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Why Your Team Sucks

Why Your Team Sucks 2021: Tennessee Titans

1:55 PM EDT on August 26, 2021

TAMPA, FLORIDA - AUGUST 21: Head coach Mike Vrabel of the Tennessee Titans looks on during a preseason game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Raymond James Stadium on August 21, 2021 in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)
Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images

Some people are fans of the Tennessee Titans. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Tennessee Titans. This 2021 Defector NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.

Your team: Tennessee Titans.

Your 2020 record: 11-5, and you gotta hand it to the Titans for the way they bravely battled adversity after giving themselves COVID 600 times over and holding secret maskless practices to get even more COVID pumping through them. THEY HATE US ‘CAUSE THEY AIN’T COVID POSITIVE LIKE US!

The guy in that video? He once threatened to rape a rape victim. He’s the hero Nashville deserves.

On the field, the Titans now exist to put a legitimate scare into other, better playoff teams. And they’re very good at it, right up until the moment they have to close the deal. LET’S GO TO THE RECEIPTS.

The Titans had a 10-0 lead in that game. They also had a 10-0 lead in the AFC title game the year prior. You’ll never guess how both games ended. I’d tell you the Titans would learn from all this, but you’ve already met Taylor Lewan. These guys wouldn’t know karma if it jumped out of a fucking cake at a bachelor party.

Your coach: Mike Vrabel, who just got COVID in solidarity with his squad of human dingleberries. Hey, shithead! Why’d ya punt there, shithead?

"Thought we were playing well defensively, thought we would get a punt inside the 10 and you know, try to play the field position game. Had some time there that I felt like we could."

OOOH THE FIELD POSITION GAME! That’s where we kick the ball around and then don’t do anything! That’s my favorite game to play with the fam every Thanksgiving! I’d like to interview 100 anonymous NFL players and ask them if they support playing the field position game. Do YOU like it when your coach plays the field position game? Does your cock get big and hard when your punter’s coffin corner kick goes out of bounds two yards deep into the end zone for a touchback? Do you have fond memories of other great field position games in Titans history? Or … and hear me out on this … do you prefer it when your team actively tries to fucking win?

Do they have a Guy on the coaching staff? Vrabel himself is a Guy, but let’s give a round of applause to current defensive assistant Kenechi Udeze, who was drafted in the first round by the Vikings 17 years ago and then retired four years later after being diagnosed with leukemia. Bust.

Your quarterback: Ryan Tannehill, who ALSO just got COVID. It's like this team saw Lamar Jackson hog all the COVID and decided they wouldn't stand for it. Tannehill gets better every year but never better enough to scare anyone. This is the second-least dangerous quarterback in football after Kirk Cousins. That’s the reason why, as long as Tannehill is under center here, the Titans offense will be “run Derrick Henry 37 times a game and hope we hit a few deep play-action passes somewhere in there.” This is a canny strategy for 18 weeks, until you inevitably find yourself playing a team that knows how to defend that strategy capably. Derrick Henry isn’t made of fucking Kevlar. Sometimes you actually have to have a standalone passing offense. And that’s when your 10-0 lead suddenly dies.

Your backup is Logan Woodside. Sounds like the name of a country club.

What’s new that sucks: You might think to yourself that trading for Julio Jones means that the Titans are now ready to take the proverbial next step. And then you look at the defense. This was the fifth-worst defense in football last season, and it’s SIGNIFICANTLY worse now that Jadeveon Clowney and three-fourths of the starting secondary are gone. This team couldn’t stop a VHS tape.

Isaiah Wilson was such an awful draft pick that the Titans traded him to Miami for a bag of clamshells.

What has always sucked: Enough about the team. Let’s talk about Tennessee proper.

Welcome to America’s official safe space for people determined to kill themselves, and their families, to own the libs.

Fuck all these people with a scalpel. And super ultra fuck Nashville, the worst city in this state. Everyone who lives in Nashville moved there because they want to be able to get fancy coffee and restaurant meals while living in Leonardo DiCaprio's house from Django Unchained. The bars, including Kid Rock's All-American Fuck Your Feelings Grille, are shit. The music is worse. The Titans are a perfect match for Tennessee in every regard. I hope the entire state dies in an unmarked grave.

The food is overrated. The stadium here is too shitty to even be CONSIDERED overrated. I never liked Dolly Parton, and if my editor strikes this sentence I'll force THEM to move to Tennessee. Jason Aldean can get fucked with an F-150 Super Duty. Julio will get injured. Fuck Marsha Blackburn with a Taylor Swift album sleeve.

Ratto says: Mike Vrabel is to genital mutilation to celebrate a Super Bowl as Joe Thornton is to masturbating to celebrate a four-goal game. A lot of people are expecting a lot from Vrabel this year, and if they get it, they will be incredibly offended. That's the American fan experience right there. But he will be on eternal scholarship for making Bill Belichick's brain melt, thus showing what it really means to be a student of the game. BEST NAME TO HEAR ON TV: Racey McMath.

What might not suck: I have nothing nice to say. Wolf Blitzer isn’t here to moderate this post, so tough titty for you.

HEAR IT FROM TITANS FANS!

Kennedy:

Nashville is the Instagram of Towns. This city is useless except for bachelorette parties and contracting the Delta variant.

