For the second time this season, the Tennessee Titans and Houston Texans will meet for a divisional matchup, this time at Nissan Stadium in Nashville.
The Titans come into this game as a wounded animal after having lost each of their last four games, including two straight after firing general manager Jon Robinson.
The Texans are in the midst of another lost season with a 1-12-1 mark and are set to have the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 NFL draft. However, Houston has been playing better the last two weeks than it has all season long.
The Titans desperately need to stop the bleeding, and while a contest against the lowly Texans might seem like the perfect get-right game, it really isn’t that simple.
We’ll talk about that and much more as we take a look at six things to know ahead of the Titans’ must-win game against the Texans on Saturday.
Titans are favored
According to Tipico Sportsbook, the Titans are 5.5-point favorites over the Texans for Week 16, with the over/under at 37.
This spread has already shrunk from the seven points it was to start the week, likely thanks to the uncertainty surrounding quarterback Ryan Tannehill, who is dealing with an ankle injury (more on that shortly).
The Titans are 8-5-1 against the spread and have hit the over in five games. The Texans are 6-7-1 against the spread but have hit the over six times, per Team Rankings.
Head-to-head history
The Titans own a 23-18 all-time advantage over the Texans, including winning each of the last two and five of the last six. However, the last time these teams met in Nashville in 2021, the Texans won, 22-13.
This is the second meeting between Houston and Tennessee this season. The Titans topped their division rival in Houston in Week 8, 17-10, on the strength of Derrick Henry’s 219 yards and two touchdowns.
Henry has been absolutely dominant over his division rival, as The King is averaging 114 yards per game and has scored 11 touchdowns over 11 career contests against the Texans. The Titans are 7-4 in those matchups.
Ryan Tannehill's status in doubt
While the Titans have countless injury concerns, the biggest of the bunch right now is quarterback Ryan Tannehill, who re-injured his ankle in the Week 15 loss to the Chargers.
Tannehill missed a pair of games with an injury to the same ankle earlier in the season, and now he’s reportedly facing an “uphill battle” to play in Week 16 despite being able to finish out last week.
Starting in place of Tannehill in those games was rookie quarterback Malik Willis, who will get the nod if Tannehill sits. Willis is familiar with the Texans already, as one of his two starts came against them.
In that game, Willis completed just 6-of-10 passes for 55 yards and a pick, while also adding five carries for 12 yards. While we saw some flashes, it was clear Tennessee’s offense just wasn’t the same without Tannehill.
Hopefully Willis has progressed to the point where he can do more in Week 16, and he is coming off a game in which he played one series and received some positive feedback from head coach Mike Vrabel, who noted the rookie looked more comfortable than he had in previous outings.
Mike Vrabel said Malik Willis was the most comfortable he's been in a game yesterday. He credits Willis for working through his progressions very well and being decisive. #Titans
— TURRON DAVENPORT (@TDavenport_NFL) December 19, 2022
Texans have been frisky
While you wouldn’t normally think of a 1-12-1 team as dangerous, that’s exactly what the Texans are after the last few weeks.
In that span, Houston has played some of the league’s best teams very tough. The Texans barely lost to the Dallas Cowboys in Week 14, 27-23, then forced the Kansas City Chiefs to overtime before losing, 30-24.
This game is far from a gimme, and that’s especially true with how the Titans have played recently, and with the fact that they might be starting a rookie.
If you have two quarterbacks...
You know what they say: “If you have two quarterbacks, you have no quarterbacks.”
The Texans have taken an interesting approach to the quarterback position in recent weeks, with the team deploying both of their signal-callers into action the last two games.
Davis Mills has done the majority of the throwing, but Jeff Driskel has also tossed the rock a bit and has seen some designed runs for him.
The Titans’ passing attack has struggled this season, but the defense as a whole has also struggled with mobile quarterbacks. The Titans have to be ready for whatever Houston throws at them on Saturday.
A must-win game for Tennessee
This is a must-win game for the Titans, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
Tennessee’s once-comfortable lead in the AFC South has shrunk to just one game, with the Jacksonville Jaguars breathing down their necks. If the Titans lose and the Jags win, Jacksonville takes over first place with two games left.
Whether or not that actually happens remains to be seen, but this situation is looking like it’s on a crash course for a Week 18 win-and-in game, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all given the Titans rarely do anything the easy way.
