Things Falling into Place for Titans
The Titans have to win this next game, as well as have a little luck, to make it into the playoffs in the wild card spot. Their last game is against the AFC South Champs, the Houston Texans. Luckily for the Titans, things really seem to be falling into place for them to beat the Texans. The Texans have lost both their starting and 2nd string quarterbacks and are down to their rookie 3rd string quarterback, T.J. Yates. Yates shined in his first few starts, but has since tapered off and that’s just the beginning of the list thats led to the Texans dropping their last two games and the Titans having a real shot at beating them Sunday.
Texans Faults
Since Yates has taken over, the Texans have only averaged 16 points a game, a far cry from the 26 points a game they were averaging under Schaub’s leadership. Their past two losses have been to two of the worst teams in the league: the Colts and the Panthers. They were also short their God-like defensive coordinator Wade Phillips this past week, which certainly didn’t help. The Texans have also been struggling to convert on third downs. Against the Colts they were 1-10 on 3rd downs and against the Panthers they were 2-9 on 3rd downs. Andre Johnson has also done a great disappearing act with his injury, having missed the past 3 games. They just haven’t been able to play at the same level as they were earlier this year at full health.
Titans Resurgence
The Titans finally threw the ball downfield and were well rewarded for it. Jared Cook set a new franchise record for the most receiving yards by a Titans’ tight end with 169 yards and 1 touchdown during Sundays performance against the Jaguars. Derrick Morgan also showed up this past week, after weeks of comatose play. His injuries finally seem to have cleared up as he was tied on defense for the lead in tackles with 7 total. We’ll be needing him to show up again to pressure Yates into making poor rookie decisions. Akeem Ayers also appears to be maturing into the OLB position, making bigger plays that are helping keep the Titans in the game. The biggest thing is the team seems to be in pretty good health heading into the last game of the regular season, which is good because they’ll need to play at their best to beat the Texans.
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