Countdown to Kickoff: 27 Days

The Tennessee Titans have lost 27 games to the Indianapolis Colts since they became division rivals in 2002.

The countdown to kickoff continues.

The Tennessee Titans will open the 2020 regular season Sept. 14 at Denver. That is 27 days away. So, today we look at one way the number 27 figures into the team’s recent history.

When the AFC South was created in 2002, the Tennessee Titans were the team to beat. They won the division title in the first year of realignment after the NFL expanded to 32 teams, won a playoff game and played for the conference championship.

Since then, they have finished in first place just one other time – and it largely has to do with the fact that there is one team they just can’t beat nearly often enough.

The Indianapolis Colts have topped the Titans 27 times over the 18 seasons since the teams became division rivals. That means Tennessee has won just nine (one out of every four) of those matchups.

Twice the Titans tied for the best record in the division – with Indianapolis in 2003 and with Houston in 2016 – but they officially finished second each time because of a tiebreaker. In both years, the Colts swept them. There were eight other times that Indianapolis finished on top in both regular-season matchups.

In 2011, Tennessee finished a game behind first-place Houston – and lost once to Indianapolis, which that year tied for the league’s worst record at 2-14 because quarterback Peyton Manning was sidelined by an injury.

The Titans also came up short against the Colts in the final game of the 2018 regular season, a contest that determined which team earned the second AFC w

Tennessee has a winning record against each of the division’s other two franchises – 22-14 versus Jacksonville and 19-17 versus Houston. Thanks to Indianapolis, though, its all-time AFC South winning percentage is 46.3. Eighteen franchises have better division records over the same span.

The Titans’ 58 division losses since the creation of the division are fewer than Jacksonville (67) and Houston (59). However, the Jaguars have fewer defeats against Indianapolis (22) while the Texans have just as many (27).