Some people are fans of the Tennessee Titans. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Tennessee Titans. This 2014 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group.
Your team: Tennessee Titans
Your 2013 record: 7-9. Quick! Remember something that happened in a Titans game last year!
(Scanning … scanning … scanning …)
Nope. I have nothing. This team is football wallpaper.
Your coach: Ken Whisenhunt. Yes, it was the Titans who won themselves the Great Whiz Sweepstakes of '014. Sorry, Detroit! You'll just have to make do with Other Stonefaced Retread!
You Titans fans will now get to experience the joy, in real time, of quickly realizing that Ken Whisenhunt is a horrible coach when he doesn't have Kurt Warner around to bail his ass out. In fact, both Whisenhunt and Mike Martz should tithe their career earnings to that man. You can make any coach look like a genius when you're willing to release the ball with your jaw already in the process of being broken by a defensive end.
Whisenhunt is known for acquiring young quarterbacks, picking them up, staring at them, and then putting them back down, confused as to what to do next. Remember Max Hall? Remember when Peter King fell in love with Max Hall? When Peter falls, he falls hard.
Your quarterback: Jake Locker, although saying "Jake Locker will be our quarterback" is hilariously presumptuous. It's like trying to buy a house using future Powerball earnings (the house is also built on a floodplain). Assuming Jake Locker will survive an entire season is a form of blind faith that even Christ himself winces at. You can only get jazzed about the IDEA of Jake Locker playing football. You won't actually get to SEE it. That's crazy talk.
Given that Locker has all the durability of a twice-burnt piece of toast, you'd think the Titans would have gone out and secured a quality backup, or even a challenger for the starting gig, like Josh McCown. The Titans did not do this. Instead, they brought in Clipboard Jesus, possibly the only quarterback who has played LESS football than Jake Locker over the past three years. Kings of Leon here is the Titans insurance policy against going 2-14, which means they are going 2-14.
Behind Charlie Whitehurst is draftee Zach Mettenberger, who had a diluted urine test at the combine. What a coward. DRINK YOUR URINE STRAIGHT LIKE A REAL MAN DOES, BERGER. LSU quarterbacks are fucking awful in the pros.
What's new that sucks: Hey, Bud Adams died! Well played, Titans! I'll miss the old man lumbering around and flipping double birds to random passersby.
Of course, being an NFL owner means you automatically get a series of fawning obituaries when you die. Even if you move your team out of Houston and hoodwink some glorified exurb like Nashville into building you a new stadium by jacking up local property taxes, you still get a death notice usually reserved for heads of state. THIS MAN WAS A GIANT OF THE GAME. He served on the NFL's ways and means committee! And he was really rich for a really long time! Way to hang around forever, old person! I swear, this is why many people decide to buy an NFL team. You are treated as a man of great historic impact even if you just sit there and fart in a luxury box for five straight decades.
This entire Titans offseason was notable for its losses. Adams is gone. Mike "No Hats!" Munchak is gone. Human suspension generator Kenny Britt is gone. Cornerback Alterraun Verner is gone. And Chris Johnson is finally gone. I assume he walked to New York 2.4 yards at a time. There is nothing football fans love more than the ol' "addition by subtraction" method of building a roster. DURRRR WE GOT RID OF ALL THOSE FAMOUS GUYS NOW WE CAN FINALLY WIN SOME GAMES DURRRR .… Meanwhile, the new starting running back is … Shonn Greene? The one asshole who runs slower than Chris Johnson these days? Jesus.
It gets worse. The most notable wideout is Nate Washington. The team drafted an offensive tackle when it didn't need one. And the defense is still hot garbage. The most notable free agent signings were Shaun Phillips (ancient), Dexter McCluster (standard-issue punt returner who is terrible at everything else), and Michael Oher. I assume all the Nashville soccer moms in attendance will want to bring home a Michael Oher of their own. Look, Lurleen! I got me one of them shy, disadvantaged sports kids!
What has always sucked: This is not a good team. But trust me, that's for the best. You don't want to watch the Titans stumble ass backwards into a 13-3 record and then host a playoff game with Kerry Collins as the starting quarterback. I saw this happen. It was unpleasant. The Titans could win five straight AFC titles and I would still remember them primarily as the team that got an out-of-nowhere reference at the end of Cast Away. God, I haven't seen you in five years and so much has changed since then because I thought you were dead and now everything is so awkward. Did you know they put an NFL team here? How fucking weird is that? As colleague Diana Moskovitz noted, the Titans are the weather of football. It's very easy to forget that this team actually came into existence at one point.
I don't think Nashville citizens care all that much about the Titans anyway. You're talking about a city that makes Dallas look cultured by comparison. This is the lamest city in the South. People move to Nashville either to be poser bluesmen or to blow the local country radio station DJ to get a demo tape played. These people have better things to do than watch a terminally average NFL team. I bet Titans fans are second-class citizens in their own state. Wait a minute … you like PRO footbaw? What the Hell is wrong with yew? Down here we like real sports like college footbaw and NASCAR! Now you git the hell off mah poppity! (fires at Titans fan's feet)
One last thing, from our Kyle Wagner: "If you showed an NFL fan a photo of Vince Young in a Titans uniform, it would take like 10 seconds for their brain to rubber band into realizing that he isn't on the team, even though you know he isn't, because the Titans are just an attention void."
