For the second consecutive year, the Tennessee Titans and Houston Texans will face off in desperate need of their first win of the season.
Last season was a matchup between two 0-3 teams, only for this year to be even more dire with both sitting at 0-4 for their meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, on Sunday (1 p.m. ET, CBS).
Houston won last year's matchup 23-0 en route to a 12-5 record and a trip to the divisional round of the playoffs. Meanwhile, the Titans finished 3-14 for the second straight season and earned the No. 4 pick in the draft.
The Titans currently have a 10-game losing streak to AFC South opponents and are tied for the current longest regular-season losing streak at six games, and Houston, a team that came in with Super Bowl aspirations and were considered favorites to win the AFC South, needs to defy the odds (only one team -- the 1992 Chargers -- have made the playoffs after starting 0-4) to make the postseason for a fourth straight season.
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"Anything's achievable." Titans coach Robert Saleh said Wednesday, "You get on a run and you start getting -- like momentum and confidence is such a big deal and a very, very underrated thing in the NFL. I just feel like if we can just get one, it'll snowball and who knows what will happen. But it's never over until that little 'E' shows up on the standings... or whatever signifies that you've been eliminated. You just keep on fighting and even when you are eliminated, it still doesn't matter. You still got to show up and do your best."
For now, both are looking up at the Jacksonville Jaguars (3-1) and Indianapolis Colts (2-2) in the division through four weeks.
"One of the things we talk about is owning the South," Saleh said. "Owning it is not just a one-time thing. We want to own it for as long as we're here and this is our first crack at a division opponent."
The Texans already fell to the Colts in Week 3 in the only interdivisional game amongst AFC South teams in the first four weeks, so they already sit at the bottom of the division in that regard as well.
But if Houston were to get its first win of the season, Ryans would not only be denying one of his closest friends from getting his first win this season, he'd also be denying him from getting his first win as the head coach of the Titans.