This is the one I have to write against myself, because the Titans’ most famous January play happened to my team. January 8, 2000, a wild-card game, the Bills up by one in the final seconds, a kickoff, a lateral across the field, and Kevin Dyson running it back for the touchdown that ended us. The Music City Miracle. I have watched it more times than is healthy, always hoping it ends differently. It never does.

A franchise of fine margins

That miracle launched a run that reached the Super Bowl that same season, the one that died a single yard short of forcing overtime. As the Houston Oilers in an earlier life, this franchise had its own January heartbreaks, including a staggering collapse from a huge lead in a mid-90s playoff game. The Titans have always seemed to live on the thinnest possible margins, the yard, the lateral, the final snap.

The good recent January

There was a real high after the 2019 season, when they went on the road and knocked off Tom Brady’s Patriots and then the top-seeded Ravens before the Chiefs stopped them a round short. They were the top seed themselves a couple of years later and lost at home in the divisional round. The margins again.

A miracle that still haunts me, a Super Bowl lost by a yard, and a knack for the closest possible endings. Titans fans, your defining January moment is my nightmare, and I can still tip my cap to it. That lateral was perfect. I just wish you had run it against anyone else.