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Titans Quit In New York

By Randy Sharber

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The Tennessee Titans just quit today in New York.

In what is sure to be the one of the worst performances in Titans history the team announced their plans to quit playing the 2015 season with their play today. They are done. The fans should be done as well. The final score was 30-8.

The Titans lost to a Jet team quarterbacked by Titan castaway Ryan Fitzpatrick. Fitzpatrick must have been kneeling on the Jets sideline thanking God above that he was playing for the Jets instead of this Titans team. He threw three touchdowns on the Titans struggling secondary.

I have maintained all year long that this secondary is one of the top 3 worst defensive backfields in the NFL. I keep having fans send me notes saying I am wrong. They point to statistics showing the Titans defense is rated 8th in total defense. I do not care about statistics.

I just see week after week receivers running open and unchallenged in this secondary. I don’t mean open. I mean wide open. Here is a note for you statistics guys. Receivers are rarely wide open in the NFL. It just does not happen. Unless you play the Titans.

Jets receivers caught passes today without a Titan defender within 5 yards of them on several occasions. On the most comical play of the day, and one that will go down in history as one of the worst defensive plays in NFL history, the Titans secondary did not line up on wide receiver Brandon Marshall at all.

Fitzpatrick looked up to see Marshall waving his hands while still on the line of scrimmage. Fitz stood up and threw the ball to Marshall who ran from New Jersey to New York for a touchdown. The only one that saw what was happening was Jurrell Casey. Casey tried to run the receiver down. That was futile. Michael Griffin got to Marshall late and gave a half a– attempt at pushing him out of bounds. That was futile as well.

The game started with Fitz throwing an errant pass that was a sure interception to Perrish Cox. Cox of course dropped the ball like evidently this secondary is coached to do. A few plays later the Fitzpatrick hit Eric Decker who ran a school yard post into a wide open end zone for the first Jets touchdown.

On the ensuing kick off the Titans got a half hearted return effort from Tre McBride. Mariota faked a hand off on the first play and lofted a beautiful spiral to the sure handed Delanie Walker who was open about 12 yards down field. He dropped it.

I don’t want to say much about Delanie. He is the one professional player on this entire team. But that is what kind of day it was. The Titans went 3 and out the next several possessions. As a matter of fact, the Titans did not even  get into the Jets territory until the third quarter. Imagine an NFL team not being able to cross the 50. That is hard to do.

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Marcus Mariota was horrible. Dorial Green-Beckham dropped a pass that 99% of the drunk fans in the stands could have caught even in their condition. The running backs never got a chance to get going. It was a pathetic outing.

The offensive stats were offensive. Mariota was 21/39 for 274 yards, one interception and no touchdowns. Most of this yardage came in garbage time. The only score of the game came on a 41 yard touchdown throw from running back Antonio Andrews to Marcus Mariota. Looks like Mariota will have to throw the pass and catch it as well in the future.

The running game that the Titans were going to commit to according to head coach Mike Mularkey had 24 yards on just 13 carries. 24 yards. The Titans went away from the Antonio Andrews and David Cobb tandem to give the ball to Dexter McCluster. That plan did not work. It didn’t work for Whisenhunt and it didn’t work for Mularkey.

The Jets have the top run stopping defense in the NFL. So it made sense that it would be tough sledding against them inside. Honestly the Titans offensive line was simply overwhelmed again and the backs had no chance. They also had so many three and outs that they just did not have many chances to run or pass.

As bad as the offense was, the defense was worse. As a fan you can forgive mistakes. You can forgive missed tackles. You can forgive missed assignments. But you can not forgive a lack of effort. That was the case today. Do not take offense if you are a Titan. Do not try and spin it. There was no effort. The closest thing I saw to effort was Casey trying to chase down the wide receiver Marshall.

The defense could be summed up on Fitzpatrick’s second touchdown of the day. He threw a short pass to Bilal Powell over the middle. Powell turned up field and ran through 4 Titan defenders that looked to part like the Red Sea in front of Moses. They did not want to tackle Powell. That summed it up. I am getting upset just writing this when I think about that play.

That is the play that officially introduced the White Flag to go with the white uniforms of the Titans. They quit. It ended the season for this group of so called NFL players, and it ended any hopes of Mike Mularkey returning as coach. I think most people in Nashville were pulling for this guy. Unfortunately the talent level (or lack thereof) and mental make up of this team let him down as well. They quit on him, themselves, and the fans. Sad day. Football has ended for 2015 in Nashville.

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