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Maybe: The story of the 2018 Tennessee Titans (gloves off for this one, boys)


deeluxx3

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What’s there to even say? I’ve re-written the beginning to this article four times, with a tone about as consistent as the team I’m writing about.

Maybe we shouldn’t expect this team to compete every Sunday and string together strong performances. Maybe we don’t have the talent, leadership or maturity to prepare ourselves to dominate on Sundays week in and week out. Maybe we can’t manage the highs and lows of a season, keeping a steady heartbeat throughout the 16-week marathon. Maybe we won’t learn from our mistakes and take the next step as a franchise.

Maybe Vrabel & Co. are going to need a lot more time to figure things out and won’t right the ship as quickly as we’ve seen from Doug Pederson, Sean McVay and, at least for the past month, Frank Reich. Maybe the young core of the team – the Mariotas, Byards, Davises, Jacksons, Conklins and the Browns – need to get burned over and over again to learn their lessons about playing consistently at a high level (in Jackson’s case, not just by T.Y. Hilton). Maybe Mariota is really quarterback purgatory, and maybe it’s silly to think that injuries won’t plague his entire career just like his roller coaster play.

And maybe this is all o.k., because maybe that’s just who the team is. Maybe they’ll look great and win. Or maybe they’ll lay an egg the size of Baltimore or Indianapolis. Maybe they’ll make the playoffs. Or maybe they’ll shoot themselves in the foot before they can even get close.

So maybe, as fans, we have to manage our expectations. Just don’t ask me how. It’s natural to get excited about a team, especially once they dominate the New England Patriots the way the Titans did last week. It’s also natural for all of that excitement to be immediately replaced by apathy after getting throttled by a division rival.

Perhaps the toughest inconsistency pill to swallow, though, is that this new coaching brass was supposed to eradicate it. Mike Mularkey got this team to believe in itself again and notched a few impressive victories while he was here, all to have them neutralized by bad losses at the wrong time. Vrabel & Co. seemed like the perfect vaccine: a 21st Century staff comprised of ‘player coaches’ brought in to breath life into team of a talented, but underutilized weapons. But really, it’s more of the same. Matt LeFleur is Terry Robiskie with hair, and Mike Vrabel is being asked “how did this happen?” at the same rate as Mularkey.

But really…how does this happen? How does an offense hitting its stride revert back to its quicksand-like play against a defense they should feast on? How does the #1 ranked defense in the league completely lie down when playing a quarterback that’s not only undefeated against them, but dangling a “I haven’t been sacked in 4 games” carrot in front of their faces? Do you blame the coaches? I think that’s a cop out and a broken record. Do you blame the players? After seeing their performances against Buffalo, Baltimore and now Indianapolis, I don’t think it’s unfair to say that it’s a group that lacks maturity and professionalism. The most successful, winning franchises in the NFL do not play three games a year the way we have through 10, and that’s largely in part of the fact that they do not employ players who would let that happen.

So maybe 2018 will be our “lessons learned” year. Maybe it’ll be the season where we fleetingly flash the team we could be, but ultimately turn back into the pumpkin we are. Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised if we beat Houston next Monday night. But maybe the clock will strike midnight on this team once again.

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I agree. 

This team isn't much better than an. 500 team. 

There isn't a magic pill to cure that inconsistency. 

We hoped a new coach and system was the pill. Yet we still find ways to go back to the style of offense that we hated for 20 years. 

We got an new QB and still plagued by an offense that has failed to find the success the league has set up for it to have. 

We have a new GM but still find we can't find ways to find playmakers that are consistent game changers. We find good players that can't carry the load we ask them to hold. 

Local radio said it best this morning. When our "best* players or star players don't come to play or become invisible like they were in Indy, we have no chance. 

Teams like we saw last night have players that come to play every week as well as coaches that always seem to have an answer. So they see success consistently. 

We need an elite star. Not just a good player that is someone that is counted on week in and week out. And if they have a bad game it isn't the norm. 

Same for coaches. We need to believe they will consistently be able to find a plan to put our players in the right place as well as have them prepared. 

Our expectations are all over the place. We think too little and then too much. 

They are a team that will float around .500. Maybe we will make a playoff push every other year. But until we find the players/scheme/coaches that eliminates the franchise long problems. 

We will be like the rest of the middle of pack teams. 

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It's a group effort honestly. I don't see how you could point it to just one thing. How the season's gone is a microcosm of our franchise as whole - 3 win streak. 3 loss streak. 2 win streak. And if we lose to Houston, another 2 loss streak.

Robinson has been inconsistent with the players he's brought in. Vrabel and LaFleur have been inconsistent with their gameplans/playcalling. Our signal caller has been inconsistent, whether that be because of his play or health. The players as a whole have been inconsistent. They said they came together on the bye week and reflected on what type of team they wanted to be. They then blow out the Patriots. But alas, they follow it up by getting blown out by the Colts and they're exposed as frauds. One week the offense looks good (Philly, LA, Dallas, New England) and the next it looks inept (Buffalo, Baltimore, Indianapolis). The defense plays great all game, but then gives up a couple massive plays, or (and I know this has only happened once so far but it still speaks to the overarching problem of our franchise) allows a rookie to lead a game winning drive, or now gets blown out after turning the GOAT in to a JAG the week prior.

It's literally everybody's fault. Lewan's been inconsistent since he's been paid. One week I see Spain playing really well and the next week he's Chance Warmack. Conklin hasn't been himself. Our back up tackle has been our most consistent lineman. Half the season our receivers can't catch, now they're catching just about anything. Marcus can't stay healthy and isn't consistently good whether you want to chalk that up to injury, learning another new system, or him just not being good - it doesn't matter, he isn't consistent. Adoree looks like a shutdown corner, then get's turned in to a pumpkin Andy Dalton Blidi Wreh-Wilson style. I would mention the pass rush, but there isn't any. I could keep going but it's obvious the players are not good players week in and week out. Blame the coaches for the bad game planning, or not putting the players in good positions, or whatever you want, but at the same time the coaches don't play. It's up to the players to go out there and make plays week in and week out and they are incapable of doing so. It's both of their faults.

Up until last week the defense was the one thing we could count on to be consistent, but after last week there's no way in hell any of us should count on that anymore. The only hope we have left is that last weeks defensive debacle had more to do with Pees being hospitalized than our defense becoming an inconsistent unit like our offense.

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15 minutes ago, deeluxx3 said:

I really don't understand how stuff like the Indy game happens, though. How the HELL do you destroy NE and then get destroyed by Indy the same way? 

 

who even takes the brunt of that blame?

Gotta be Vrabel but there is PLENTY of blame to go around.

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13 minutes ago, -Hope- said:

this has been the titans MO since looooong before vrabel

And as HC it’s his job to fix it. Unlike previous rosters that had bad FA’s and draft picks added to it, Robinson added the necessary pieces to elevate us from bottom feeders to a team capable of having back to back winning seasons, a playoff appearance, and a playoff victory that is also inconsistent. The brunt of the blame falls on Vrabel if he doesn’t keep us on the +.500 playoff bound track while also ridding the team of it’s inconsistencies. That’s my belief anyways.

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The biggest thing that kills me about our inconsistencies is not even necessarily the losses themselves as weird as that sounds, but the way that we always lose these games. We always end up getting completely blown out, showing no fire, and no real effort. When we lose games we play like an absolute bottom feeding team and not like a team that's right in the thick of a playoff race.  If we had came out and lost to Indy or Baltimore but played a competitive game then fine. It happens. This is the NFL, but getting completely embarrassed by these teams every couple of weeks is the most discouraging part of it all.

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