No Play More Costly During Divisional Round Than Tannehill's Last INT
NASHVILLE – In an NFL playoff weekend filled with dramatic moments, none was more damaging to his team’s chances for victory than Ryan Tannehill’s third interception.
It came with 28 seconds to play Saturday against the Cincinnati Bengals. The Titans faced a third-and-5 from their own 40 and had two timeouts remaining. Coach Mike Vrabel said the goal was to get to the Bengals’ 35 or farther with enough time remaining to attempt a game-winning field. Instead, Tannehill’s pass for Nick Westbrook-Ikhine was tipped, and linebacker Logan Wilson intercepted it.
According to EdjSports.com, Tennessee had a 69.3 percent chance to win before the snap. When Wilson came down with the ball, the chance for victory was 28.6 percent, a drop of 40.8 percent.
“We played the game in a manner in which I thought we needed to, to keep it close,” Vrabel said Monday. “[It] kind of felt like our type of game, and [I] really thought we could get a conversion, call timeout, have 23 seconds and one timeout to execute those situations that we have executed all year and kick the field goal to win. And it didn’t happen.”
Each week, EdjSports determines the top five most impactful from the NFL schedule based on a model, which simulates each game 400,000 times, factors in historical data and accounts for each team’s particular strengths and weaknesses.
The rest of this week’s top five came from Sunday’s epic overtime affair between the Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills, and all of them improved the team’s chances of victory from 24.1 to 35.6 percent.
Thus, there was no moment in any of the weekend’s four games that had anything close to as negative an impact. By comparison, the most impactful play of wild card weekend – T.J. Watt’s touchdown on a fumble return – improved the Steelers’ chances for victory 19.9 percent.
Sure enough, after Wilson’s interception the Bengals gained 19 yards – to the Titans’ 34 – and kicked a game-winning, 52-yard field goal as time expired.
Tannehill started the day with an interception on the first play of the game and finished 15 for 24 for 220 yards with one touchdown and three interceptions. His Total QBR for that performance was 10.4, the second worst of the playoffs thus far to the 8.4 Arizona’s Kyler Murray in the wild card round.
“We have to be great around (Tannehill),” Vrabel said. “He has shown signs of accuracy, of decision-making, the ability to extend plays and to scramble and leadership. Those are all things that you look for in a quarterback and Ryan has shown us that.
“Unfortunate that we turned the ball over on Saturday.”
Particularly the last time.
