The Tennessee Titans are in the playoffs after beating the Jacksonville Jaguars by a final score of 15-10 on Sunday, the final week of the regular season.
How the Titans battled through inconsistency to earn a spot in the NFL playoffs
The Titans are in the playoffs for the first time since the 2008 season.
Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports
It’s the first trip to the postseason for the Titans since 2008. That season, rookie running back Chris Johnson led a team coached by Jeff Fisher and quarterbacked by Kerry Collins and Vince Young to a 13-3 record. Nine seasons later, the road back to the postseason wasn’t nearly as smooth.
After a Week 1 loss to the Oakland Raiders, the Tennessee offense rebounded with 37 and 33 points in games against the Jacksonville Jaguars and Seattle Seahawks, respectively, in Weeks 2 and 3. Then the offense disappeared and was held under 200 yards in the next two weeks in losses to the Houston Texans and Miami Dolphins.
Wins in six of the next seven games gave the Titans control of the AFC South, but road losses to the Arizona Cardinals, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Rams in December ceded that crown to the Jaguars.
But Tennessee did enough to get over .500, and with a win over the Jags in the final game of the season, the Titans were able to grab one of the wild card berths in the AFC.
The Titans are at their best when the running game works
Tennessee topped 150 yards five times in the 2017 regular season and were unsurprisingly 5-0 in those games that they dominated on the ground. That included 179 against the Jaguars and 195 against the Seahawks in September.
The Titans’ rushing attack is close to evenly split between DeMarco Murray and Derrick Henry, each of whom has averaged double-digit carries per game.
Murray is the smaller of the two at 6’1, 2220 pounds, but Henry is the home-run threat at 6’3, 247 pounds. Murray sat out Sunday with an LCL sprain, but he could be back when the Titans play next weekend.
The duo is complemented by a quarterback in Marcus Mariota, who has rushing ability of his own and added 10 rushes for 60 yards, including a critical 13-yard run on third-and-5 with just over two minutes left in the game, helping seal the win for Tennessee.
Mariota finished the season with a career-best five rushing touchdowns during the 2017 season. When he’s on his game, Mariota is a dynamic quarterback with the ability to torch defenses with his rushing skills and his arm.
Tennessee’s hopes rely on Marcus Mariota playing well
In the first two seasons of Mariota’s career — and even his entire collegiate career at Oregon — he never finished a game with three or more interceptions. But in a 40-17 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers in November, he threw four picks.
He had eight interceptions over a four-game span and finished the season with a career-high 15 interceptions.
“Honestly, it’s just coming down to throwing,” Mariota said in November, two days after throwing two interceptions against the Colts. “I’m missing – either I’m sailing it or leaving the ball behind. I’ve got to find ways to improve. I’ve got to get better. I can’t keep hurting this team. And I will – I will definitely get better.”
The good news for the Titans is that he has been better. While he threw two interceptions against the Cardinals in Week 14, he finished the final three games of the season with three touchdowns and one interception to get Tennessee into the postseason.
The Titans need that momentum to carry into January when the team starts its playoff run.
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