The Tennessee Titans will not be in the playoffs this year, but at least they were able to take down the Jacksonville Jaguars along with them.
Tennessee ended Jacksonville’s playoff hopes Sunday with a 28-20 win in their Week 18 showdown. At 9-7, the Jags would have made the postseason with a win over the 5-11 Titans. But with the loss dropping Jacksonville to 9-8, the 10-7 Pittsburgh Steelers clinched the AFC’s final playoff spot instead.
In the locker room after the game, Titans cornerback Sean Murphy-Bunting, who chipped nicely with a second-quarter interception of Trevor Lawrence, basked in the opportunity to play spoiler.
“You wanna know the truth? Absolutely [we had additional motivation],” he said, per Titans beat writer Sam Phalen. “They gotta meet me in Cancun. It’s payback.”
The Titans and the Jags are two bitter AFC South division rivals. The latter had also defeated the former in the previous two meetings (including a 34-14 blowout in Week 11), so that was probably the payback Murphy-Bunting was referring to.
The former second-round pick Murphy-Bunting already won a Super Bowl ring with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers during the 2020 season. As such, he is more than happy this season to simply send the Jags on vacation (and give his head coach a bit more breathing room in the process).
