50 Fun Facts About Tennessee Titans

Which team beat the Titans 23-16 in Super Bowl XXXIV in January 2000?

St. Louis Rams led 16-0 before the Titans scored 16 straight points to tie it late; a 73-yard touchdown pass with 1:54 left put St. Louis ahead for good.

Which team did the Oilers beat 10-3 to win the 1961 AFL title?

San Diego Chargers had lost the first title game to the Oilers too, but as the Los Angeles Chargers: the club moved down the coast after a single season in L.A.

The Oilers became the first pro football team with a domed home stadium when they moved where in 1968?

The Astrodome opened in 1965 with real grass, which died after roof panels were painted to cut the glare; the replacement was a plastic carpet that became known as AstroTurf.

Whom did the Oilers take with the first overall pick of the 1978 draft?

Earl Campbell cost the Oilers a tight end and a bundle of draft picks, sent to Tampa Bay for the top choice; he then led the NFL in rushing in each of his first three seasons.

Which hometown nickname did the Oilers' star running back of the Luv Ya Blue years carry?

The Tyler Rose honours his hometown of Tyler, Texas, where farmers turned to roses after blight ruined the peach orchards; by the 1940s over half of America's rose bushes grew nearby.

Which coach in a Stetson and cowboy boots led the Oilers to the AFC title game in both 1978 and 1979?

Bum Phillips took off his trademark white Stetson whenever his team played under a roof, because he had been taught it was disrespectful to wear a hat indoors.

Warren Moon won five straight Grey Cups with which Canadian team before joining the Oilers in 1984?

Edmonton Eskimos signed Moon weeks before the 1978 NFL draft, when some scouts wanted him to switch positions; six years later NFL teams fought a bidding war for him as a quarterback.

Which team erased a 35-3 Oilers lead in a January 1993 playoff game?

Buffalo Bills won 41-38 in overtime, at the time the largest comeback in NFL history; the Oilers fired their defensive coordinator the next day and hired Buddy Ryan.

Who replaced Jack Pardee as Oilers head coach during the 1994 season and later took the Titans to a Super Bowl?

Jeff Fisher was the defensive coordinator promoted when the Oilers stood 1-9; five seasons and a move to Tennessee later, his Titans finished a yard short of tying the Super Bowl on its last play.

Where did the Tennessee Oilers play their home games in 1997, their first season after leaving Houston?

Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium in Memphis was meant to host two seasons while the team lived 200 miles away in Nashville, but crowds were so thin that the club got out of its lease after one.

Where did the team play in 1998, its second season as the Tennessee Oilers?

Vanderbilt Stadium held only about 41,000, so it was a one-year stopgap while the permanent stadium was finished; the Oilers went 3-5 there and 5-3 on the road.

Nashville's many colleges earned it which nickname, a fitting backdrop for a team called the Titans?

The Athens of the South was Nashville's nickname long before the team arrived; the city leaned into it in the 1920s by building a full-scale concrete replica of the Parthenon.

What was the Titans' 1999 stadium, later renamed Nissan Stadium, originally called?

Adelphia Coliseum lost its name in 2002 after its sponsor, a telecom company, went bankrupt; the stadium was plain The Coliseum for four years before becoming LP Field.

Which 1999 team lost only three games, all to the Titans?

Jacksonville Jaguars went 14-2 and won the division, leaving the 13-3 Titans a wild card; Tennessee then beat them a third time, 33-14, in the AFC Championship Game.

In the Music City Miracle, who threw the lateral across the field to Kevin Dyson?

Frank Wycheck, a tight end, threw it to a stand-in: Dyson rarely practised with the return unit and was briefed just before the kick, because regular returner Derrick Mason had left with a concussion.

What did replay officials check before the Music City Miracle touchdown stood?

Whether the lateral went forward was the whole argument: referee Phil Luckett ruled the ball was thrown and caught on the same yard line, so the score stood, and the losing side left still disputing it.

Which Titans rookie pass rusher, nicknamed 'The Freak', had 14.5 sacks in 1999?

