The Tennessee Titans had to sneak into the playoffs through the back door, but they didn’t play like the lowest seed in the AFC on the way to a 20-13 victory over the defending Super Bowl champion New England Patriots on Saturday night at Gillette Stadium.
The wild-card Titans earned the right to play in the divisional round next weekend at M&T Bank Stadium — and they did it the hard way. No one should assume that game will be a formality for the Ravens, even if they will be well-rested and and a nearly double-digit favorite.
There is a case to be made that the Ravens would be much better off hosting the Houston Texans, who overcame a 16-point third-quarter deficit to eliminate the Buffalo Bills in the first game of a dramatic Wild Card weekend that featured two overtime games for the first time ever.
The Texans have already been to town and they took a 34-point beating in Week 11. The Ravens also beat the Bills during the regular season, but the Titans were not on their schedule.
That could be viewed as an advantage, because Tennessee hasn’t seen Lamar Jackson and the Ravens’ revolutionary offense up close. It could also be viewed from the opposite perspective, since the Ravens have not seen the new and improved Ryan Tannehill, who replaced struggling quarterback Marcus Mariota in Week 6 and came into the playoffs on quite a roll.
Tannehill completed more than 70% of his passes for 2,742 yards during his 11 regular-season games. He had 22 touchdown passes and four rushing TDs while throwing only six interceptions. In six of his last seven regular-season games, he had a passer rating of 130.8 or better.
Those numbers are important because the Ravens won’t have a whole lot to look at when they scout his performance from Saturday night, because he shifted into game-manager mode and let his team ride a dominant performance by running back Derrick Henry to that grind-it-out victory over the Pats.
Henry was simply terrific and a good New England defense did not have an answer for him. He carried the ball 34 times for 182 yards and broke Eddie George’s Titans single-game playoff record.
"We were locked in,'' Henry said in a postgame television interview. “We wanted it. It’s a great win against a great team in a hostile environment.”
Stopping Henry will be Job One for the Ravens defense next week, but the combination of the NFL’s leading rusher (1,540 yards during the regular season) and a hot veteran quarterback will be a serious challenge for the Ravens defense.
Presumably, Henry will have more trouble running downhill against the big Ravens run-stoppers. But consider this: During the Titans’ go-ahead scoring drive at the end of the first half, Henry accounted for all 75 yards — 53 of them on the ground and 22 on one big catch and run.
The Ravens have not played the Titans since Week 6 of last season, when Joe Flacco led them to a 21-0 victory in what would be his last win as the team’s franchise quarterback. Henry carried the ball just seven times for the Titans in that game.