Collins rallies Titans into playoffs

INDIANAPOLIS – Kerry Collins waited all season to prove his value in Tennessee. The Titans wouldn’t have been celebrating Sunday night without him.

Collins rescued his teammates in the most precarious circumstances, leading them to three straight second-half field goals in relief of injured Vince Young and helping Tennessee rally for a 16-10 win at Indianapolis that drew cheers from Nashville and moans from Cleveland.

“Now that I’m older and have been around for a while, I appreciate these things more,” said Collins, who turned 35 Sunday. “I told the younger guys to savor it.”

The final piece of the AFC playoff picture came down to the final game on the final weekend of the regular season. Tennessee had to win to make the postseason for the first time since 2003, while an Indy win would have sent the Browns to the playoffs for the first time since 2002.

Inside the RCA Dome, you could almost hear the groans coming from the shores of Lake Erie when Peyton Manning traded his helmet for a headset early in the second quarter. To the Browns’ chagrin, that was how the Colts chose to play.

While Tennessee welcomed the transition from Manning to Jim Sorgi, the Titans were forced into making one of their own when Young flopped down midway through the third quarter with an apparent right quadriceps injury.

Enter Collins, who had thrown 69 passes all season and had barely moved off the sideline since Oct. 21.

He finished the drive Young started by setting up Rob Bironas for a 40-yard field goal to tie the score, then led the Titans on a 58-yard scoring march that gave Bironas a 54-yard attempt. Bironas, who had beaten Indy last December in Nashville with a 60-yarder, curled the kick perfectly inside the right goal post to give Tennessee a 13-10 lead and then sealed it with a 33-yard field goal with 2:56 to go.

Coach Jeff Fisher said he would wait until midweek to decide which quarterback plays next Sunday at San Diego.

While Colts coach Tony Dungy treated the game as a playoff tuneup, he expected more.

“It was disappointing in a lot of ways,” Dungy said. “We really wanted to get that 14th win. We got a lot of things done, we just didn’t quite get the score the way we wanted it.”

The game plan was simply to let the offense get a little work, the defense to show it could hold up against a mobile quarterback like Young, and a few players to hit personal milestones.

It didn’t take long to accomplish all three.

Manning entered the game needing 55 yards to extend his NFL record for most 4,000-yard seasons to eight. He did that in one series.

Pro Bowl receiver Reggie Wayne needed eight catches to become the second player in franchise history with 100 receptions in a season. It took two series to reach that mark. And Wayne left on the third series after netting the 71 yards receiving he needed to pass Randy Moss for the league title.

Manning was 14 of 16 for 95 yards. Wayne caught 12 passes for 87 yards, giving him 104 receptions and a league-high 1,510 yards on the season.