The Tennessee Titans fell to the Cleveland Browns 27-24 on the very last play of the game in Week 7. It’s another difficult loss for a team that came agonizingly close to its second straight win, which would have been the first time Tennessee strung together back-to-back victories since 2022. That dismal, worst-in-the-league streak will have to wait at least a couple more weeks because the Titans blew opportunity after opportunity against the Browns.

Tony Pollard was amongst those who gave this team a real chance. Plenty of others let it slip away. Here are my 7 losers and 4 winners from Week 7.

Loser: Titans defense when it mattered most

The Titans offense has a lot of problems, and we’ll get to them. But to me, this one is about the Titans defense shrinking when it mattered most. Based on his curtness and body language at the podium, it seemed clear that Titans head coach Robert Saleh was furious with his defense today.

I can’t blame him.

The Browns averaged 8.3 yards per pass and 6.3 yards per run. And the fourth quarter in particular was a cakewalk for Cleveland. The Browns had two drives, both with the score tied. The Tennessee offense, for all its foibles, made it 17-17 and then 24-24. So what did the defense do? It allowed an 8-play, 71-yard touchdown drive, followed by a 4-play, 60-yard drive with less than a minute left that set up the game-winning field goal.

The run defense was a sieve all day. As Titans DT Jeffrey Simmons put it in the locker room afterward, the Browns ran on them effectively and Tennessee couldn’t generate any pass rush. When this team doesn’t stop the run or get after the quarterback, you can go ahead and just wrap it up defensively, because this secondary is not a strength (and I’m not sure it will be in 2026).

Saleh’s calling-card defense looked like it had arrived against the Colts in Week 6. Week 7 made that look a lot more like a false alarm, and this group has some soul searching to do after a poor showing against Deshaun Watson & Co.

Loser: Blown opportunities

This loss is particularly infuriating because Tennessee didn’t get outclassed. It failed repeatedly to capitalize on the chances it was handed.

Let’s review. The Titans got the ball to the half-yard line, failed on three straight attempts from inside the 1, and turned it over on downs. They then forced and recovered a fumble on the ensuing Browns drive, setting up the offense near midfield, but then Cam Ward immediately threw a deep interception. In the third quarter, with the punter hurt and the kicker forced to punt for the first time, the Browns bailed Tennessee out with 12 men on the field. The Titans still came away empty. Then Cleveland doinked a field goal, and Tennessee answered with only three points to tie instead of taking the lead.

Break after break after break. In their own words from the locker room, the Titans should have put their boots on Cleveland’s throat in that first half. They didn’t, and I think part of that comes down to experience. More on that in a bit.

Winner: Tony Pollard

Tony Pollard ran the heck out of the ball and the Titans run game was humming, especially in the first half. That’s a credit to Pollard and to the offensive line. Tennessee averaged 4.7 yards per rush, which is more than enough for a winning effort.

Pollard finished with 129 yards on 25 carries and three touchdowns. With Tyjae Spears unhealthy once again, he stepped up as the full-time bell cow. In my opinion, that makes him one of the more untradeable players on this roster, even though you’ll hear his name plenty in trade discussions over the next couple of weeks.

He also got a monkey off his back! Pollard is a meat and potatoes runner, not a home run hitter. I was joking in the press box that no matter how well he runs, he seems to have like a 17-yard hard ceiling before he gets caught at the second or third level. Then he broke a 37-yard house call on the opening drive, his longest rush since the Titans last played the Browns late in the 2025 season. Way to make me eat my words.

Loser: Titans in short yardage

The goal-line sequence is the headliner here. The scoreboard literally read 20-7 at one point before the booth review overturned Pollard’s touchdown. He was shy of the goal line, and Tennessee couldn’t punch it in on three straight tries.

A lot of people will blame offensive play caller Brian Daboll, and there’s always some easy revisionist history there. But I understand wanting to keep it simple and pound the rock. Others will blame the quarterback. To me, and the Titans players seem to agree, that falls mostly on the offensive line.

As Saleh said at the podium: I don’t give a s**t what the play calls are. You have to find a way to get it in.

OL JC Latham and OL Peter Skoronski echoed that at their lockers. Latham essentially said I don’t care if you have the best quarterback and the best running back behind you, it is on the offensive line to win in a phone booth one-on-one against their man and get a push.

They didn’t. As well as this line has played, that’s a failure on them. It wasn’t the only time, either. Tennessee also got stopped at the 1-yard line in the second half on a drive that only continued because of the Browns’ penalty. The point stands: in short yardage, this offense was terrible.

Winner: Cam Ward on money plays

Don’t get it twisted: Cam Ward was not good enough yet again, and he has to be much better to be this team’s franchise quarterback beyond this season. But he deserves credit for some of the biggest downs of the game.

On the final drive, facing a must-have fourth down, he found Elic Ayomanor deep downfield. He followed it with a third-and-12 completion to Carnell Tate down to the 1-yard line. Earlier, on the drive that nearly made it 21-7, Ward hit Ayomanor on third-and-9 and again on third-and-7 from the 11-yard line. We haven’t seen much of that clutch factor this season, so it was nice to see. Unfortunately, it’ll get buried by his failings.

Loser: The Titans’ game of incompetence hot potato

This is where Ward lands on the losing side of the ledger. This game of ring around the rosie is exhausting with the passing game: the offense sputters because Ward makes a gigantic mistake, whether it’s a terrible throw, a terrible read, or a miss on a wide-open target. Then he makes a nice play, but the receiver drops it or runs a poor route. If it isn’t one of those issues, it’s a Daboll call that leaves you holding your head in your hands. Everybody takes turns doing something frustrating, and the blame spreads across the quarterback, the pass catchers, and the play calling. It has to stop.

Loser: Carnell Tate and Wan’Dale Robinson’s hands

That leads to the top two receivers. Tate had real ups and downs in this one, but sure hands were supposed to be the concrete, rock-solid element of this rebuilt offense. Tennessee invested more than $70 million in Wan’Dale Robinson and the fourth overall pick in Tate. The stats were clear coming into the season, they don’t drop the ball. Which mattered quite a bit after Ward was let down by his receivers so often as a rookie.

This week, both had key drops, and Tate lost another fumble after being caught from behind, his second of the season. These two are supposed to have nuclear hands! Right now, they don’t.

Winner: Actual momentum out of a win

This one is small and somewhat unserious, but it’s a gentle mercy for a team with expectations in the basement. Listening to the locker room, a lot of the theming centered on youth and inexperience, learning things the hard way.

How could this team know how to protect a lead? Coming into the game, the Titans had spent the second-fewest minutes with a lead in the league, ahead of only the Miami Dolphins. At the very least, they came out of last week’s win with real life and tried to parlay it into momentum. They just couldn’t hold it.

Loser: Alontae Taylor

Alontae Taylor was active after being a healthy scratch last week, yet he didn’t take a single defensive snap. What exactly is Tennessee doing with this expensive free agent addition? For two weeks running, he isn’t contributing at all. Right now, it’s an infuriating waste of money. and I can’t point to the path forward.

Winner: Cor’Dale Flott

On the other end of that story is Cor’Dale Flott, another expensive free agent cornerback. He picked off a pass for his second interception in two weeks, the first time he’s had interceptions in back-to-back games. It’s also the first time he’s had more than one interception in a season, doubling his previous career high. Flott is playing like the guy the Titans signed, and he’s one of the only bright spots in this secondary. He’s a winner in an otherwise losing effort.