Once the bully, Titans see Colts turn tables in AFC South rivalry

In beating the Indianapolis Colts five straight times — and in six of the past seven games — the Titans had become the bully in this AFC South rivalry.

More often than not in recent years, the Titans had haymakered the Colts into a stupor, slamming Derrick Henry into Indianapolis’ midsection and smashing Indy’s vaunted offensive line backward on the other side of the ball.

Welcome to the new reality, at least as it was illustrated Sunday in the Colts’ 23-16 win over the Titans at Lucas Oil Stadium.

In his first meeting with the Titans, new Colts coach Shane Steichen completely turned the tables, as Indy pummeled a Tennessee team — one that prides itself on physicality — straight into the artificial turf of Lucas Oil Stadium.

The moment that resonated most came with eight minutes left, with the Titans trailing 20-16 and facing a fourth-and-one situation at the Indianapolis 5-yard line. The Titans sent Henry — the same Henry who’d trampled the Colts for nearly 1,300 yards in 14 previous meetings — over the right side and watched him get absolutely flattened for no gain by DeForest Buckner and Zaire Franklin.

“Just trying to hop [Henry] over,” Titans coach Mike Vrabel told reporters afterward. “Trying to find a spot where we wanted to run it. Just didn‘t get it, didn’t pick it up. Thought we’d obviously get it. That’s why we went for it. Ryan [Tannehill] tried to move Derrick over and we didn’t pick it up. You’re not going to be able to block them all, but you have to try to stay on there and gain a yard. Short yardage is sometimes a little dirty.”

Still, the game was hardly over at that point, considering the Colts were backed up deep in their own zone and there was still 8:03 remaining in the contest.

That was before the Colts kicked the Titans right in their manhood, rattling off a seven-minute, 14-play drive that gave the Colts a 23-16 lead and left the visitors gasping for air. Indianapolis ran the ball 10 times on that drive, including Zack Moss’ critical 13-yard scamper for a first down at the Tennessee 18-yard-line as the clock ticked away.

When all was said and done Moss (23 carries for 165 yards, including a 56-yard TD run) had become the first back to top 100 yards in 21 games against the Titans. In fact, the Titans hadn’t surrendered 100 rushing yards to an entire team in 10 straight contests. But all those nice numbers went by the wayside against a Colts team that pounded out 193 yards on the ground, averaging 5.7 per attempt.

“I know there were some guys out of their gaps,” Vrabel said of a run defense that missed Teair Tart. “Guys jumping around trying to make plays, and what we’ve got to do is set an edge, build a wall and swarm and tackle. I’m sure there will be some missed tackles. But I know there were some gaps in the wall, I know on one there was [a missing] edge and then the big one probably makes it look worse than what it was.

“But then there were some other times that I felt like when they needed to run it, they ran it. And they were able to push us in there [into] the end zone.”

Were there other reasons the Titans (2-3) lost to the Colts (3-2) for the first time since Nov. 12, 2020?

Absolutely.

The Titans’ pass defense was as bad as the team’s run defense. One week after holding Cincinnati without a completion of more than 17 yards, the Titans were smoked downfield once again, surrendering four completions of more than 25 yards. The primary culprit was cornerback Kristian Fulton, who also committed two pass-interference penalties totaling 38 yards, one a third-and-12 back-breaker on Indy’s clock-churning final drive.

There was also a Titans offense that — despite DeAndre Hopkins’ best day in two-tone blue (eight catches for 140 yards) — couldn’t get it done when it mattered most, failing to score a touchdown on three-of-four trips into the red zone. A strength of this team for years, the red-zone offense has been more a red flag waiting to happen this year, as the Titans are now just six-for-17 (35.3 percent) inside opponents’ 20-yard line.

“We’ve just got to be efficient down there,” Titans quarterback Ryan Tannehill said. “Obviously those yards are crucial in the red zone like they are all over the field. But you get down there, everything gets a little more condensed and harder to come by. So you [can’t] give free yards to the defense in those situations. We’ve got to find a way to finish those drives.”

The bottom line, however, is a Colts team that had been regularly battered and beaten by the Titans for years finally stood up to the bully, beating Tennessee in the trenches.

The Titans surrendered their identity, and as a result, surrendered their dominance of this rivalry.