Tennessee Titans: Winners and losers from Wild Card win over Patriots

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FOXBOROUGH, MASSACHUSETTS – JANUARY 04: Head coach Mike Vrabel of the Tennessee Titans reacts as they take on the New England Patriots in the AFC Wild Card Playoff game at Gillette Stadium on January 04, 2020 in Foxborough, Massachusetts. The Tennessee Titans won 20-13. (Photo by Adam Glanzman/Getty Images) /

Winner: Mike Vrabel

There are so many reasons why Mike Vrabel is a winner as a result of this game.

He might have put the nail in the coffin of the Pats’ dynasty by beating his former head coach and Hall of Fame quarterback teammate, both of whom are arguably the best to ever do it at their respective professions.

But he also got in Bill Belichick’s head when he decided to run clock with six minutes remaining and the Titans in a punt situation. Vrabel opted to take an intentional delay of game and false start, which had The Hoodie going nuts on the sideline.

Adding insult to injury, the Pats had a neutral zone infraction to burn even more clock.

Admittedly, I wasn’t a fan of the move because it would have limited the Titans’ time to drive back down the field if Brady scored on the next drive, but man was it fun to see the chess game going on and Belichick pissed off.

Winner: Arthur Smith

Hats off to Arthur Smith for realizing that the passing game wasn’t working, and instead opting to keep feeding The King. Smith handed the ball to Henry 34 times and never went away from the only thing that was working on offense for Tennessee.

It wasn’t a great night on offense for the Titans by any stretch and the passing game was completely inept, but at least Smith did what he had to do and didn’t abandon it to try and get cute. The recipe for success was run, run, run, and Smith followed the recipe as much as humanly possible.

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