If I have been penning this column with the intention of drawing as many click-views to our New York Put up web site, I wouldn’t be writing in regards to the Tennessee Titans.
The Titans don’t have a Q score as a lot as they've an “Ew” score.
Elevate your hand when you’re a Titans fan who’s not from Tennessee.
Elevate your hand when you imagine the Titans are a Tremendous Bowl staff.
When you raised your hand for both, you’re not within the majority.
Disrespected. Disregarded.
The Titans would possibly as nicely put on patches on their jerseys with these two phrases on them to remind themselves how they’re considered nationally as they play the Bengals in Saturday’s AFC divisional playoff sport in Nashville.
These phrases — or a few of related ilk — certainly have been scribbled on a whiteboard someplace within the staff’s coaching facility this week.
These phrases, too, will nearly actually be a theme to go coach Mike Vrabel’s motivational speeches to his gamers main as much as kickoff.
That is what an ESPN headline blared on its web site this week: “Are the Titans the NFL’s worst No. 1 seed since 1983?’’
Many NFL followers don’t imagine the Titans — 12-5 and winners of the AFC South — will get previous the Bengals, who're 11-7 and darlings of the league after ending a 31-year drought with no playoff victory with final week’s wild-card win over the Raiders.
The Titans are mere 3 ½-point betting favorites. With the house staff normally recognizing three factors for home-field benefit, which means the bookies imagine Tennessee is a mere half-point higher than Cincinnati.
Many extra followers of the league have little curiosity in seeing the Titans advance as a result of they’re perceived because the least attractive of the eight groups remaining within the match — significantly on the place that issues most: quarterback.
The irony to the widespread disrespect for the Titans is that they in all probability warrant extra respect than any of the groups nonetheless alive in these playoffs.
The Titans set an NFL document through the use of 91 totally different gamers on their lively roster because of being so ravaged with accidents and COVID-19 circumstances. And these weren’t a bunch of accidents to innocuous position gamers.
The Titans misplaced probably the most dominant operating again within the NFL when Derrick Henry suffered a fractured foot in Week 8. And but, they not solely carried on with out him, they continued to thrive offensively — significantly on the bottom.
The Titans with Henry for eight video games ran for 1,181 yards, a median of 147.6 yards per sport, and had 11 speeding TDs. Within the 9 video games with out him, they ran for 1,223 yards, a median of 135.9 yards per sport, and 14 TDs.
Henry, who rushed for 937 yards and 11 TDs earlier than he was injured, is trending towards being activated for Saturday’s sport.
Different key gamers injured in the course of the season included main receiver A.J. Brown for 4 video games, receiver Julio Jones for seven video games and Taylor Lewan, their greatest deal with, for 4 video games.
So, disrespect the Titans at your individual peril. They run the ball about in addition to anybody within the NFL and play stout protection, permitting the sixth-fewest factors within the league this season. These are alleged to be cornerstones to success within the NFL.
Certain, Titans quarterback Ryan Tannehill seems to be like he doesn’t belong among the many star energy he’s up in opposition to in these playoffs. And, at 33, he’s the oldest of the remaining AFC quarterbacks by seven years.
The opposite three quarterbacks within the AFC are: Kansas Metropolis’s Patrick Mahomes, who’s gained a league MVP and been to the previous two Tremendous Bowls, successful certainly one of them; Buffalo’s Josh Allen, who’s constructed himself right into a perennial MVP candidate; and Joe Burrow, the Bengals’ brash second-year star who’s pushing himself into the dialog as among the best within the league.
The NFC provides Tampa Bay’s Tom Brady (seven Tremendous Bowl rings), Inexperienced Bay’s Aaron Rodgers (three league MVP awards), San Francisco’s Jimmy Garoppolo, who’s been to 1 Tremendous Bowl, and the Rams’ Matthew Stafford, who lastly has a robust staff round him after toiling in Detroit.
Making Tannehill appear to be even much less of an element are his numbers this season, that are down from what he produced in 2020, when he threw 33 TD passes. Tannehill has thrown solely 21 TDs and has 14 INTs this season, averaging 219.6 passing yards per sport.
“It could be good to get acknowledged, however I’m not nervous about it,” stated Tannehill, who’s 30-15 because the Titans starter. “On the finish of the day, I play to win video games.”
Brown issued this warning in regards to the Titans’ unheralded quarterback: “He’s not within the top-10 speak, or no matter speak, which to me, it’s nonsense. Anyone who’s sleeping on him, it’s nonsense.”
That may be stated about this complete Titans staff regardless of its state of disrespect and disrespect.
Don’t sleep on them.
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