Tennessee Titans haven’t defeated Indianapolis Colts in 2,075 days, just once in 3,111 days

INDIANAPOLIS, IN - NOVEMBER 20: D'Qwell Jackson
INDIANAPOLIS, IN - NOVEMBER 20: D'Qwell Jackson /
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Try to control your rage as we peer through the Tennessee Titans and Indianapolis Colts “rivalry” that has plagued the two-tone blue.

The Tennessee Titans want to be an AFC powerhouse. They want to be a perennial contender in a league that is plagued by turnover and inconsistency. They seem to be on the right track, but first they must accomplish a simple task they haven’t been able to in a long while.

In order to do all of that and become the elite team they strive to be, the Titans have to beat a team that they play twice a year. A team that annually has flaws in different spots. A team that they haven’t been able to defeat for a shocking 2,075 days.

That team is the Indianapolis Colts, the Titans’ AFC South rival that held a vice grip on the division for a decade with Peyton Manning at the helm. When Manning lost a season to injury in 2011 and was released subsequently after, Titans fans held on to a sliver of hope that the Colts’ chokehold on a weak division would debilitate. Instead, the Colts were awful in 2011 and lucked into (I’m not sorry for the pun) Andrew Luck in the following draft.

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The problems were very clearly mental, even before Luck made it to Lucas Oil Stadium. In the midst of arguably one of the worst seasons in football history, the 0-13 Colts, with the help of Donald Brown morphing into Walter Payton against a porous Titans run defense, beat Tennessee by two scores and earned the first of their two wins of 2011.

That loss initiated a string of 10 more losses to their horseshoe counterparts spanning over six seasons. During that span, the Titans have used eight different quarterbacks and been defeated by Luck, Matt Hasselbeck, Dan Orlovsky and a combination of Josh Freeman and Ryan Lindley. The Titans’ last win against Indianapolis came during the 2011 season, a 27-10 beating against Curtis Painter.

Dig back further into the past and it’s painful to realize that that win came after a five-game losing streak against their division foes. Dating back to the 2008 season, the Titans have defeated the Colts just once in their past SEVENTEEN meetings. One win against their rival in 3,111 days.

It’s more than time for things to change for the better. Regression to the mean has to hit at some point, right?

The Titans roster and, more importantly, their front office is currently in great shape. Signs were flashing last season when they went 9-7, but they still failed to beat the Colts on two separate occasions despite enjoying one of their most successful seasons in quite some time. The Titans’ division record was their undoing in 2016. The Colts aren’t the only team the Titans have to beat in the division, but they’re ground zero for exorcising division demons.