Five Must-Win Games for 2022

These are the games that look like they could make or break the season as Mike Vrabel's team looks to continue its run of success.

Unpredictability is one of the things that makes the NFL so popular.

Every year there are surprise teams, surprise players, surprise outcomes. The well-worn phrase “any given Sunday,” cliché though it may be, is rooted in absolute truth. The possibilities for each matchup every week of the season are plentiful.

Against that backdrop, it is tough to predict how things will play out over the course of an 18-week season. It has been three weeks since the 2022 schedule was released and there are more than three months until the first game is played.

However, as it looks right now, these are five games that seem more important than most – call them must-wins – if the Tennessee Titans are to extend their streaks of three straight playoff appearances and consecutive division titles:

vs. Cincinnati (Week 12)

George Walker IV / Tennessean.com / USA Today Network

Under Mike Vrabel, the Titans lost their first two meetings against Buffalo (13-12 in 2018 and 14-7 in 2019) but won the last two, including a 42-16 rout in 2020. Vrabel’s first game against the Baltimore Ravens was a 21-0 loss that included 11 sacks of quarterback Marcus Mariota. Since then, Tennessee has won two of the last three, including one in the playoffs. The Titans lost the 2019 AFC Championship at Kansas City but won regular-season matchups in 2019 and 2021.

In short, Vrabel has not allowed the AFC’s elite teams to feel they have any sort of upper hand on the Titans. However, Cincinnati scored a shocking upset in the 2020 regular season and made a run to last season’s Super Bowl that included a divisional round victory at Nissan Stadium. Tennessee must win this game to make sure the Bengals know that any following matchups will be a challenge. 

vs. Indianapolis (Week 6)

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The Titans and Colts have finished first and second, respectively, in the AFC South each of the last two seasons, and the two seasons before that, each secured the conference’s final playoff spot once (Indianapolis in 2018, Tennessee in 2019).

This will be the second meeting between the teams in 21 days. Regardless of what happened in the first, this is an important one. With a victory, the Titans either will even the season series or win it outright and gain a two-game head-to-head advantage over the Colts in the standings. Plus, it comes following the bye and starts a stretch of 12 straight weeks with a game. It would be beneficial – to say the least – to get that stretch off to a good start.

vs. Jacksonville (Week 14)

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This will be the first time the Titans face the Jaguars in 2022, and by this point in the schedule, Jacksonville already will have played Indianapolis twice and Houston once. Quarterback Trevor Lawrence, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2021 draft, figures to continue to get better with each start, particularly now that he has an actual NFL coach, Doug Pederson, overseeing his development.

Tennessee has won five straight in the series and seven of eight overall since Vrabel became head coach. Presumably, Lawrence eventually will become a problem the way Peyton Manning once was in Indianapolis and Deshaun Watson was for several years in Houston. The 2022 schedule ends with the Titans in Jacksonville, and if the last few seasons are any indication, there will be something – the division title, playoff seeding or even a playoff spot – will be at stake. It will be best for Tennessee if Lawrence enters that game wondering what he must do to get a win rather than having proved to himself a few weeks earlier that he could do it.

vs. New York Giants (Week 1)

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The Giants were a bad team in 2021 (they finished 4-13) and they made a change. Brian Daboll is now their head coach, and his first game will be at Nissan Stadium. Currently, the Titans are favored by nearly a touchdown, which is the second biggest Week 1 spread.

Things can change quickly in the NFL. A team that is bad one season is not necessarily bad the next one, but even the ones that turn it around don’t typically look like world-beaters right out of the gate. Seven teams started last season with new head coaches. Three of them won in Week 1, but two of three (Houston and Philadelphia) played other teams that had new head coaches.

With two 2021 playoff teams (Buffalo and Las Vegas) and their chief division rival (Indianapolis) on tap in Weeks 2-4, the Titans need to get off to a good start against a team that is starting over under a new head coach.

Nov. 6 at Kansas City (Week 8)

George Walker IV / Tennessean.com / USA Today Network

The Titans’ playoff push, if there is one this season, likely starts with this game. These were the AFC’s top two teams in 2021, and the Chiefs have been in the AFC Championship game each of the last four years and have won two of them.

Tennessee’s 27-3 triumph over Kansas City in Week 7 of last season ultimately determined the No. 1 seed in the AFC. No one will know for certain what this one will mean. What is certain is that it starts a stretch of four games over which the Titans will face elite quarterbacks. After Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes comes Denver and Russell Wilson, Green Bay and Aaron Rodgers and Cincinnati with Burrow. The defense has handled Mahomes reasonably well in recent seasons and doing so again will set a standard and raise the confidence for what is to come.