NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The Titans played an entertainingly boring game Sunday.
But against the Texans at Nissan Stadium, Mike McCoy’s insistence on conservatism, the offense’s ineptitude and the team’s depth issues combined to produce loss No. 9, 16-13.
Let’s rank it as better because it came down to a last-second field goal. If Mistake McCoy woke up and coached something different than stone age football, he might have gotten a win.
The Titans’ interim coach refuses to understand the constraints of these Titans, the limitations, the patterns or the odds.
And so the Titans pulled even late but inevitably lost 16-13 on a last-second field goal for a lot of reasons, but mostly because this conservative coach won’t take a calculated risk that might actually help produce a positive result.
Instead, there appeared to be little thought about a third-quarter fourth-and-2 from the Houston 28. Joey Slye was sent on, he kicked a 47-yard field goal and the Titans took a 6-0 lead.
In McCoy’s old-world thinking, the Titans did their best with the possession, and they’d get more chances at points while their solid defensive play would continue. To most of us, all the Titans' good to that point, the 10:45 mark of the third quarter, could be washed away in one play or possession.
Which is exactly what happened.
The Texans responded to the Titans’ second field goal, which opened the third quarter, with a seven-play scoring drive capped with a 3-yard TD pass from Davis Mills-to-Nico Collins and Tennessee never led again.
Would they have converted the fourth-and-2? Who knows.
But staying alive for a touchdown that could have given them a rare two-score lead is the way for a 1-8 team to play there. There is nothing to lose. There is no reason for the worst team in the league to play conservatively and to expect something other than what has happened all season to happen.
Here’s the whole past-game exchange with McCoy about that scenario. I asked the question at the start and the couple at the end, with Turron Davenport contributing in the middle:
Fourth-and-two from their 28. What will it take for you in the remainder of the season to be in one of those situations and make the more aggressive decision?
Well, you go, like any situation in a game, you look at certain things, what is the flow of the game, what type of game is it going to be, and what you think at the time, and situations in the game you're going to do.
Every game this season has been the kind of a game where you need more points than the field goals you guys consistently settle for. Is there going to come a time where you decide I'm going to go for touchdowns in this game?Definitely. There's times we talk about it as the game is going on, as a staff, as you play the game, the flow of the game and everything. You do that all the time.
In this instance, what was it about the flow of the game that made you not go for it on such a—it seemed like a makeable fourth down opportunity.Because we said at that point in time if it was a certain down-and-distance, what we were going to do, and we kicked the field goal.
What's the reason why you decided to, whenever you decide not to go for it?Because of where the ball was, the situation in the game, all those things. We said if it's a certain situation, if it's a certain down-and-distance, we're kicking a field goal. And that's what we did.
But what makes you feel like the situation in this game is going to present you with a different outcome later where six points at that stage is going to be enough where the whole season six points at that stage of the game has not been enough?There's other times during the game, also, regardless of where the ball is where we say if it is a certain down-and-distance, we're going to go for it. That's the decisions you make as the game goes on. And it constantly changes as the flow of the game goes, where is the ball, where is the field position, what direction. There's so many other things that go into it. We had talked about it, and that's what we did.
If Amy (Adams Strunk) Mike (Borgonzi) or Chad (Brinker) came to you and said we overall want you to play more aggressively and not make decisions like that but push, would you?We talk about all the decisions I make all the time, and we constantly talk about it. We evaluate the game, we talk about the decisions I made, and that's what I did.
Are they satisfied with that conservatism?I haven't talked to them about today's game yet.
McCoy has a team that Jeffery Simmons told us committed four false starts Friday at practice, when the week is supposed to be cleaned up and the team is supposed to be ready. The Titans stepped that up to five false starts in the game when they committed nine penalties for 62 yards and two first downs.
Before the one big drive (11 plays, 95 yards) with the one big play (Ward to Chig Okonkwo for 39 yards on third-and-16 from the Houston 37) the Titans’ offense managed 134 net yards. Ward contributed some good runs – a nice development -- but the backs averaged 1.8 yards a carry with a long of 7 from Tony Pollard.
The Titans put forth a winning defensive effort. Despite the lack of playmakers and the disappearances of Jarvis Brownlee, L’Jarius Sneed, Roger McCreary and Dre’Mont Jones, Dennard Wilson is squeezing performances out of them.
For the fourth time this season they held an opponent to 21 points or fewer. They’ve got one win to show for it.
Simmons is sick of it.
“I mean, say what we want, but I mean three-and-out, three-and-out, three-and-out,” he said. “We got to be better. We're tired of sugarcoating it. I'm tired of sugar coating it. We need to be better. Especially at home. Can't have that many false starts. We need to be better.
“I mean, we can't keep sitting up here saying the same thing, trying to sugarcoat it for the media, for anybody. And I said it in the locker room, I said it on the field. I'm tired of sugarcoating it. I mean, we need to be better. At the end of the day, we need to protect Cam better. Simple.”
The Wright stuff 🤘
— Houston Texans (@HoustonTexans) November 16, 2025
📺: @nflonfox pic.twitter.com/kgOYi1Zvb0
The other big Titans issue exposed in this game was the woeful depth.
Mason Kinsey’s incredible staying power is an amazing tale.
But that he remains an option for a team that first brought him in for a look in 2020 is not acceptable. Scrappers who scratch and claw to stick around are great. Teams are supposed to find slightly better versions of them annually, guys with higher ceilings.
For five years, the Titans have failed to do that with Kinsey.
On that third-quarter field goal drive, Kinsey got turned around on a wide-open play up the right side and couldn’t collect a ball where he was wide open. Cam Ward blamed himself for not just hitting an open target in the chest, but he did say it was Kinsey’s first time running the route.
“I mean it's professional football, you can't hit them all,” Kinsey said. “You know, you want all the big plays, you want to be able to throw bombs down the field and hit all of them.
“But I'll always take the blame as a professional when it comes to miscommunication with a quarterback and receiver, and just got to go back to work and figure it out and try to hit it next time.”
Actually, it didn’t seem like he was taking a lot of blame there while he talked about taking the blame. (Latham also was hardly broken up about his three false starts and a hold.)
Kinsey played 31 offensive snaps because Calvin Ridley broke his leg on his first snap back after three games out with a hamstring injury and Chim Dike played just 16, leaving the game with a chest contusion.
Later, Kinsey slowed down the game-tying touchdown drive when he stretched to collect a catchable pass on a very well-designed play that could have accelerated things and changed 
the end-of-game timing, but dropped it.
When Elic Ayomanor was off the field to be checked for an injury, the Texans feared Van Jefferson and Kinsey so little, they put their premier cornerback, Derek Stingley Jr., on Gunnar Helm for a bit.
Guys in the locker room are still echoing the company line. Management should give them something to be inspired about by instructing McCoy, who didn’t inherit much, to tell his team this week that it’s changing mindset:
The next go-for-it moment the Titans face, they’re going for it. The one after that too. The tip-toeing ends next week.
(I thought a funny ending might be good.)
