Titans interim head coach Mike McCoy is nothing if not consistent.
Despite the fact his team has no playoff aspirations, and despite the fact he seems to have little chance of being named permanent head coach, McCoy chose once again to stay conservative during a pivotal moment in the Titans’ 16-13 loss to Houston on Sunday.
On a fourth-and-2 from Houston’s 28-yard-line early in the third quarter, McCoy — with his team ahead 3-0 — opted for a field goal instead of trying to gain 72 inches to continue a drive toward a potential touchdown.
Joey Slye made the 47-yard attempt for a 6-0 lead, but questions remained.
Why not take the risk, considering the struggles the Titans had gone through on offense to that point? They had only totaled five first downs in the first half and had yet to reach the red zone, so why not try to take full advantage of this rare opportunity deep in Houston territory?
How much good did the field goal do, considering it still left the Texans just one score down? Did McCoy really think the Titans were going to hold Houston without a touchdown for the remainder of the contest?
“Like any situation in a game, you look at certain things, [such as] what is the flow of the game, what type of game is it going to be, and what you think at the time, and situations in the game you’re going to do,” McCoy said.
McCoy’s choice of kicking the field goal resurrected his decision making in a Week 8 loss to Indianapolis, when he punted — trailing 17-7 — on fourth-and-4 from the Colts’ 48-yard-line, and then punted again — still down 17-7 in the third quarter — on fourth-and-3 from Indianapolis’ 42-yard-line.
Just as Titans quarterback Cam Ward disagreed with those choices in the Indianapolis game, so did he believe Tennessee should have gone after the first down against Houston.
“Yeah, at times [it’s frustrating not to try to convert on fourth downs],” Ward said. “My mindset, if we’re speaking [about our] record, we’re 1-9. So, I’ll go for it every fourth down; we have nothing to lose.”
Added guard Peter Skoronski: “I think just overall in general, certainly, why not [go for it]? I feel like we’ve started to do a little of that, but yeah, once again, we just got to do our job. I mean we’ve got to execute play calls, really. That’s all I’m going to do.”
The Texans, by the way, wiped out the Titans’ six-point advantage on their next drive, taking a 7-6 lead on Davis Mills’ 3-yard pass to Nico Collins.
Will there come a time when McCoy doesn’t take such a cautious approach, choosing to shoot for touchdowns instead of punting or kicking field goals?
“Definitely,” he said. “There’s times we talk about it as the game is going on, as a staff, as you play the game, the flow of the game and everything. You do that all the time.”
We’ve already touched on defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons’ frustrations with the offense Sunday in a separate article, but here are nine other takeaways from Sunday:
Ward against Texans, second time around: Ward suffered through his worst game as a pro the first time the Titans played Houston this season, completing just 10-of-26 passes for 108 yards, one interception and a 38.5 quarterback rating during a 26-0 loss in September.
Both Ward and the coaching staff were hoping to see progress the second time around, despite the fact Houston’s defense ranked first in yards allowed and first in points allowed heading into the contest.
Ward was statistically better Sunday, connecting on 24-of-37 passes for 194 yards and registering an 87.0 quarterback rating. He did suffer a lost fumble, his NFL-high sixth of the season.
But neither Ward nor the Titans’ offense were able to do much until Tennessee’s final offensive possession.
That’s when Ward guided the Titans 95 yards in five plays and 3:22, hitting Van Jefferson with a 4-yard scoring pass with just 1:35 left in the contest.
The big play on that drive was a beautifully placed downfield shot to tight end Chig Okonkwo on third-and-16, a connection that resulted in a 39-yard gain to the Houston 7-yard-line.
Perhaps it’s something for Ward to build upon.
“I just think no matter what happens throughout the game, whether you have a good or bad game, the last drive has got to be the best drive and that’s where you’ve got to be able to [flip the] switch,” Ward said.
Using the wheels: Heading into Sunday’s contest, Ward had scrambled just 11 times for 56 yards in the Titans’ first nine games.
The Titans’ coaching staff had encouraged Ward to use his legs more often, and he finally did so in the fourth quarter against Houston.
On third-and-4 during the Titans’ first possession in the final quarter, Ward took off up the middle, gaining 10 yards and a first down.
On first-and10 during the Titans’ final offensive possession, Ward again cruised through the middle of the line, picking up 20 yards and setting Tennessee up at the Houston 40-yard line.
On first-and-goal from the 7 during that same drive, Ward gained three yards on a scramble to the Houston 4, a play that preceded his game-tying touchdown pass to Jefferson.
“It is helpful to use my legs to help the O-line,” Ward said. “Houston’s one of the teams where you’re able to have some scramble yards just because of how they rush. They’ve got two good edge rushers, but when you continue to rush like they do, you give up some lanes for the quarterback to get out, and we were able to do that.”
Missed connections with Kinsey: Pressed into more action than usual because of several injuries to Titans wide receivers, Mason Kinsey contributed a nice wheel-route catch early in the third quarter, picking up 14 yards on a drive that resulted in a field goal.
But Ward and Kinsey failed to connect on two other potential big gains.
On that same third-quarter drive, Kinsey was wide open down the right sideline and likely would have scored with a completion. But whether Kinsey turned the wrong way for the pass or whether Ward was simply off target, the ball fell incomplete.
