Christopher Hanewinckel/USA Today Sports
Boclair: Is Path to Playoffs Too Easy?
NASHVILLE – The Tennessee Titans made it look easy Sunday in their 20-0 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars.
But then, what did you expect?
One of the primary storylines last week when players and coaches enjoyed their long-awaited open date was that no NFL team had an easier final five games on the schedule. Tennessee’s includes four AFC teams that are either out of the playoff race altogether or barely hanging on, and one from the NFC that has forced its way back into the postseason picture after a rough start.
Nothing that happened against Jacksonville – the four interceptions, the eight rushing yards allowed, four of the first six offensive possessions that lasted nine plays or more and so on – was reason to think Tennessee won’t breeze to a second straight division title and into the playoffs. Given the caliber of competition to come, five straight wins hardly seems out of the question.
“I think we've kind of got back to our brand of football a little bit,” quarterback Ryan Tannehill said. “Defense did a great job of making plays on the ball, and, obviously, [a] shutout. They did everything good. Offensively we did some good things. Obviously have some things to clean up, but excited to get a win and get rolling in that right direction.”
The fear is that what lies ahead could be too easy.
Teams want to be battle-tested when they reach the postseason. They want to feel like they already have faced – and conquered – the kind of challenges that will arise when every mistake is magnified, and every snap feels like it could be the one that decides the contest.
Tennessee, now 9-4, accomplished plenty of that during the first 10 weeks of this season, including a run of six straight victories over 2020 playoff participants. Then came the stunning loss to the Houston Texans and a lopsided defeat to the New England Patriots that sent them into their off week.
In a way, it feels like the bye sent them back to square one. So, is it enough to just win most – or all – of their remaining contests? Or do they need to be pushed to the brink to get back to playing their best?
Of course, winning is the most important thing. It is the primary measuring stick for everything in sports. It makes practice and meeting time more enjoyable. It makes rehab and hours in the training room seem much more worthwhile. Most importantly, it provides confidence and instills a sense that each ensuing victory is just a little easier to achieve.
Yet there is no telling whether a triumph over a team like Jacksonville, one that has now lost five in a row and 11 of 13 overall, actually makes you a better team.
In some ways, it felt as if the Titans should have won this one 40-0. They turned four interceptions into just three points and during one stretch punted on five of six possessions rather than put the game out of reach. Jacksonville’s offense never got to the red zone and rushed for eight yards, the fewest in that franchise’s history, but well into the third quarter the difference on the scoreboard was no more than 10 points.
“It is the NFL,” left tackle Taylor Lewan said. “To say that is an inferior team, that is not. (The Jaguars) have talented guys over there. … They scrapped the whole day. There was no quit in them. So, hats off to them.”
OK. Up next is the Pittsburgh Steelers, a team that put up one hell of a fight in a 36-28 loss on Thursday night. It is possible their 21 fourth-quarter points in that contest are evidence that it is going to take everything the Titans have to put them away. It seems equally possible that that was Pittsburgh’s last stand and that a team with an aging quarterback and a star-studded injured reserve list of its own, now at 6-6-1, will just limp to the finish.
Then comes a Thursday night home game against the San Francisco 49ers (7-6), one of the many teams this season that looks like a contender one week and a pretender the next. How excited will that team be to fly two-thirds of the way across the country on a short week to face an opponent they don’t exactly know well?
The schedule concludes with Miami and Houston, two teams that currently rank among the bottom four in the conference standings.
Collectively, it creates little to no concern about whether the Titans will be in the playoffs and at home for their first game.
The primary task, in fact, seems to be for this team to use the time to try to get healthy. Julio Jones returned to the lineup against Jacksonville after three weeks on injured reserve. Bud Dupree potentially could do the same this week, and A.J. Brown the week after that. Then there is the specter of Derrick Henry’s recovery from foot surgery and potential for a triumphant comeback just at a time when it matters most.
Of course, it was not long ago that coaches rested Jones, Dupree, Brown, Henry and others for a vast majority of training camp and the preseason in order to keep them fresh and/or allow them to recover from injuries so that they would be ready to go at the start of the regular season.
Then the Titans were whipped 38-13 by the Arizona Cardinals in the opener. They came back from that one just fine. But a similar start to the playoffs will be the end.
