tannehill (Isaiah J. Downing / USA Today)

What we saw from Tannehill in his quarter-and-a-half of work was fairly impressive, as he connected on 13-of-16 passes for 144 yards. He threw one interception on a desperation fourth-and-11 pass, was sacked four times and posted a quarterback rating of 78.1.

One immediate difference between Tannehill and Mariota was that Davis — out of nowhere — all of a sudden made an impact. He didn’t have a catch while Mariota was in the game, but Tannehill connected with Davis three times for 36 yards.

Part of that might have been Denver playing a looser defense after going up by two scores. But part of it looked like Tannehill showing more arm strength getting the ball to receivers downfield and near the sidelines.

“I thought the ball was coming out good,” Tannehill said. “I thought my locations were good. I definitely felt like it had been a while since I’d played. But I was able to settle in and find some open guys.”

Said Saffold: “It’s a different style of quarterback. … When Tannehill comes into the game, (the Broncos) are not expecting him to be as quick throwing the ball. Sometimes he really just rips it out of there.”

So what happens next?

The fact that Tannehill appeared to give the team a little jolt — even if it didn’t result in any points — seems reason enough to keep him in the starter’s role at least for next week. Had the Denver game been the only one this season that Mariota — or the Titans offense — had failed to produce, it might be easier to consider moving Mariota right back into his starting spot. But it’s been going on for too long now, and at 2-4 with another AFC opponent up next, the Titans need to take risks to remain relevant.

In the long haul, this may well be the beginning of the end for Mariota in Music City.

It’s hard to imagine the Titans being willing to throw gobs of money and a long-term contract at Mariota when they feel the need to pull him for poor performance less than halfway through the season.

So Vrabel’s decision midway through the third quarter may leave a much greater mark on the franchise long term than it did in Sunday’s game.

Nevertheless, it was a decision that had to be made.

(Top photo of Marcus Mariota: Ron Chenoy / USA Today)