What might not suck: Andrew Luck aside, the rest of the AFC South is the Gobi desert of quarterbacking. The Titans are only gonna get two games out of Jake Locker, and yet that will probably be two more games of competent play at that position than the Texans will get all season.
Hear it from Titans fans!
Vincent:
Our rookie QB Zach Mettenberg recently got sucker punched by two bamboozlin' inbred Bama fans at a local Nashville bar. Pacman Jones would've never let shit like this fly when he was on the team because he'd be the one sucker punching fools.
Jonathan:
I'm just gonna list all the wide receivers and tight ends that Steve McNair had to throw to:
Chris Sanders
Haywood Jeffires
Frank Wycheck
Roderick Lewis
Willie Davis
Derrick Mason
Michael Roan
Yancey Thigpen
Jackie Harris
KEVIN FUCKING DYSON
Erron Kinney
Justin McCareins
Drew Bennett
Brandon Jones
Ben Troupe
The Titans would repay Air McNair for his services by locking him out of their headquarters during the 2006 off-season.
Sully:
Todd:
They are the most boring team this side of Jacksonville. The shitty, third string quarterback from LSU that already has a bum knee gets sucker punched by some redneck Alabama fan (ROLL TIDE) at a bar called Losers. The perfect bar for any Tennessee Titans player to be hanging out at.
The starting quarterback is always hurt, and when he does play, he's great at bounce passing the football to his receivers.
The new owner sucks and makes me wish ole Bud Adams was still alive to give this team the two finger salute it deserves. They will probably go 8-8 or 7-9, draft in the middle of the pack next year and draft another offensive lineman or some shit like that. Hopefully the next one hasn't been arrested before.
Conley:
Zack:
Because our new owner weighs 400lbs [Editor's note: He's right! Looks like someone ate Roger Ailes] and our QB will be done for the year by week 3.
Roy:
Bud died and left his son-in-law Tommy in charge. I don't know anything about Tommy except that instead of firing Mike Munchak, he offered him an extension and raise all in exchange for firing some assistants. Of course, Munchak said no and was therefore fired, making Mike Munchak the Ned Stark of head coaches, honorable but ultimately doomed.
No one even believes anymore that Locker is making it through 5 games, much less 16. When he's on the field, even he doesn't know where the ball is going. I'm waiting for our receivers to file a class-action lawsuit over getting blown up by the guy. I now understand why Kenny Britt liked to get high so much.
In addition, our third-string QB might need counseling now that he's being harassed by every Alabama fan that cobbled together enough cash for a Greyhound bus to Nashville. And of course he'd get suckerpunched at a place called "Losers."
But hey, at least we'll have free WiFi at the games this year so no one in the stands will be watching the team suck anyway.
Lee:
There is currently debate underway whether a 6th-round pick not named Tom Brady is the quarterback of our future. That's pretty neat.
C:
Ilissa:
Upon hearing that he has to go up against J.J. Watt and Jadeveon Clowney twice a year for the next few years, Jake Locker's shoulder preemptively broke and he's out 4-6 weeks.
Matt:
Last year we cut Matt Hasselbeck (who signed with a division rival) and signed Ryan Fitzpatrick. This year, we cut Fitz (who went to the Texans) and signed Charlie Whitehurst. It's as if we are actively seeking to have the worst backup QB in the league. Prediction: Whitehurst will be a Jaguar after this season. The Titans, on the other hand, will sign Curtis Painter.
Last year we signed a washed up running back (Shonn Greene). This year we signed Dexter McCluster.
Last year we fortified our O-line with Chance Warmack and Andy Levitre. This year we signed Michael Oher. He is statistically the worst tackle in the league, if I remember correctly.
Our offensive strategy seems to be to throw as much money as possible at the offensive line, and then plug in an over the hill workhorse running back and a warm body at quarterback and see if together they can somehow move the chains.
Our defense is simply terrible. There is nothing else to say about them. They will account for 3 turnovers all season.
This year is going to be a complete waste of time. We have absolutely ZERO chance of making the playoffs, because no matter how bad the rest of our division is, we always manage to play down to our competition.
My prediction for this season is that Jake Locker gets a season/career ending injury around week 6. I honestly think the Titans have a legitimate shot at the number 1 draft pick next year. I have wasted enough time on this email, although sadly I will waste even more time and continue to watch the Titans play this season.
Jarred:
Fuck Jake Locker's bipolar ankles.
AFC South: Titans | Jaguars | Texans | Colts
NFC South: Falcons | Buccaneers | Panthers | Saints
AFC West: Chargers | Chiefs | Raiders | Broncos
NFC West: Rams |Cardinals | 49ers | Seahawks
AFC North: Steelers | Bengals | Browns | Ravens
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