The Titans’ six-game winning streak crashed with a thud with Sunday’s loss to Houston, extending a curious trend of playing well against the league’s better teams and stumbling against the bottom-feeders like the Texans and the New York Jets.
Just as wins against purported Super Bowl contenders like the Bills, Chiefs and Rams cannot be overlooked, neither can missteps like Sunday’s baffling defeat at the hands of the Texans.
“We’ve had a lot of great wins, we’ve had some bad losses,’’ safety Kevin Byard says. “That’s the way it goes in this league when you don’t go out there and play well, you underestimate a team, you get your behinds whooped.
“I talked about it when we lost against the Jets, we’ll find out what type of team we are when adversity hits. We’ll find out what kind of team we are next week.”
Quarterback Ryan Tannehill, who suffered through his worst game as a Titan with four interceptions, says he didn’t believe the Titans took the Texans lightly. He simply chalked it up to a lack of execution.
“I don’t think we were underestimating the team. I know I certainly wasn’t. Watching them on tape, they come out and they play hard. They have good players on defense,” Tannehill adds. “Our energy was good; our urgency was good throughout the week. Going into the game, pregame, felt really good. Just when it came down to it, we shot ourselves in the foot.”
Jayon Brown also says the Titans didn’t underestimate the Texans; they simply didn’t play well enough to win.
“It is the NFL. Everybody has really good players no matter what their record is,” Brown points out. “They showed up and outperformed us. When you step on the field it is always 50-50 on who is going to win the game. Today, Houston came up with the victory.”
Still, it is an issue the Titans need to fix, especially considering the relative weakness of their remaining schedule, which includes four games against non-contenders – home game games against Jacksonville, San Francisco and Miami and a rematch with the Texans in Houston to close the regular season.