The Titans played a thrilling against against the the Texans defeating them 32-27. The game had everything: suspense, fear, joy, anxiousness, and more. The game itself was a fun one for Titans fan. Very rarely have the Titans been able to be in the game the entire way and play competent football — except on special teams.

The Titans played one of their best games of the season. They were able to move the ball effectively in all phases of the game and were able to stop the Texans for a majority of the game — and especially when needed. Will Levis had an excellent game throwing the ball besides the one pick six that brought the Texans right back into the game. However, Levis is still holding the ball too long and is showing an inability to evade pressure within the pocket. The Titans gave up 8 sacks in total. However, if you’re to break that down Will Levis could have been responsible for at least 5 of them. Thankfully, the Titans were still able to move the ball and not have Levis’s sack hurt the team too much — thanks to a career game by Nick Folk who hit two 50+ yard field goals. Ultimately Will Levis 18/24 for 278 yards 2 TDs and 1 INT. Tony Pollard also had a great game. He managed to earn 119 yards on 24 carries and 1 TD as he averaged 5 ypc. The offense was moving quite differently than the past few weeks. Both Calvin Ridley and NWI showed up big for the Titans as they each either scored or lead to a TD. The Titans managed to play all four quarters and ultimately that showed up in the win column as the Titans were able to score 30 points on offense. Levis’s short pass to Chig Okonkwo went on to be the game’s defining TD as Chig took the ball 70 yards on a short pass.

The Titans defense may have played their best game of the season against a quality opponent. Stroud continued his struggles as he was intercepted twice (Jarvis Brownlee Jr. and Kenneth Murray Jr.) helped give the Titans offense short field possession to score on FGs. Stroud was 20/33 with 247 yards with 2 TDs and 2 INTs. Joe Mixon was a non-factor all game. He only mustered a meager 22 yards on 14 carries. The real MVPs of the defense outside of Brownlee Jr. (who played one heck of a game) and Murray Jr. were both Jefferey Simmons and T’Vondre Sweat. Both Simmons and Sweat registered a sack late in the game. However, their biggest contribution to the game came in stopping the run and applying consistent pressure on Stroud which helped the defense significantly. When PFF puts their grades out I wouldn’t be surprised if they both earned a top 5 DL spot of the week. They were just that good and it’s hard to speak on it when most of their contributions didn’t come off the stat sheet. Simmons had the penultimate sack of C.J. Stroud on the final drive and Harold Landry played cleanup as Stroud ran himself out of bounds and into a Landry sack. That was game over for the Texans and Hannah McNair :).

Brian Callahan earned his 3rd win of the season today. The team played much better than Titans fans have been accustomed too over the past 12 weeks. The Titans offense started to get stale at the start of the 4th quarter as the Titans were obviously trying to limit Levis’s dropbacks so he wouldn’t get sacked or put the ball in harms way. However, luckily enough the Titans did just enough to win the game with a little bit of luck thanks to Ka’imi Fairbarn missing a gimmie game tying 28 yard FG. In football sometimes the ball just doesn’t bounce your way and today the Titans were certainly in the favor of the football gods.

What’s Next

The Titans take on the Washington Commanders after they played one of their worst games of the season against the defunct Dallas Cowboys. This should be an interesting matchup to see how DC Dennard Wilson attacks the young rookie QB now that there’s plenty of game film on him already. The Titans albeit small have a chance to go on a 3 game win streak with the Jaguars in the following week. Don’t look now but that would put the Titans at 6-8 and who knows what could then happen.