Tennessee Titans have earned the right not to be concerned — even if they should be | Estes
We really should be more concerned about these Tennessee Titans, right?
About an offense that is next-to-last in the NFL? About a pass defense that ranks worst in the league? About a team that has been outscored 71-14 in the second half, hasn’t scored a point yet in the fourth quarter and has been outgained by each of its five opponents?
We are waist-deep in reasons to think the Titans just aren’t very good.
Yet they’ve won three in a row.
Somehow. Barely.
Holding on for dear life at the end.
“I mean, I feel like it’s always been like that,” safety Kevin Byard said. “I’m just used to it.”
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He’s right. Winning ugly has become a franchise tradition of late. And so, once again, the eye test is being overshadowed by the bottom line. While the rest of the league still sits there wondering how the Titans keep winning under Mike Vrabel, that doesn’t change the fact they keep doing it.
Can a team count on nothing but the clutch gene? Maybe so. Because the Titans always seem to find a way, sometimes inexplicably. Often in the face of injuries and adversity and mounting evidence to the contrary.
That, I believe, is why there isn’t more obvious consternation – inside or outside the team – over what we’ve witnessed in the Titans’ first five games. It was more bad football than good, sure, but how much does that matter when you win? Ultimately, you are what your record says.
And as Byard said, we’re all just used to it with the Titans.
But as their weird season has reached late October, I can't shake the feeling that something is about to give, beginning Sunday against the Indianapolis Colts at Nissan Stadium in a crucial AFC South rematch. It looms as a turning point in a Titans season that’s teetering on the brink, just waiting to tip one way or the other.
I can’t tell you why it’s going to fall in a positive direction for these Titans.
I just know that it has before.
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In 2019, they got hot in late October, beating the Chargers on Oct. 20 and the Buccaneers on Oct. 27 to ignite a playoff run with Ryan Tannehill taking over at quarterback.
In 2020, they returned from a COVID outbreak in October to blow out the Bills, 42-16.
In 2021, nearly a year ago to the day of Sunday’s Colts game, the Titans whipped the Chiefs 27-3. It was a stunning shot from a team that would go on to earn the AFC’s No. 1 seed.
The past doesn’t guarantee anything, but if you’d judge these Titans as incapable of such a stirring October surprise, you’d have probably said the same about those Titans teams, too, until it happened.
Until Tannehill changed everything in 2019. Until the defense vastly improved in 2021.
Until Derrick Henry became Derrick Henry, stiff-arming the Bills in 2020 and taking over all these games in the fourth quarter. Which is what Henry and the Titans do – at least until this season.
"Eventually, it'll happen,” Henry said this week. “We've got the guys that can make it happen. We've just got to be better. … I’m not concerned at all. It’s a long season.”
Such calm. Such confidence. They’ve come by it honestly.
The Titans really have earned the right to not be more concerned.
Even if they really should be.
Reach Tennessean sports columnist Gentry Estes at gestes@tennessean.com and on Twitter @Gentry_Estes.