Somebody's got to win. That's the whole sell. On Sunday afternoon in Nashville, the Houston Texans (0-4) visit the Tennessee Titans (0-4) in what is — officially, per CBS Sports — only the seventh time in the Super Bowl era that two winless-after-four teams have played each other. The winner escapes 0-5 and gets to feel like a football team again. The loser goes 0-5 and starts getting asked about draft position in postgame press conferences. (And yes, technically, they could tie. Nobody wants that, least of all the tie.)
The betting market thinks it knows which one it is. Houston opened around -3 to -3.5 and has been hammered all the way to -7, while the total has collapsed from the low 40s to 37.5 — one of the strongest market moves on the entire Week 5 board. That's the market telling you it believes Houston's 0-4 is a fraud and Tennessee's 0-4 is real. And honestly? It's hard to argue.
Houston: the best 0-4 team in recent memory
Here's the case for the Texans, and it's not close to empty: they've lost four games by a combined 11 points. That's not a bad team. That's a team that's been on the wrong end of four coin flips — and one of those coin flips was last week's 34-30 home loss to Dallas, a game Houston probably should have won.
The reason for optimism showed up in that loss. C.J. Stroud delivered his best performance of the season — 347 yards, two touchdowns — and both scoring passes went to Nico Collins, who returned to the lineup with seven catches for 118 yards. Stroud is averaging over 285 passing yards per game and is one of two quarterbacks in the league with 150-plus attempts and zero interceptions this season, per theScore. Collins practiced fully Friday and carries no game-status designation for Sunday. Stroud's weaponry is missing one name, though: Tank Dell is out with a knee injury.
The Texans have also made a change that says everything about how they're treating 0-4. Head coach DeMeco Ryans has taken over defensive play-calling duties from coordinator Matt Burke — and landed on FOX Sports' updated hot-seat rankings at No. 7 in the process, per Athlon Sports. The defense is the real problem: Houston has forced just three takeaways all season after recording 29 last year, and the pass defense has collapsed from fifth (179 yards per game) to 28th (260), per ESPN Research. That's not a September decision. That's a "we're not wasting this season" decision. And there's precedent for the turnaround: the exact same two teams met winless in Week 4 of last season in Houston, both 0-3 — the Texans won, shook off the sluggish start, and finished 12-5 with a trip to the divisional round, while the Titans finished 3-14 and drafted fourth overall. They've won three straight in this rivalry and six of the last seven, including a 16-13 win in Nashville last November. The all-time series sits at 24-24. Houston can break the tie on Sunday.
Tennessee: the offense is the whole problem
Now the other side. The Titans are next-to-last in the NFL in scoring at 13.8 points per game and dead last in total offense at 261.3 yards per game. They haven't topped 20 points in a game all season. Last week's 24-18 loss at Baltimore was, perversely, one of their better showings — they trailed 24-7 at the half, got a late touchdown and a two-point conversion, and still fell short.
Cam Ward is the second-year quarterback trying to build something out of this. He was 20-of-31 for 222 yards with a touchdown and an interception against the Ravens, and the scouting report on him right now is uncomfortable dropbacks and a disconnect with offensive coordinator Brian Daboll, as Titans Wire noted this week. The eye test says the Titans look better than their record. The scoreboard says they can't finish. They gave up a last-second touchdown drive to Philadelphia in Week 2, then Ward threw an end-zone interception two weeks ago in a 12-7 loss at the Giants. They've been in position to win their last three games and lost all three.
The dysfunction isn't just on the field. Head coach Robert Saleh — hired in January after his Jets stint, and the fourth man to lead this franchise since the start of the 2023 season — is still searching for his first win in Tennessee. The Titans fired three front-office vice presidents this week amid the 0-4 start, per the New York Post. Tennessee is also tied for the league's longest active regular-season losing streak at six games, per TSN. The No. 1 overall pick in 2025 is 3-18 in 21 NFL starts with 18 touchdowns against nine interceptions.
The bright spot arrived last Sunday: rookie wideout Carnell Tate delivered the best game of his young career with nine catches for 145 yards — though he's listed as questionable for Sunday with a back injury. Safety Amani Hooker is out with a concussion. Tony Pollard (foot) practiced fully Thursday and Friday and is expected to play, and edge man Will Anderson Jr. — tied for third in the NFL with 4.5 sacks — is expected to suit up after a full Friday practice.
But the division numbers are grim. Tennessee has dropped 10 straight division games, dating back to a November 2024 win at Houston, and hasn't won a home game inside the division since spoiling Jacksonville's playoff hopes in the 2023 season finale. Ward wants that to change: "That's one thing that we want to do, own the South," he said this week. You have to win a game first.
What's actually at stake
Let's be real about what 0-4 means. Only the 1992 San Diego Chargers have ever started 0-4 and reached the playoffs, per the Houston Chronicle. So the playoff stakes are, effectively, one team keeping a one-in-a-million dream alive for another week. The real stakes are simpler: the loser is 0-5, staring at a top-five draft pick and a coaching conversation that gets louder every Monday. The winner is 1-4, and in the AFC South — where nobody is running away with anything — 1-4 with a division win is a season you can still talk yourself into.
There's also the tie thing, and we have to mention it because it's funny: the last time the league had two 0-4 teams meet, somebody had to win, and technically that remains true. A tie would be the most 2026 outcome imaginable. But Houston is favored by seven for a reason. Stroud is playing well, Collins is back, and the Texans' four losses have come by a combined 11 points while Tennessee's offense is averaging 13.8 points a game. The Arizona Republic's early pick was Texans 24, Titans 17, with the reasoning that Houston simply has the better offense with Collins back. That's the whole game: can Tennessee's defense hold up for four quarters, and can Ward finally play a clean one?
Kickoff is 1 PM ET on CBS — Spero Dedes, Adam Archuleta and Aditi Kinkhabwala on the call — from Nissan Stadium in Nashville. For the wider Week 5 picture, see our Friday preview, the playoff picture after four weeks, and the NFL hub.