# Texans 26, Titans 3: Nearly Everyone Had Houston, No One Had It This Lopsided

*Published 2026-10-12 — MissedTakes*

Houston went into Nashville and left with a 26-3 win over Tennessee in Week 5, and on paper it shouldn't have been an easy call. Both clubs were still searching for their first win of the season going in. [Carter Bahns](/pundits/carter-bahns) called it a "matchup of two winless AFC South teams" in his preview. The field didn't see it as a coin flip, and it turned out they were right not to.

## Houston Was the Popular Pick, And the Right One

We tracked 25 graded calls on this game: winner picks and final-score predictions from 22 different pundits (a pundit's latest call is the one that counts). Nineteen of them took the Texans. Three took the Titans. Houston won by 23.

![Only three pundits sided with the home team](/posts/visuals/d926f98d-b96c-46eb-b898-4d9b5e37191a.png)

That's about as close to a consensus as this series ever sees, and for once the consensus held. Every pundit who picked Houston outright was also picking against the baseline this site measures calls by, since the default call on any game is simply the home team, which in this case was Tennessee. Nineteen separate people decided a winless road team was still the better bet than a winless home team, and all nineteen were rewarded for it.

## The Closest Number Belonged to Nick Wright

Fifteen pundits went further and attached a score. [Nick Wright](/pundits/nick-wright) was closest: "I think this is a Texans blowout spot... I think Houston 27, Tennessee 7." He had Houston by 20; the final margin was 23, a three-point miss that was the tightest number on the board. [Gennaro Filice](/pundits/gennaro-filice) wasn't far behind at Texans 26-7, good for a four-point miss.

![The closest score call still missed the margin by three points](/posts/visuals/ed48e86b-86f9-4199-9977-bb6f329c57f4.png)

What stands out in that chart is the shape of the whole group, not just the top of it. The median predicted margin among pundits who named a score was Houston by seven. Nobody, not even Wright, called a margin as wide as 23. The field got the winner right almost unanimously and still undersold how bad it would get for Tennessee.

A step further back, a straight winner pick on Houston was worth plenty on its own. [Connor Rogers](/pundits/connor-rogers), [Chris Long](/pundits/chris-long), [Richard Sherman](/pundits/richard-sherman) and [Nate Tice](/pundits/nate-tice) all took the Texans without attaching a score and were graded well for beating the home-team default. Tice went furthest, calling for a margin of 17 or more as his "hail Mary" and getting it. The earliest call on record came from [John Granato](/pundits/john-granato), who dismissed the idea of a Titans upset back in May while mapping out Houston's full season: "that's stupid," he said of the suggestion, adding that Tennessee was "pitiful." Five months later, that read held up.

## Two Pundits Bet on a Nashville Upset

Three pundits took Tennessee, and none of them were close. [Isaiah Stanback](/pundits/isaiah-stanback) picked the Titans for their "first victory of the season," 24-23, citing the home weather and Houston's pass defense, a one-point call on the team that lost by 23. [Lane Mills](/pundits/lane-mills) had Tennessee 24-21, pointing to Houston's "inefficient pass defense" and DeMeco Ryans taking over play-calling; he also ended up 26 points off the final margin. On the outcome-only side, [Eric Mangini](/pundits/eric-mangini) took the Titans on the air, saying "there's actually a feeling of, like, we're making some progress here" in Tennessee. There wasn't, at least not against this opponent.

## What One Hit or Miss Means for Each of Them

Context matters here. Wright's score-prediction record is actually his best category: 70.74% accuracy over 26 graded calls, well above his 59.83% mark across his full 381-take history, which includes some rough patches in division-winner and playoff calls. This game fit his strength.

Granato's call looks sharp in isolation, but his overall record is thin and shaky: 15.71% accuracy across 11 graded takes, with his game-outcome picks specifically sitting at 8.33% on 10 graded calls. One correct, high-conviction call from May doesn't undo that; it's the exception in a small sample, not the rule.

Lane Mills' miss doesn’t break his streak of bad results: he's now at 0.79% accuracy across just four graded calls, with his other three game-outcome picks also grading at zero. There isn't much of a track record here yet, and this game didn't help it.

## Beyond This One Game

Season-long calls on these two clubs haven't been kind to forecasters so far. Playoff-berth picks involving the Titans have landed at just 33.3% accuracy across three graded calls, while Houston's own playoff-berth calls sit at 92.9% across 14. That gap says something about how differently the field views these two AFC South teams going forward. For the fuller picture on both clubs and where the rest of the field stands, see the [Houston Texans](/nfl/teams/texans) and [Tennessee Titans](/nfl/teams/titans) team pages, and the [overall leaderboard](/nfl/leaderboard).