LANDOVER, Md. – Last week featured tears for Amy Adams Strunk in what’s annually the most important Titans game for her, the one in her Houston backyard.
Did this one matter less to ownership?
Did she react in a similar, emotional fashion to the encore where a hungover (per Jeffery Simmons) team that struggled with the cold (per Jarvis Brownlee) and was down four touchdowns inside 20 minutes, lost 42-19 at what’s now called Northwest Stadium?
The franchise sold the joyous storyline and celebrated ownership for the win. I know it doesn't work in balance, but if she gets a game ball for the one, she should run laps for the next. I call for steadiness and patience, but this one was so bad it can't help but call her hires and her hire’s hires and choices into question.
Look to the home team here to see a franchise that was a laughingstock far worse than the Titans have been that has turned it around in a nice timeframe. Adam Peters bowed out of consideration pretty early when Strunk sought a general manager in 2023. She wound up with another candidate from San Francisco’s front office.
A year later Peters came here. And his roster just made Ran Carthon’s look like a JV.
Washington’s offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury, a reclamation project, had hit a dip. But Dennard Wilson’s sleepy defense provided all kinds of space for receivers to find openings for rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels to throw to them in. And the run game? Well, Simmons' Sept. 18, 2004 pronouncement that nobody runs on the Titans looks ridiculous, as Washington ran 45 times for 267 yards against them.
Brian Robinson Jr rushes for a quick 40 yard TD, his longest of his career.
— brandon (@JayDanielsMVP) December 1, 2024
7-0. pic.twitter.com/CQ7yIRS9hL
The Commanders eased off of Brian Robinson (16 carries for 103 yards) and Chris Rodriguez nearly matched him with 13 for 94.
“We just didn’t play good defense, simple as that, they just had our number,” Jerome Baker said. “We just didn’t execute our job. Penalties, you name it, we just couldn’t stop them. You can imagine it’s a bad feeling.”
“I blame myself,” JC Latham said. “I got a (false start) penalty on the first play. I think that set the tone for us. We were behind the sticks right away. That’s on me. That’s all my fault.”
Brian Callahan’s offense couldn’t keep the ball, managing 12 first downs to Washington’s 29. Tony Pollard lost a fumble at the Titans' 24-yard line and Jha’Quan Jackson lost a fumbled kickoff at his team’s 34.
The whole game shape conspired for the Commanders to hold the ball for 40:13, leaving it for the Titans for just 19:47.
Not a lot of Titans Tough but plenty of Raise Hail.
Bright spot Nick Westbrook-Ikhine caught two touchdowns, his eighth in seven games.
NICK. WESTBROOK. IKHINE. pic.twitter.com/tM9w829KE4
— Bussin' With The Boys (@BussinWTB) December 1, 2024
“It’s not a testament to who we are as a team,” he said of the outcome.
But it is. What the Titans are in Week 13 is what the Titans are. A mess. It's hard to see it as an aberration when they've lost nine now, guaranteeing another losing season. The upset of the Texans was the surprise, the 10-point losses to the Chargers and the Vikings were the rarities. More often against good teams, they get whipped: They’ve lost by sizable margins to the Packers (16), the Bills (24) the Lions (38) and now the Commanders (23).
Simmons didn’t want to say it’s immaturity, probably because he knows it shouldn’t be. The Titans aren’t young and inexperienced. But how else to rationalize his hangover thinking?
“We don’t know how to have success,” he said. “We started off too slow in all phases, top to bottom. That first half wasn’t Titans football, I don’t know what it was. We didn’t come in, it was like we was hungover, we was hungover from success and we didn’t come ready to play. Go down 28-0, it’s going to be hard to win in the National Football League. You have to be better.”
Will Levis wasn’t a huge issue in this game. He didn’t really have a chance to be. He made some throws, missed guys a few times, suffered from some drops and only got sacked twice in a game where he had to drop back 37 times. He was way down on the problem list behind the defense, the two turnovers and the 12 penalties for 93 yards and four first downs.
“We’re not going to let this kick us back down the hill,” Levis said. “We’ve already come so far, we know that.”
Did they? They beat one good team in a division game where things are at their most unpredictable. He’s made progress but I’m not so sure the Titans did a great deal of climbing.
If they did, they wouldn’t have come here and done this.
They could have done much against the Commanders to show those narrower losses to L.A and Minnesota and the surprise win in Houston really meant something.
After that utter failure in Washington, I need a lot more convincing.