Jevon Kearse scored the first points of the Music City Miracle game by forcing a safety on the visiting quarterback, one of his two sacks that day.

Who tackled Kevin Dyson one yard short of the goal line on the final play of Super Bowl XXXIV?

Mike Jones brought Dyson down at the 1-yard line as time ran out; a touchdown and extra point would have sent a Super Bowl to overtime for the first time, something that waited until 2017.

Who was named MVP of Super Bowl XXXIV, the Titans' 23-16 defeat in January 2000?

Kurt Warner threw for 414 yards, then a Super Bowl record; five years earlier he had been stocking shelves on the night shift at an Iowa grocery store for $5.50 an hour.

Where did Steve McNair play college football before the Oilers drafted him third overall in 1995?

Alcorn State was the school that let him play quarterback: bigger programs wanted him at other positions, and he answered by finishing third in the 1994 Heisman vote.

With whom did Steve McNair share the NFL MVP award in 2003?

Peyton Manning and McNair got 16 votes apiece; their teams finished level too, at 12-4, but Manning's Colts took the division by beating the Titans twice.

How did the Titans' helmets honor Steve McNair in 2009?

A navy disc with his white number 9 sat on the back of every Titans helmet that season, weeks after McNair was shot dead; ten years later the team retired the number for good.

Eddie George won the 1995 Heisman Trophy at which school?

Ohio State barely used him as a sophomore, when he ran for just 223 yards; two years later he piled up 314 in a single game against Illinois and won the Heisman.

Which Titans quarterback was 2006 Offensive Rookie of the Year before injuries and coach clashes derailed him?

Vince Young's time in Tennessee ended after a locker-room confrontation with his head coach late in 2010; weeks later the owner sided with the coach and announced Young would not be back.

Chris Johnson's 4.24 seconds at the 2008 NFL combine matched the record in which drill?

The 40-yard dash time lifted him from a projected second- or third-round pick to the 24th overall choice; no one ran faster at the combine until John Ross's 4.22 in 2017.

Whose single-season record for yards from scrimmage did Chris Johnson break in 2009?

Marshall Faulk's mark of 2,429 had stood since 1999; Johnson finished 99 rushing yards short of Eric Dickerson's record, but his 503 receiving yards carried him past Faulk.

Derrick Henry's 99-yard touchdown run in 2018 tied an NFL record set in the 1982 season by which running back?

Tony Dorsett ran 99 yards for Dallas, and Henry matched him by shedding three tacklers from his own goal line; the mark can be tied but never beaten, since no run can be longer.

Derrick Henry set the national high school career rushing record at Yulee High School in which state?

Florida's small town of Yulee watched him run for 12,124 yards, breaking a 59-year-old record; the grandmother who raised him there called him 'Shocka' for the shock his birth gave her.

Derrick Henry won the 2015 Heisman Trophy at which school before the Titans drafted him in the second round?

Alabama's Heisman winner lasted until the 45th pick and then began as a backup, carrying just 110 times as a rookie behind DeMarco Murray, who led the AFC in rushing that year.

Which quarterback did the Titans draft second overall in 2015?

Marcus Mariota threw four touchdown passes and posted a perfect passer rating in his first NFL game, beating the Buccaneers and the one player drafted ahead of him, Jameis Winston.

Which team did the Titans beat 22-21 in January 2018 after trailing 21-3?

Kansas City Chiefs were shut out after halftime as the Titans won their first playoff game in 14 years; nine days later, after a loss in the next round, the club parted with head coach Mike Mularkey anyway.

Mike Vrabel won three Super Bowls as a linebacker with which team before coaching the Titans?

New England Patriots coaches also used him as a goal-line receiver: he caught touchdown passes in two Super Bowls, and all ten regular-season catches of his career went for touchdowns.

Which quarterback took the 2-4 Titans of 2019 to the AFC title game?

Ryan Tannehill had arrived that March in a trade from Miami and began the year on the bench; he finished it as the NFL's passer rating leader and Comeback Player of the Year.

