Tennessee Titans play Texans this Sunday with faint hopes for last wild card – NFL Preview
The Tennessee Titans are up against the Houston Texans at Reliant Stadium this Sunday looking to avail their last but faint chance to making it to playoff.
With the score of 8-7 in the National Football League (NFL) standings the Titans are in a must win situation to hold on to their hopes for the second round of the league’s season no. 2011.
A win however will alone not be enough for them; they have to see other contestants of a wild card such as the Cincinnati Bengals and New York Jets losing their respective games.
If they are successful in turning these two important factors into their favour, they will then have to go for a rematch with the American Football Conference (AFC) south champions the Texans next week. A win there will confirm them the opportunity for last
wild card berth into playoff.
This is the reason that their coach Mike Munchak has backed his side for a must win over the Texans and urged them to keep their focus on the first task before them and leave their other worries for the next stage.
"Like I told them [Wednesday] morning so they would get it out of their mind, once we do win, our playoff chances are alive until the second level of games is played," said Munchak. "It's good that we don't have to watch the scoreboard or get guys caught
up in seeing what other teams are doing at the same time, because there is nobody playing that could affect us."
Munchak team has played 15 games winning eight out of them while losing seven, while the Houston Texans won the majority ten games in the total 15 they played in the current season.
This is for time in their franchise history that the Texans side has claimed the AFC south title and made it to the playoff. However, the situation might turn around in case of their rematch with the Titans and they end up as loser.
Irrespective to their future situation the Side is going into their next game with an aim at preparing for playoff.
Having won seven consecutive games, the Texans have gone down in their last two games, losing first against the Cincinnati Bengals and then Indianapolis Colts. They will be interested to finish their season on a winning note.
The Texans have stick to almost the same squad they played against the Colts. However, their wide receiver Andre Johnson is expected back to play the weekend game. If so it will be a good news for their young rookie starter T.J.Yates.
Yates has started as the quarter no. 1 in last three games and performed reasonably well. The coach has backed him again for their next game. However, the side apparently is yet to adjust to the changes it has introduced since departure of their regular
quarterbacks Matt Schaub and Matt Leinart for their respective injuries.
"We're playing with a young quarterback and we're adjusting every week as we go," the coach Gary Kubiak said. "We're struggling to find some points and obviously didn't find enough [against the Colts]."
It will be seen how the teams perform on the weekend in quite a different scenario. The historical record is in favour of the Titans with 13 wins out of their total 19 meetings with the Texans. However, the Tennessee Titans lost their last game to the Texans
played earlier in the season.
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