Winless Titans aren't that far gone
05:06 PM CDT on Saturday, October 3, 2009
The breaks all went in Tennessee's favor last season as the Titans stormed to a 13-3 record, an AFC South championship and the top seed in the conference playoff bracket.
The Titans won games on the road. They won them in overtime. They won games with fourth-quarter rallies. They won, won, won.
But all those same breaks are going against Tennessee this season and it's lose, lose, lose – a shocking 0-3 start. Now the Titans will attempt to do what only five teams in history have done: open a season 0-3 and still qualify for the playoffs.
"It's not [about] the division, it's not [about the] playoffs," Tennessee coach Jeff Fisher said. "It's just win a game."
What's frustrating for Fisher is that his team could just as easily be 3-0 as 0-3, which shows you the fickle nature of the NFL.
The Titans lost to the defending Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers on the road in overtime in the season opener, 13-10.
Kicker Rob Bironas had been nearly automatic for the Titans in the past. He converted 29 of 33 his field goal tries last season and ranks as the fifth-most accurate kicker in NFL history. But he shockingly missed two relatively short field goal tries, from 37 and 31 yards, against the Steelers.
Then the Titans fell to Houston in their home opener, 34-31. Quarterback Kerry Collins did a superb job of protecting the football in 2008, committing only eight turnovers on seven interceptions and one fumble. But with the Titans driving in the final two minutes against the Texans, Collins was sacked and fumbled both the ball and the game away near midfield.
The Titans finished up a winless September with a 24-17 road loss to the New York Jets.
Tennessee fielded an elite special teams unit in 2008, finishing second in the NFL. The Titans committed only one turnover all season in the kicking game. But rookie Ryan Mouton fumbled away two punts deep in his own end to the Jets, and New York converted both turnovers into touchdowns. The first recovery in the first-quarter came at the Tennessee 19, the second in the third quarter came at the Titans 23.
But the Titans have experience with slow starts and fast finishes. They started 0-5 in 2006 and finished 8-8. They started 1-4 in 2002 and finished 11-5. Both seasons came with Fisher as the coach.
So there's no panic in 2009. Fisher knows he still has a good team. He also knows the Titans must stop beating themselves with missed field goal attempts and fumbles.
But the schedule is not favorable; after Jacksonville today, the Titans face Indianapolis and New England on consecutive weekends. A 1-5 mark isn't out of the realm of possibility. Neither is 3-3.
Rick Gosselin shares his NFL analysis Wednesdays through Fridays on the NFL blog.
Rick Gosselin is the author of GoodFellows, the story of Detroit's surprisingly successful St. Ambrose football teams of the '50s and '60s.