Whom did the Titans select with the first overall pick of the 2025 draft?

Cam Ward began his college career at Incarnate Word, a small San Antonio school, and reached the top of the draft only after transferring twice, to Washington State and then Miami.

Whom did the Titans hire as head coach in January 2026?

Robert Saleh had been fired as Jets head coach five games into the 2024 season; after one year running the 49ers' defense, the Titans handed him a second head-coaching job.

What kind of animal is the Titans' mascot, which is also Tennessee's official state wild animal?

A raccoon named T-Rac has worked Titans games since 1999; in 2006 his golf cart ran into a Saints quarterback at halftime of a preseason game, and the player sued for $20 million.

The three stars in the Titans' logo echo Tennessee's flag, where they stand for what?

Three Grand Divisions, East, Middle and West, are written into Tennessee's constitution: no more than two of the five Supreme Court justices may live in any one of them.

In Greek myth, which Titan stole fire for humanity, a fitting patron for the flames in the Titans' logo?

Prometheus paid for the theft by being bound while an eagle fed on his liver; Titans fans took up the fire theme too, turning a stadium end zone into the 'Flame Pit'.

By 2019, Titans home crowds were greeting each first down with a chant from which film?

300 supplies the clip: King Leonidas asks his Spartans their profession, and the stadium joins in by shouting the soldiers' war cry three times.

What did the Oilers' helmet logo depict from 1960 until the team became the Titans?

An oil rig was a natural emblem for a club whose founder, Bud Adams, had made his money in oil; the derrick stayed on the helmet through every change of colors until the Titans' new logo replaced it in 1999.

Why was Bud Adams fined $250,000 after a 2009 win over the Bills?

Making obscene gestures from his suite cost the 86-year-old $250,000, all the more awkward because the commissioner was at the game; Adams apologized to the Bills and their fans.

Which team beat the Oilers in both the 1978 and 1979 AFC Championship Games?

Pittsburgh Steelers won 34-5 and then 27-13; the second game turned on a disputed call that wiped out a tying touchdown catch by Houston's Mike Renfro late in the third quarter.

Which Hall of Fame lineman played 19 seasons and a franchise-record 296 games for the Oilers and Titans?

Bruce Matthews started at every position on the offensive line over those 19 years, and stayed so long that a former college teammate from USC ended up as his head coach.

The Oilers' main colors before the move to Tennessee were Columbia blue and white with what trim?

Scarlet striped the helmet and outlined its logo; when the club became the Titans in 1999 the old logo went, but red stayed in the colors beside Titans blue.

Which quarterback led the Oilers to each of the first three AFL championship games?

George Blanda had quit the NFL when the Bears would use him only as a kicker; the new league gave him a second career, and he kept playing until he was 48, a record 26 seasons in all.

In which NFL division have the Titans competed since the 2002 realignment?

AFC South was created in the 2002 realignment and paired the Titans with the expansion Houston Texans, the club that took the Oilers' place in the city the franchise had left.

Who did the Oilers lose to 56-7 in the 1969 AFL divisional playoffs?

Oakland Raiders quarterback Daryle Lamonica threw six touchdown passes; the Oilers had only reached the playoffs as a division runner-up, with a break-even 6-6-2 record.

To which team did the Oilers trade quarterback Warren Moon after the 1993 NFL season?

Minnesota Vikings landed Moon after his contract talks with the Oilers broke down; without him the team crashed from 12-4 to 2-14, and its head coach was fired ten games in.

Which team ended the Titans' 12-5 season of 2021 with a 19-16 divisional-round win?

Cincinnati Bengals won on a 52-yard field goal as time expired, even though the Titans, the AFC's No. 1 seed for the first time since 2008, sacked Joe Burrow nine times.

Which Titans head coach was fired six games into the 2025 season, after a 1-5 start?

Brian Callahan left with a 4-19 record after a second straight 1-5 start; his father, veteran coach Bill Callahan, had quit the Browns to run his son's offensive line.