Titans pass-catchers made rare history in Sunday’s win over Texans

The Tennessee Titans survived an unexpected second-half surge by the Houston Texans and won their regular-season finale by a final score of 28-25. By doing so, the Titans clinched the No. 1 seed in the AFC, a first round bye and homefield advantage throughout the AFC playoffs. Starting quarterback Ryan Tannehill played one of his best games of the season, completing 23-of-32 passing attempts for 287 yards while matching a career-high four touchdown throws. Tannetill routinely bought himself time in the pocket and made excellent decisions with the football. He evaded pressure, sidestepped would-be defenders, stepped up in the pocket and found his receivers. Tannehill made play after play while doing something he rarely does, and that’s create big plays in the passing game off script ala Josh Allen or Patrick Mahomes.

NFL Research is an excellent tool. Its advanced model often tells the story that the basic statistics don’t, and one of this week’s reveals for the Titans is a startling reveal that really captures how excellent, effective and efficient the Titans’ passing offense was (h/t to Broadway Sports’ Johnathan Boren for the reveal).

Sunday’s game marked just the second time in Titans franchise history that they had four players with 50+ receiving yards and a touchdown. Nick Westbrook had 78 yards and a touchdown, A.J. Brown had 68 yards and a touchdown, Julio Jones had 58 yards and a touchdown, and Anthony Firkser had 56 yards and a touchdown.

The Titans last achieved such a feat on October 14th, 1990 as the Houston Oilers when Drew Hill, Ernest Givins, Haywood Jeffries and Leonard Harris did the same.

There have only been six such occurrences to equal this accomplishment over the last seven NFL seasons.

The 2020 Chiefs did it last, when Tyreek Hill, Demarcus Robinson, Mecole Hardman and Travis Kelce did it vs. the Jets. The 2018 Rams (Cooper Kupp, Brandin Cooks, Robert Woods and Todd Gurley), 2018 Buccaneers (Chris Godwin, DeSean Jackson, Mike Evans and O.J. Howard), 2015 Saints (Brandin Cooks, Willie Snead, Ben Watson and Marques Colston) and 2014 Steelers (Antonio Brown, Martavis Bryant, Heath Miller and Markus Wheaton) also did it.

I hope you enjoyed this stat as much as I did.