“That’s a bad ball by me,” Ward said. “That’s his first time actually running the route, just due to the injuries we had at wide out. But I got to be able to see him and put the ball on his chest.”
On the Titans’ final possession, Ward threw deep toward an open Kinsey on the left side, but the receiver couldn’t bring in the catch.
“Would I like to have caught that out breaker late in two-minute?” Kinsey said. “Yeah, absolutely. I want to catch it. Did it really change the outcome? No, because [Jefferson] ends up scoring on the drive. So, super happy for him and glad that we can go down there and finish with points.”
Critical completion allowed: The Titans appeared to be one defensive play away from getting a chance to win Sunday’s contest in the late going.
An Arden Key sack had helped push the Texans into a third-and-16 situation at their own 42-yard line with under a minute left in the game.
But Houston quarterback Davis Mills connected with star receiver Nico Collins on a 17-yard pass just beyond the first-down marker on the right sideline. Five plays later, former Titans kicker Matthew Wright hit from 35 yards to break a 13-13 tie and win the game.
Collins finished with nine catches for 92 yards and Houston’s only touchdown.
The Texans had been 1-for-7 converting third-down attempts of 16-plus yards or more this season prior to that play.
“It’s situational football,” Simmons said. “We got to know where [does the quarterback] want to go. We talked about it. When the game [is] on the line, even in the red zone, the ball is going to [Collins]. That’s their guy, no matter who is at quarterback. We got to be better in that situational football right there.”
Ridley’s season over: The much-anticipated return of Calvin Ridley to the Titans’ lineup lasted all of one offensive play.
Ridley caught a 13-yard pass on the Titans’ first play from scrimmage, but took a hard hit, one that resulted in a broken fibula that will knock him out for the remainder of the season.
A seven-year veteran, Ridley had missed the Titans’ last three games with a hamstring injury.
He’ll wind up having played just seven games this season, totaling 17 receptions for 303 yards and zero touchdowns. In 2024, Ridley totaled 64 receptions for 1,017 yards and four touchdowns, playing all 17 games.
The 31-year-old Ridley has two years remaining on the four-year, $92 million contract he signed heading into the 2024 season.
“Sad, man,” Ward said. “Sent prayers his way. He’s somebody who’s in the building doing his job every day. He’s a true pro. He was one of the first people to show me just what it is to be a pro, day in and day out when I got to Tennessee.”
Other wide receiver injuries: Rookie Chimere Dike was evaluated for a concussion after muffing a punt near the end of the first half, but he cleared concussion protocol.
Dike did not return to the contest in the second half, however, due to a chest contusion.
Rookie Elic Ayomanor left the game in the third quarter with an injury, but returned shortly afterward. He was in the contest for at least part of the Titans’ game-tying drive in the fourth quarter, as Ward targeted him with a short pass.
But McCoy said Ayomanor was out of the contest at the very end of that drive, the result of a hamstring issue.
If the Titans are without Dike and Ayomanor, they’ll be left with Jefferson and Kinsey on the 53-man roster. James Proche III, Xavier Restrepo and Hal Presley III are the receivers on the team’s practice squad.
Sack success: The Titans continued their recent run of pressuring the passer by sacking Mills three times.
Two of them proved especially critical.
Cody Barton’s sack of Mills on 4th-and-1 at the Titans’ 1-yard line ended Houston’s opening drive just short of the goal line.
In the second quarter, Jaylen Harrell and Arden Key combined to drop Mills 10 yards behind the line of scrimmage on third down, knocking Houston out of field goal range and forcing the Texans to punt.
Simmons also notched a sack, giving him 5.5 in just eight games. He’s totaled at least five sacks in each of his last five seasons, and the 5.5 this year are tied for the most Simmons has registered since his 7.5-sack season of 2022.
Key, who hadn’t played since Oct. 5 because of a quad injury, produced 1.5 sacks to double his season total. He recorded three of the Titans’ eight hits on Mills.
Controversial call: Simmons disagreed with an unnecessary roughness call against him, one that could have proven very costly.
The defensive tackle was apparently flagged for hitting Houston snapper Austin Brinkman in the head or neck area on Matthew Wright’s missed field goal attempt in the first quarter. The Texans got a first-and-goal as a result, but were turned away on the Barton sack.
“I think it’s bullcrap,” Simmons said. “I’m doing exactly what [special teams coordinator John Fassel] is telling me to do. I hit the snapper’s shoulder … [Fassel] saw it on the sideline on the I-pad. I never touched his head.”
Long-distance success: Slye tied a franchise record when he connected on a 56-yard field-goal attempt in the third quarter.
It marked the seventh field goal make of 50-plus yards this season for Slye, tying the mark set by Stephen Gostkowski, who made 7-of-8 from 50-plus yards during the 2020 season.
Slye’s 10 attempts from 50-plus yards lead the league, and his seven hits from that distance are tied for second, trailing only Tampa Bay’s Chase McLaughlin (eight).
Overall, Slye has made 19-of-24 attempts this season, a 79.1 percent success rate that ranks below the league’s average of 83.6 percent.
The Titans’ kicker of the previous two seasons, Nick Folk, is a perfect 19-for-19 this season, including a 5-for-5 performance from 50-plus yards.