Nigel:

The only franchise in the league with two players to rush for 2,000 yards in a single season and the only thing truly memorable about them is a Super Bowl they lost by one yard.

Xiam:

The Titans traded for the greatest receiver of his generation and he immediately got sued for stealing from a weed company. Back in the day our star players used to just get murdered or almost murdered.

Olivier:

The Titans finally have a world-class, well-rounded offense, but it won't matter because the defense is going to piss it all away. Good thing we have an actual DC this year and not just, "what if Mike Vrabel did both jobs?" I can't wait for Kyler Murray, Russell Wilson, and Carson fucking Wentz to hang 400+ passing yards each on us the first three weeks.

Taylor:

This team has been to one Super Bowl and that was in their first season. The owner is a faildaughter. Our best quarterback in franchise history is either Ryan Tannehill or a guy killed by his jealous lover. Julio Jones is gonna remind fans of Carl Pickens and Randy Moss when they played for us.

Ilissa:

I want to be excited about Julio Jones but this is the same team that signed Randy Moss only to never use him, so I can’t shake the feeling we will somehow screw this up too.

Ned:

Every sports talk host in the Bachelorette party capital of the world is going to say he's too cocky.

Mike:

Nashville is a sentient Covid-19 virus with cowboy boots that alternatively screams woo and the n-word.We nabbed Julio just as his Achilles transitioned to crab meat.Our coach is a ex-Patriot lunkhead who will lose us two games because he wants to “establish the run” while losing by 10.The stadium is probably the worst in the NFL. T-Rac is a very dumb mascot. 9-8.

Hunter:

Our GM: Jon Robinson, seen here mismanaging both a basic understanding of neckties and proper hair gel usage. Robinson is a good ole boy mouth breather from COVIDtopia, East Tennessee who worked his way up through the ranks in New England and then Tampa Bay to start yet another Patriots annexation site. Since arriving in Nashville, he has presided over teams that have gone 9-7, 9-7, 9-7, 9-7, and 11-5 (quite the outlier). Jeff Fisher, himself a former paragon of consistency, would start the next pandemic to kill millions to be able to hit that level of barely-winning mediocrity. His only moments of genius were trading nothing for a broken Ryan Tannehill and taking essentially a flier on the type of running back the NFL had left behind over a decade before.

I have given the man too much credit. Now for the criticism.

Tannehill and Henry turned out to be world beaters. All we needed to actually threaten for the Super Bowl was a great defense. And yet Robinson spent high draft picks on the likes of Kevin Dodd, Adoree Jackson, Rashaan Evans, Harold Landry, and Kristian Fulton, who are either no longer with the team or are severely underperforming and are certain to not be re-signed. Not to mention great choices like Isaiah Wilson, woman beaters Jeffery Simmons and Rashad Weaver, and Luke Falk. Did you know that Robinson has not signed a single first round draft pick of his to a second contract?.

Taylor Lewan will get COVID at a Barstool anti-vaxx convention and cause us to miss a game altogether) Julio Jones is two years too late to the party.

In Jon We Trust, my ass. 

P.S. Please don't come to Nashville. We are overcrowded as it is and the state government is actively trying to turn Tennessee into the Republic of Gilead. Dolly Parton/Jason Isbell 2024!

Brett:

I already understood the implications of being a fan of a team from Tennessee, but between the COVID outbreak last year and the continuing Barstoolification of the Titans, it's getting tougher and tougher to want to associate with them. The fans on Twitter are toxic as hell, getting unreasonably angry at any perceived slight from a media member. They're also constantly arguing about who the "real" fans are even though if the Titans had any real fans, maybe Nissan Stadium wouldn't be the oasis it is for opposing teams.

Watching the team last year was equal parts lovely and horrifying. The offense was incredibly fun and I wanted to gouge my eyes out any time the defense was on the field. Opponents routinely converted 3rd & 14s against a soft as tissue secondary, and the team tied a record for the fewest sacks from a team that made the playoffs. The big offseason signings of Vic Beasley and Jadeveon Clowney resulted in exactly zero sacks and approximately six games played. What did Mike Vrabel do to fix the defense? Took no responsibility himself for running the defense and then promoted the guy who he claimed was running the defense to defensive coordinator. The success of the defense this year relies on a first time DC, a hopefully not injured Bud Dupree, and a bunch of rookies in the secondary. Can't wait.

Derrick Henry is fun as hell tho.

Rob:

I love this roster. I really do. But our coaching stinks. The defense got better on paper but they're gonna suck just as much as every other year Vrabel has been head coach, because he's a leader of men and nothing else. His schemes suck, he refused to have a defensive coordinator for two years in a row, and then after people caught on that his defense couldn't stop a wet fart, he "promoted" the linebackers coach to DC. Problem is that Shane Bowen was already calling plays on that side of the ball, so this is going to be the same shitty defense under a different name. Kyler Murray will rush for 150 yards and throw five touchdowns Week 1 and Vrabel will be squatting on the sideline, lips pursed, watching his team collapse like an overweight Ukrainian rapper. All he needs is a baby blue tracksuit.

Submissions for the Defector NFL previews are closed. Next up: Seattle Seahawks.

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