How Titans beat the odds to play spoiler against Dolphins on Monday Night
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. – Tennessee Titans quarterback Will Levis said his teammates didn’t want to look at him or talk to him after he turned a pitch to Derrick Henry into a fumble.
He doesn’t have that problem anymore after his first comeback win as an NFL rookie.
Levis led two touchdown drives in the final 4:34 minutes to help the Titans come back from a 27-13 deficit to beat the Miami Dolphins 28-27 on Monday Night Football at Hard Rock Stadium.
"I’m jacked – jacked. That was awesome," Levis said after completing 23 of 38 passes for 327 yards – his first 300-yard passing game of his career.
Titans tight end Chig Okonkwo added: "We just pulled a win out of nowhere. I don’t know what to say. It’s an awesome feeling."
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Just how far out of it was Tennessee?
The Titans entered the game as 13.5-point underdogs, and losers of all six of their road games before Monday night.
According to ESPN, they had a 49.2 percent chance to win in a 13-13 game in the fourth quarter before a muffed punt led to Dolphins running back Raheem Mostert’s first touchdown with 5:34 left.
They had a 0.7 percent chance to win after the fumble, which turned into Mostert’s second touchdown that pushed Miami’s lead to 27-13 with 4:34 left.
That figure dipped even lower – to 0.4 percent, according to Next Gen Stats – during the Titans' comeback attempt.
"Didn’t nobody think we were going to win. Everybody thought we were going to come in and probably be another Miami-Broncos type thing, 70 points put on us," Titans outside linebacker Arden Key said, referencing the Dolphins' 70-20 win over Denver earlier this season. "We don’t care about the outside noise."
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Levis found star receiver DeAndre Hopkins for a 3-yard touchdown and converted the two-point conversion to receiver Nick Westbrook-Ikhine with 2:40 left.
Less than a minute later, Titans star running back Derrick Henry found the end zone with 1:49 left to steal a victory in Miami.
"We know what we have and we know what we can do," said Hopkins, who led all receivers with 124 yards on seven catches on a night Tyreek Hill was injured for the Dolphins.
When Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa was sacked on Miami’s final play of the game, Levis missed out on the celebration in the locker room doing postgame interviews.
But he’ll be sure to make up for it on the plane ride home.
"It sucks I got hung up on the field with the interviews and stuff because I feel like I missed the main (celebration). But we’re going to have a fun ride home."
Titans cornerback Sean Murphy-Bunting didn’t want to head to the airport. He was hoping to convince the team’s bus driver to detour for the Titans’ locker room celebration to continue.
The Titans may be in last place in the AFC South. It’s a little top-heavy with the Jacksonville Jaguars (8-6) hanging onto the division lead over the Indianapolis Colts and Houston Texans (7-5). But their first road win this season, and the first comeback of Levis’ career are achievements they can build on with four games left in a season of transition.
More important, it’s always fun to play spoiler under the Monday Night Football spotlight.
"This is the feeling that we chase every week," Murphy-Bunting said. "You know how hard it is to get a win in this league, but we chase that feeling every single week. So, it felt really good to get come here, and get excited, and get hype, especially on the road because we haven’t had [(many of) those."