NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The Titans’ standing as a team no one would want to see in the playoffs took a hit Sunday.

Eric Reid separated Anthony Firkser from an early touchdown pass and turned it into a Whitney Mercilus interception he returned 86 yards to set up a score. That was a terrible turn of events that set the game on a bad course and led to a 24-21 loss to Houston.

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If they can go win two games while Derrick Henry’s hamstring improves and they get healthier in the secondary they can certainly get back to that.

“They’re a good team,” said Kenny Vaccaro, who killed the Texans’ first drive with an end-zone interception. “It’s one of those situations where we’re trying to go from good to great. Beat them, we’re heading toward being a great team. Right now, we’re still like a good team, we’re 8-6 now. We’re still a little-bit-above-average team.” [Unlocked]

“Next week is a Super Bowl team, the last two years they should have been in the Super Bowl. …It’s a great team we’re about to play. They’re a standard. That doesn’t mean anything because we beat the Patriots and they won the Super Bowl last year, but at this time of the year, December-ball, playoff-ball, it’s a big game.”

Jonnu Smith was a major contributor with five-catches 60 yards and a 57-yard carry.

He said belief remained high even down 14-0 did get to 14-14.

apple icon 144x144 precomposed"We are a confident team and you know our confidence is the reason we have been having success lately," Smith said. "You know, it’s a week-to-week league and we just didn’t get it done this week. But we are going to come in and fix it, the mistakes we made and get this thing cleaned up and get back rolling."

Said Rashaan Evans: "It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but now is not the time to harp on a loss like this. We’ve got to make sure that we change everything that we did this game and go back to the drawing board.

"I have a different mindset going into the Saints game, because this Saints team is somewhat better than this Texans team, for a fact showing on film. For us, we have to play our best games these two games and let everything else play where it wants to play. Our mindset has to be that these two games are Super Bowl games, and we have to finish strong."

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