NFL franchises can’t buy instant gratification through free agency. A struggling Tennessee Titans team full of strangers is a good example why.
I found it revealing, given the circumstances, which players represented the Tennessee Titans during Monday’s news conferences:
Receiver Tyler Boyd and linebacker Ernest Jones IV.
Of the two players willing and available to field questions on a gloomy Monday about how the Titans can start winning games, neither has, in fact, won a game as a Titan.
Boyd wasn’t here last season. Jones wasn’t even here during training camp. Their insights and presence touched on an important aspect of the Titans’ early-season struggles that isn’t getting much discussion, because it sounds too much like an excuse (and the team’s bigwigs, after all, did choose their adventure).
But cohesion and leadership and accountability and culture inside a football team doesn’t just happen.
These are just buzzwords. They matter. They are why the Titans aren’t any good right now and why they may not be any good all season. In fairness, no one should have expected otherwise this quickly.
Because these Titans, for the most part, are still a collection of strangers.
You have a quarterback in Will Levis who’s very much learning on the job. You have a first-time head coach and offensive playcaller in Brian Callahan. He’s learning on the job, too. You have a first-time defensive coordinator in Dennard Wilson and a bunch of new assistant coaches.
And most of the key players are new. Too many Titans, either veterans from this offseason’s spending spree or inexperienced hopefuls like Levis, have been prompted out of necessity to lead without having yet had time to organically earn the faith and trust of the locker room.
Many of the Titans have been through a slump like this in the NFL, but they haven’t been through one together.
“We’ve just got to get on one accord. That’s it,” Boyd told reporters Monday. “And I just think we’ve got to play for one another. I think the relationship and the chemistry isn’t quite there.”
It takes time for a team to bond and for players to grow familiar and respect each other enough to be honest and comfortable demanding more from one another. It also takes time to figure out which players are valuable enough to be able to make demands of others.
And, honestly, who among these Titans is performing well enough right now to do that?
Related: Old NFL Draft blunders continue to haunt Ran Carthon’s new-look Tennessee Titans | Estes
This rebuilt roster has a lot of supporting cast and few proven lead actors. In other words, there aren’t enough dudes on this team.
Dudes are the players that other players talk about and worry about and vote to Pro Bowls and top 100 lists.
Who are dudes for the Titans?
I saw one on the field Sunday: DeAndre Hopkins.
He is 32 years old and on a knee that’s far less than 100%, and he’s still out there making plays others can’t make. That’s a dude. Those are the players who decide games in this league, and they usually aren’t available to be acquired. Teams don’t let them walk, and the longer they stay with one city and franchise, the more attachment and investment they build as franchise figureheads.
The Titans no longer have those players.
They do have some good players (Jeffery Simmons, Calvin Ridley, Harold Landry III, L’Jarius Sneed) who have been dudes before in this league and are being paid that way. But again, Ridley is new. So is Sneed, who barely practiced during training camp. Simmons keeps getting back-breaking penalties. Landry can be hard to spot out there at times.
Individuals need to play better, sure. But it’s more that, collectively, the entire team needs to play better. The “collective” part of that is going to require patience.
That’s why the preferred path to NFL success is not the one the Titans are taking in 2024.
A franchise can’t buy instant success through free agency. This 0-3 start for the Titans should reinforce that point.
Reach Tennessean sports columnist Gentry Estes at gestes@tennessean.com and on the X platform (formerly known as Twitter) @Gentry_Estes.
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Publish date : 2024-09-23 10:28:00
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