NASHVILLE, Tenn. — With three starts under his belt now, rookie quarterback Zach Mettenberger is offering more hope each time he takes the field for the Tennessee Titans.

Mettenberger enjoyed his best start to date in Monday night’s game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, and even though the Titans coughed up an 11-point lead in the fourth quarter, there were enough positives from their quarterback that it seems to have renewed a little bit of hope that better days might be ahead.

To be sure, Mettenberger is still very much a work in progress, and he has yet to experience any rookie relapses that are almost a given with a young quarterback learning the ropes and seeing things for the first time. But Mettenberger is at least showing himself to be a guy that learns from his mistakes and tries not to repeat them.

For instance, two weeks ago against Baltimore, Mettenberger was a statue in the pocket and was sacked five times on the day. He seemingly had trouble with holding the ball too long on most of the sacks and did not step up to avoid the rush or simply take checkdowns or throw the ball away.

Against the Steelers, Mettenberger was much better in that regard. Several times, he felt the Steelers’ rush coming at him and stepped up in the pocket and delivered the ball down the field to his target.

Perhaps even more important, Mettenberger showed enough poise to shake off a pick-six on his first throw of the game to come back and complete 15 of 24 passes for 263 yards and two touchdowns.

Now, Mettenberger, who has already faced Houston, Baltimore and Pittsburgh in his three starts, gets another playoff-caliber team this week against the Philadelphia Eagles.

“Zach’s improving and doing a lot of good things for us. We’ve just got to continue to see him grow in that. A short week is another test for him,” Titans coach Ken Whisenhunt said.

“Going on the road into this environment is another test of seeing a defense that will bring a lot of pressure, being able to handle that. What you want to see is us win a game. That’s what we need to do.”

Mettenberger spoke of playing well but not winning and said that not getting his first victory yet is “beginning to eat at me.”