What are we to make of the Tennessee Titans’ improved play?
Is it a real, sustainable stride forward that could eventually lead to wins down the road? Or was Sunday’s late loss to the Philadelphia Eagles just more of the fool’s gold the Titans have shown us in early season games the past couple of years?
History would point to the latter. Fans will recall the Titans flashed signs of hope early in each of the last two seasons before showing their true identity as also-rans a few weeks later. Words of hope soon gave way to discussions of high draft picks and who would be fired.
In 2024, it was the infamous Will Levis meme interception that gave the Bears the win in the season opener after the Titans had built a 17-0 halftime lead.
All was looking good in that game in Chicago until a blocked punt in the third quarter shifted momentum. Levis’ throwaway interception was all that will ever be remembered from that game, a 24-17 loss.
But the great first half gave Titans fans a glimmer of hope that the Brian Callahan regime was on the right track and that a rebuilt roster with a second-year quarterback might just be competitive despite almost completely cleaning out the coaching staff and a good part of the roster.
That didn’t happen, as the Titans struggled to a 3-14 record on their way to the first pick in the draft. It led to Levis being benched and GM Ran Carthon being fired at season’s end.
Recalling Ward’s shaky intro
Move ahead to 2025 and a new quarterback, top overall pick Cam Ward. The season opened at Denver against a Broncos defense that would prove to be among the very best in the NFL.
Ward was erratic – as expected – in his first NFL start. But the Titans played well enough to be in position to take the lead in the fourth quarter.
Instead of settling for a go-ahead field goal with nine minutes left, Ward talked Callahan into letting him throw the ball on third down needing 24 yards for a first down.
As seen in the “Quarterbacks” series on Netflix, Callahan told Ward “not to take a sack,” which he directly proceeds to do, knocking the Titans out of field-goal range and killing any chance for an upset.
The big takeaway from that close call was Callahan’s misinterpretation of the catch rule in his postgame news conference. But the overall vibe, once again, was that there was hope.
A better decision by Ward and the coaching staff on the fateful third-down play could have changed the trajectory of the season. An outstanding defensive effort behind a rookie quarterback was encouraging enough for many to think the unit could carry the load.
Alas, such a defensive performance never resurfaced again, and Ward floundered for a good bit of his rookie year. Callahan was fired a few weeks later, and the Titans limped home to another 3-14 finish.
Now, after laying an egg against the New York Jets in the opener, the Titans dared to once again offer a glimmer of hope in front of the thousands of Eagles fans who overtook Nissan Stadium.
It took until the last nine seconds for the heavily favored Eagles to leave with a win. The Titans had actually taken a lead with 1:49 to play, leaving Philadelphia down three points with no timeouts remaining.
Jalen Hurts, who had been intercepted twice by the Titans, methodically moved the Eagles downfield for the winning score.
Once again, the Titans were competitive but not quite good enough to win.
Is improvement an illusion?
The question for the Titans moving forward is whether Sunday’s performance is a sign of real improvement or just another one-off flash like they showed at Chicago and Denver in previous years.
“I leave here with another loss. That’s the only thing that matters. Either you win or you lose. We didn’t win today, but there’s good in it,” said Ward, who played one of his better games in a while despite falling to 3-16 as a starting NFL quarterback.
“There’s also bad in it as well, on both sides of the ball. But it’s another opportunity. It’s still early in the season. We’re trending in the right direction. We just got to make it happen next week, try to get a win against a good team and have to hope that springs us going forward.”
Coach Robert Saleh, still learning about how Titans football works, agreed losing the game was unacceptable, despite progress from the opener to Sunday.
“A loss is a loss,” Saleh said. “We win as a team; we lose as a team. I’m just sick at the way we lost in terms of all of it was right at our fingertips. But like I said, it comes down to execution, and definitely could have called a couple things better.”
Past indicators would say the Titans will revert to struggling ways. It is up to Saleh, his staff and the leaders in the locker room to prove otherwise as they hit the road to face the New York Giants this week.
“Back to the drawing board, I’m ready to get back to work,” defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons said. “We got a road game. New York’s a pretty good football team. It’s like, do we hang our cleats up going into Week 3? We got a long season ahead.”
“So you see the response we got coming out of last week’s game. Need a little more sense of urgency. We came into this week excited for another opportunity. We got another opportunity in Week 3 and that’s going to be my message to the team.
“We’ve just got to get back to the drawing board and fix the little things, especially when the game really matters.”