Titans Likely to One (or More) Face Familiar Foe in Playoffs
When the time comes, coaches and players will say it: The playoffs are a new season.
For the Tennessee Titans, though, the Super Bowl tournament is bound to look like a rerun of the NFL’s 2020 regular season.
They have not yet officially clinched their spot, but the scenarios required for them to do so are all pretty simple at this point. In fact, it is possible that Tennessee could have its place in the playoffs locked up before the kickoff of its next game, Sunday night at Green Bay.
The Titans’ playoff scenarios for Week 16
To clinch a playoff berth:
1) Beat Green Bay OR
2) Miami loses to Las Vegas OR
3) Baltimore loses to the N.Y. Giants OR
4) Tie Green Bay and Baltimore ties the N.Y. Giants
To clinch the AFC South:
1) Beat Green Bay and Indianapolis loses to
Assuming nothing disastrous happens over the next two weeks and the Titans are in the postseason for the third time in four years, it is almost certain their first opponent – and possibly subsequent ones – will be a team they faced during the regular season.
Of the other six AFC teams currently in position for the playoffs, Tennessee faced four. The first one on the outside looking in is Baltimore, another that was on the Titans’ 2020 schedule. It is possible, therefore that every potential opponent other than Kansas City, which eliminated them from the last postseason, is one they already have faced this season.
Whether or not that is a good thing is difficult to say. Tennessee was 3-3 against its potential playoff opponents, and all three of those losses were at Nissan Stadium.
Last season the Titans eliminated New England and Baltimore, teams that it did not face during the regular season, and then lost to the Chiefs, an opponent it had beaten just over two months earlier.
A look at the current AFC playoff seeds and how the Titans fared against them this season (note: the top seven teams qualify for the postseason):
1. Kansas City (13-1): did not play.
2. Buffalo (11-3): Arguably, the 42-16 victory over the Bills on Oct. 13 is the high point of the season to date given that it came in the midst of Tennessee’s COVID-19 outbreak and was delayed until a Tuesday night. The Titans never trailed, scored touchdowns on all six of their trips into the red zone, two of them after Malcolm Butler interceptions. Buffalo, however, held Derrick Henry to a season-low 57 rushing yards on 19 carries.
3. Pittsburgh (11-3): It was a matchup of the last two undefeated teams in the AFC, and things could not have gone worse for the Titans for most of the day. Pittsburgh led by 20 points early in the third quarter and held on for a 27-24 victory that was not as close as the score. The Steelers’ defense limited Tennessee’s offense to 292 total yards while its offense converted 13 of 18 third downs and had the ball for 36:37.
5. Cleveland (10-4): The Browns are the last team to beat the Titans, and they did so in much the same way Pittsburgh did – build a big early lead and then allow the final score to get much closer than the game, 41-35 in this case. Cleveland rolled up 458 yards of total offense and scored 38 points in the first half, 28 of them in the second quarter. As a result, Tennessee’s offense abandoned its game plan – Henry had a season-low 15 rushes, and quarterback Ryan Tannehill threw a season-high 45 passes.
6. Indianapolis (10-4): The AFC South rivals split their season series, and the road team won big each time. The Colts scored the final 20 points in a 34-17 victory at Nissan Stadium while the Titans roared to a 21-point halftime lead in the rematch, which they won 45-26. In each case, Tennessee leaned heavily on the run game. Tannehill was a combined 28-50 for 368 yards in the two contests.
7. Miami (9-5): Did not play.
8. Baltimore (9-5): Much like last season’s divisional playoff, the Titans defense made Lamar Jackson look ordinary (186 passing yards, 51 rushing yards), but in this case it took overtime – and Henry’s 29-yard run in the extra period – to come away with a 30-24 victory. Tennessee took a three-point lead on A.J. Brown’s touchdown reception with 2:18 to play in regulation but allowed the Ravens to go 65 yards in eight plays to set up the game-tying field goal with 15 seconds to go.
