Fourth-Quarter Follies Come to the Fore

NASHVILLE – The Tennessee Titans still have not scored a fourth-quarter touchdown this season.

They made progress in that regard Sunday when they got the last two of Randy Bullock’s four field goals in their 19-10 victory over the Indianapolis Colts. Those six points were six more than they had scored in the final periods of the previous five games combined.

Tennessee is still last in the league in fourth-quarter scoring, but if that is ever going to change, this is the week. Their opponent Sunday, the Houston Texans, have allowed 58 fourth-quarter points, an average of 9.7 per game that is higher than all but three other teams.

The question is, will the Titans (4-2) need to score much – if at all – at that time?

“They have given up some points there in the fourth quarter, but they have outscored their opponents (89) to 79 [in the first three],” coach Mike Vrabel said Wednesday. “They have played well.”

What the Texans (1-4-1) have not done is win. Not often, at least.

Houston blew a 20-3 fourth-quarter lead in Week 1 against the Indianapolis Colts and settled for a tie. A 16-9 loss to Denver in Week 2 was the result of the Texans getting outscored 10-0 over the final 15 minutes. Last week, the Las Vegas Raiders trailed 20-17 after three quarters then put up 21 unanswered points capped by a 73-yard interception return for a touchdown.

“We’re just going to keep plugging away,” Houston coach Lovie Smith said. “You group them altogether it doesn’t look good. There has been one game in particular I can think of where we did finish. So, we’ve done it before. If you’ve done it one time, you should be able to do it again. We’ll keep working towards that.”

The Titans have trailed only once at the end of the third quarter this season. That was in Week 2 at Buffalo (a 41-7 defeat), and that one was so far out of hand that Vrabel did not even try to mount a comeback. He pulled quarterback Ryan Tannehill, safety Kevin Byard, wide receiver Robert Woods and others early in the fourth to try to save them for another day.

Typically, though, they have done well when time is running short. In the previous four seasons under Vrabel, they have gone 10-21 when trailing after three quarters and 4-1 when tied after three quarters. The fourth was Tennessee’s second-highest scoring quarter in 2020 and 2021 and its highest-scoring quarter in 2019.

That’s what makes this season’s current issues so perplexing.

The good news is that they have done enough in the first three to get to first place in the AFC South. They have led after three quarters in five of the six games they have played and won four of the five.

Recent matchups with Houston, though, all have come down to the end. Two of the last three meetings were decided by three points each, and the one before that went to overtime, a 42-36 Titans victory that required a game-tying touchdown by A.J. Brown with four seconds to go in regulation.

“It seems like every time we go down there, no matter what is going on in their building or in their organization, they're going to play us tough,” quarterback Ryan Tannehill said. “That has been the case for the last several years now. I have a lot of respect for the way they come out, battle and play. We had to make some plays down the stretch last year.”

Is this the week they show they can do the same this year?