The sixth-seeded Tennessee Titans shocked the top-seeded Baltimore Ravens on Saturday night, 28-12. The Titans, 9-7 in the regular season, bumped off the 14-2 Ravens in one of the bigger upsets in NFL divisional round history.
The Titans move to the AFC Championship Game on Sunday, Jan. 19 against the winner of the game between the Houston Texans and Kansas City Chiefs. This is the Titans' first AFC title game appearance in 17 years.
This is the Titans' first AFC Championship Game appearance since the 2002 season (January 2003).
Tennessee lost to the Rich Gannon Raiders in Oakland.
— Matt Zemek (@MattZemek) January 12, 2020
The Titans will play in the third AFC Championship Game in franchise history. The Titans defeated the Jacksonville Jaguars in the 1999 AFC Championship Game before losing the 2002 AFC title game to the Raiders, as noted above. The Titans will be on the road for this game, just as they were in their previous two visits to the conference championship game.
The Titans were formerly the Houston Oilers before the relocation to Nashville as the renamed Titans. The Oilers made two AFC title games, and also never played the AFC Championship Game at home. The Oilers lost in Pittsburgh against the Steelers in the 1978 and 1979 AFC Championship Games.
This win over the Ravens is sweet on its own merits, but it is especially delicious for Titans fans because Baltimore had knocked Tennessee out of the playoffs in two previous seasons when the Titans were the No. 1 seed in the AFC.
In the 2000 season, the fourth-seeded Ravens upset the top-seeded Titans in the divisional round, en route to Super Bowl XXXV against the New York Giants in Tampa. The Ravens won their first of two Super Bowls that season.
In the 2008 season, Tennessee was once again the top seed, and the sixth-seeded Ravens upset Jeff Fisher's team again in the divisional round. Baltimore then lost the 2008 AFC Championship Game to the Pittsburgh Steelers, who made Super Bowl XLIII and defeated the Arizona Cardinals for their sixth Super Bowl title.
Tennessee would have been thrilled to make the AFC Championship Game under any set of circumstances, but given the franchise's haunting playoff losses to the Ravens in two past seasons this century, it is especially sweet to gain a form of revenge which was more than a decade in the making.
Tennessee will now try to reach its second Super Bowl (XXXIV versus the St. Louis Rams being their first).
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