Titans vs. Colts: Blocked Punt, Jeffery Simmons Spark 26-20 Week 6 Comeback for Robert Saleh's First Win

Adam Vinatieri built a Hall of Fame career on clutch kicks. On Sunday in Indianapolis, he discovered that halftime trash talk is a lot harder to drill.

The Colts were up 13-0 and cruising when Vinatieri was inducted into the team's Ring of Honor at the break, and as the Tennessee Titans jogged back out he delivered a line that aged like gas-station sushi: "It's a bad day to be a Titan." Thirty minutes later, the winless Titans had scored 26 second-half points, returned a blocked punt for a touchdown and left Lucas Oil Stadium with a 26-20 win, their first of 2026 and Robert Saleh's first as their head coach. Per the team, it was also the franchise's 500th win, playoffs included, and Cam Ward handed Saleh the game ball afterward.

A First Half Only Indy Could Love

According to the AP, Indianapolis owned a 232-64 edge in total yards before halftime. Tennessee, per its own count, scraped together three first downs. The only reason the score wasn't uglier was safety Amani Hooker, who hauled in a tipped Daniel Jones pass at the Tennessee 6 to kill a 13-play opening march.

Indy still got paid, just not in full: a 1-yard Jones touchdown pass to tight end Mo Alie-Cox, then Spencer Shrader field goals of 23 and 47 yards, the second set up by a Cam Bynum interception of Ward. Three scoring drives, two ending in kicks. File that away.

Then the second half kicked off, and so did Jeffery Simmons. On the very first snap, the Titans' defensive tackle ripped the ball loose from Jonathan Taylor and fell on it himself at the Indianapolis 33. Joey Slye converted from 29. Indy's next drive died when cornerback Cor'Dale Flott picked off Jones at the Tennessee 11, and Slye followed with a 56-yarder to make it 13-6.

That's when Tennessee's special teams turned the game into a blooper reel. Chimere Dike returned a punt 58 yards to the Indianapolis 28, and Ward capped the short drive with an 8-yard touchdown to rookie Carnell Tate to tie it at 13. Then Julius Chestnut got a hand on Rigoberto Sanchez's punt, and defensive end Oluwafemi Oladejo scooped it up and raced 14 yards for a 20-13 lead with 10:17 to go.

Indy punched back, marching 72 yards before Taylor bulled in from the 4 to tie it with 5:32 left. But on Tennessee's next snap, cornerback Cam Taylor-Britt was flagged for a 36-yard pass interference on a deep shot to Tate, Ward moved the chains on a third-and-5 with a throw to Wan'Dale Robinson, and Slye hit from 49 with 2:03 left. The Colts turned it over on downs, Slye added a 44-yarder with 43 seconds remaining, and Jones' final deep shots fell incomplete.

Simmons Played Like a Man Done With Losing

Simmons was the best player on the field and it wasn't close: six tackles, two sacks, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery. The Titans say he's the first NFL defensive tackle to log at least that combination in one game since Aaron Donald in 2020. The two sacks also pushed his career total with Tennessee to 46 1/2, sliding him past Ted Washington into 10th in franchise history.

"When you do your job and you're not chasing, you're not trying to chase plays and make things up, the ball will find you," Simmons said.

He had plenty of company. Jermaine Johnson II tied his career high with two sacks, and Hooker led everyone with a career-high 13 stops to go with the pick. Slye, meanwhile, went 4-for-4 on field goals and scored 14 of Tennessee's 26 points. His 56-yarder tied for the fifth-longest field goal in franchise history, per the team.

Tate's 8-yard grab was the first touchdown of his career, part of a six-catch, 70-yard day. Ward, though, was mostly a passenger: 11 of 22 for 102 yards with a touchdown and a pick, as the offense managed 186 total yards. "I think going into the second half, we didn't play how we wanted to offensively," Ward said.

Four Minutes of Special Teams Mayhem

This one was supposed to be won in the trenches. Instead it was stolen by the guys who usually get noticed only for mistakes. Dike's return flipped the field, and less than five minutes of game clock later Chestnut's block flipped the scoreboard. Oladejo's explanation was pure poetry.

"If it's country, you pick it up and run with it, if it's city, you dive on it. It felt like country to me, so I ran," Oladejo said.

It was Tennessee's first blocked-punt touchdown since Oct. 30, 2011, which, naturally, also came against Indianapolis, and the first blocked-punt score anywhere in the NFL this season. Colts coach Shane Steichen knew exactly where the game slipped away. "We can't give up blocked punts, we can't give up a kick return," he said.

Numbers That Explain the Unexplainable

• 213: Tennessee was outgained 399-186 and won anyway. The Titans say it's their worst yardage margin in a victory since Week 15 of 2006 against Jacksonville.
• 6 sacks, 3 takeaways, 1 blocked punt: The first NFL team to hit all three in one game since the Colts did it at Minnesota on Dec. 17, 2022. Irony remains undefeated.
• 38:32: Indy's time of possession. All that clock, three turnovers and a loss.

Saleh Finally Gets One, Indy Gets a Mirror

For Tennessee, 1-5 is still 1-5. But this snapped a six-game losing streak against the Colts, evened the Titans at 1-1 in the division and gave Saleh something better than a moral victory: proof his defense can take over a game by itself. The Browns visit Nissan Stadium next Sunday.

Indianapolis falls to 2-4 with consecutive losses, and the turnover problem is becoming a personality trait. Jones threw two more interceptions, and the AP noted both cost the Colts scoring chances, while Taylor's fumble opened the floodgates. "Turnovers continue to be an issue, we've got to handle that better," Steichen said. There were bright spots: Keenan Allen's eight catches for 82 yards lifted him to ninth on the NFL's career receptions list. Next up: a trip to Minnesota.

Party Time, Finally

Tony Pollard, who ran for a season-high 76 yards, said the quiet part out loud while the home crowd jeered its own team: "Now this feels good!" Saleh kept it honest. "Was this perfect? No. But today we made some freaking plays. This league is hard," he said.

Vinatieri was right about one thing. It was a bad day to be somebody in that building. Just not a Titan.

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Postgame quotes as reported by the Associated Press and the Tennessee Titans (tennesseetitans.com).