Titans Gets 'Out-Toughed' On the Road in Frustrating 23-16 Loss to Colts

The Tennessee Titans like to play a physical brand of football and win with a sound running game and tough defense. But they got beat at their own game on Sunday, falling to the Indianapolis Colts 23-16 after giving up 429 yards and failing once again in several trips to the red zone to fall to 2-3.

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — Before Sunday, the Tennessee Titans had beaten the Indianapolis Colts five games in a row. And they did it — most of the time, anyway — by being the more physical team.

That all changed on Sunday. 

It was the Colts who were the more physical team in a 23-16 victory at Lucas Oil Stadium. They gashed the Titans defense for 429 yards and had a stunning 193 yards rushing — the most allowed in 20 games — against a team that prides itself on stopping the run.

Throw in a lot of huge stops in the red zone for the Indianapolis defense, and this was a loss that threatened to expose the Titans' true identity.

A team that wins by being tougher wasn't tough enough on Sunday, falling to 2-3 on the season and losing their third straight road game in 2023. They've now lost six straight road games dating back to last Nov. 17, which is indeed a trend. 

Byars quote

"Clearly, we didn't stop the run good enough and that's very uncharacteristic of our defense,'' veteran Titans safety Kevin Byard said. "We're not were we want to be as a defense, and it's a lot of the same stuff. We just didn't play well enough, especially on third down where we need to get off the field and we didn't.

"That was very frustrating, You can't win on the road playing that way. We didn't do nowhere near enough as a defense to help us out.''

It was the defense's worst rushing performance since the 2022 season-opening loss to the New York Giants, where they gained 236 yards. Since then, the Titans went 20 games in a row with no one going over 108, and teams were only averaging 70 rushing yards per game this season. 

The big storyline Sunday was the return of Colts running back Jonathan Taylor, but it was journeyman backup Zack Moss who was the star. He had 165 yards rushing on 23 carries — Taylor ran six times for 18 yards — and Moss also had two touchdowns, including a 56-yarder early in the game and a 3-yard run in the middle of the third quarter that gave the Colts a 17-13 lead that they would never relinquish.

The Titans defense was also horrible on third down, allowing 8 of 13 conversions. Many of those came at the hand of backup Gardner Minshew, who relieved rookie Anthony Richardson after he went down with a shoulder injury in the second quarter. Minshew, who beat the Titans way back in 2019, completed 11-of-14 passes for 155 yards. 

"He came in and did a really good job of running their offense,'' Byard said. "They didn't really change up what they were doing, game-plan wise. He didn't make any mistakes and took what our defense gave him. We just couldn't off the field on third down. We had some bad penalties too, and we have to be better on the road.

"We have to find a way to play better on the road and string together some wins. We couldn't stop the run, couldn't get off on third down. That has to stop. That's the first game in a long time where we didn't stop the run, and that's been our identity. But our identity right now is that we don't play well enough to win on the road. That definitely has to change.''

The Titans looked bad in road losses at New Orleans and Cleveland, failing to score a touchdown in either game and giving up nearly 300 yards of passing. They finally scored a touchdown on Sunday, with rookie Tyjae Spears scoring on a 19-yard run on the first drive of the third quarter.

It gave the Titans a 13-10 lead at the time, and it was a quick four-play drive that led to the score. The score was set up by consecutive passes from Ryan Tannehill to DeAndre Hopkins, first for 16 and then for 36, Hopkins finished with 140 receiving yards, his biggest game as a Titan by far, and Tannehill was 23-for-34 for a season-high 264 yards.  It was biggest passing game since he threw for 291 against Cincinnati last Nov. 27.

But the Titans, who scored 15 points on five field goals in the loss to New Orleans and had just one field goal in the 27-3 loss at Cleveland, had to settle for field goals too often on Sunday, too. 

They opened the game with a 16-yard drive, but only had a 27-yard Nick Folk field goal to show for it. They had a 10-play drive in the second quarter that also got into the red zone, but needed a 53-yard field goal from Folk after a sack.

The biggest red zone failure came midway through the fourth quarter, though. Trailing 20-16 early in the final period, the Colts marched right down the field again. Tannehill hit Hopkins for one first down, and then scrambled 14 yards for another to the Colts' 14-yard line.

On first down, Tannehill hit tight end Chig Okonkwo for a 2-yard gain and then Henry ran for 2 more. On third down, Tannehill hit Spears over the middle for a 5-yard gain, setting up a fourth-and-1 at the 5. 

The Titans went for it, running Henry off the right side, but the Colts had the hole filled and stopped him for no gain. Henry had 43 yards on 13 carries for the day.

"The red zone is a part of it, the ability to score touchdowns down there, but there's more to it than that,'' Titans coach Mike Vrabel said. "I'm disappointed that we lost, for all the factors why we lost. We had a short-yardage run, and they got out of there. We just were trying a spot we we could run it and we didn't get it. Didn't pick it up. You're not going to be able block them all and sometimes short yardage can get a little dirty. They tackled us and we didn't. get it.

 "Just too many self-inflicted wounds in the red zone today.'' 

From there, the Colts basically ran out on the clock with a 14-play, 84-yard drive that took 7:03 off the clock and ended with a field goal at the 1:00 mark. The Titans' last-gasp effort ended with a forced Tannehill interception in the closing seconds, the only turnover in the game.

"We've just got to be more efficient down there in the red zone. Those yards are crucial,'' Tannehill said. "You get down there and it gets more condensed and harder to come by, and we have to find a way to finish those drives. We had plenty of opportunities, but we didn't do well enough down there.

"They did a job (on the late-fourth down play). They had a 6-1 front and they won the line of scrimmage. Tough look there for Derrick, and you have to give credit to them.''

Next up for the 2-3 Titans is a trip to London to take on the Baltimore Ravens next Sunday morning. The Ravens are 3-2 after losing 17-10 to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The Titans haven't been able to follow a win with another one. Vrabel said they stressed validating last week's big win over the Bengals, but it didn't happen. They haven't won consecutive games since mid-November a year ago, and they've only scored 34 points total in three road losses.

They need a winning streak, and they need one quick.

"It's frustrating, you know what I mean. You try to get on a streak and get something going and try to talk to them about the things that you're doing when you win. We tried to validate it. That was the whole message the entire week, that you try to validate how we need to play and what we need to do.''

That didn't happen.

Again.    

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