Tennessee won in Indianapolis as an 18 percent underdog, and our model lifted the Titans from two and a half wins to three and a half
Updated
Tennessee lost 26-3 at home to Houston, then went to Indianapolis as an 18 percent underdog and won 26-20 for its first victory of the season. The Titans are 1-5, and when we ran the rest of the season they came out at 3-14, averaging three and a half wins, with no playoff chance, up from two and a half two weeks ago and close to the 3.9 the summer sim projected. A division road win is worth about a win in the model's eyes at this point in the season, and it is the first time all year the Titans' projection has moved up.
The offense is still the lowest-scoring in football by projection, and the Colts game was its best of the year. Tennessee has scored 84 points in six games and projects for 227, 32nd in the league, with the fewest yards. Cam Ward is 109 of 177 for 998 yards with four touchdowns and four interceptions, a 75 rating, and projects for 3,379 yards and 13 touchdowns against twelve interceptions, with the rating projection down from 84 to 81 since the model started leaning harder on this season's snaps. Carnell Tate projects for 91 catches and 1,146 yards, still the best line on the offense. Wan'Dale Robinson for 69 catches. Tony Pollard projects for 611 rushing yards. Tyjae Spears' receiving projection has climbed from 16 catches to 25.
The defense has been the better half all year and the model has upgraded it. Tennessee projects to allow 369 points, 16th in the league, down from 389 and 25th two weeks ago, and has given up 129 in six games. Jeffery Simmons projects for over ten sacks, up from nine, and Jermaine Johnson's line has climbed from four to seven and a half as the edge rusher has gotten healthy. John Franklin-Myers projects for nearly seven. Amani Hooker's interception projection has nearly doubled to over three. Cedric Gray's tackle projection has gone from 41 to 91 as the linebacker has taken a full role. The team projects for 38 sacks, 25th, and ten and a half interceptions, 21st.
The division is Jacksonville's with Houston closing and the Titans last. The Jaguars are 4-2 and project for eleven wins. The Texans are 2-4 and project for nine. The Colts are 2-4 and project for six, with Tennessee now holding the head-to-head. When we ran the rest of the season the Titans finished last in the AFC South in nearly every simulated year, and the Colts rematch is the only division game the model treats as anything other than a loss.
The next month is three games and a bye. Cleveland at home at 34 percent, a trip to Cincinnati at 22, a bye in Week 9, and Jacksonville at home at 20. When we ran that stretch Tennessee went 1-2 and 0-3 about equally often, and the Cleveland game is the closest thing to a coin flip. A 1-8 record entering the second week of November would put three and a half wins on schedule, and the second half of the schedule is where the model expects the other two to come from.
The Indianapolis game deserves the detail because it is the first evidence the model has that the Titans can win a game on the road against a team with a pulse. The offense scored 26, its most of the season by a distance, the defense held the Colts to 20, and Tennessee won 26-20 as an 18 percent underdog. The week before was the opposite: a 26-3 home loss to Houston in which the offense managed a field goal. Those two games are the range. The model moved the Titans up a win because the Colts game was a division road win and because its new weighting gives six weeks of the defense, which has been competent all year, more credit than it did. Simmons' sack projection rose, Johnson's nearly doubled, Hooker's interception projection nearly doubled, and the points-allowed projection dropped 20 to 16th in the league, which is the first time all season the Titans' defense has projected in the top half. The offense did not move. It is still last. What moves the number from here is Cleveland at home at 34 percent, the one game in the next month the model treats as winnable. The second half of the schedule is where the other two wins are supposed to come from.
The matchup record is a team that lost five games it was supposed to lose and then won one. We gave Tennessee 24 percent against the Jets, ten against Philadelphia, 46 in New York, 16 in Baltimore, 18 against Houston and 18 in Indianapolis. One win from about one and a third expected is close to even, and the Colts game is the one the model had wrong. The market opened Tennessee at five and a half wins. Our model sat a win and a half under it in July and sits two under it now. The lean is about an offense that has scored 84 points in six games. The defense has been better than that, and the Indianapolis game was the first time it was rewarded.
