INDIANAPOLIS – Your gifts, if not wrapped, are mostly bought.
I can’t imagine any of them are Titans jerseys or garb, and tickets to the season finale in a couple of weeks against the Texans are more punishment than present.
This team is as unpopular as it’s ever been since the 1999 rebranding and it’s earned that in every way imaginable. Sunday, it had a bad team placed on the schedule, and rather than rising to the occasion and showing life, the Titans gave us a dud comparable to any of the season in a miserable season, a 38-30 loss that puts them at 3-12.

Hurry up and get it over with boys.
Those of us making the case for continuity in the front office and at the coach are losing hold on our arguments. What can they sell?
The locker room contained some guys finding ways to say “not me.” The “star” rookie defensive tackle urged one reporter to look at the tape as if it would lend some better, mystical understanding of what unfolded as the Titans gave up the most rushing yards in a game since Oct. 1, 1961 and the most ever for the Colts Oct. 28, 1956, per ESPN Stats and Info. Um, no, T’Vondre Sweat. We saw all 50 carries for 335 yards. There is nothing about the tape that softens it.
#Colts TE Mo Alie-Cox: “It’s hilarious because we went out there and they were like, ‘Oh, it’s a screen!’ And then one of the DEs was like, ‘Man, they’re about to give it to Jonathan Taylor. He ‘bout to run for 300 on us.’ … Once he said that, I was like, ‘Yeah, we got ‘em.’” 😂
— James Boyd (@RomeovilleKid) December 22, 2024
Defenders told us that a gap scheme like the one Washington used for 267 ground yards in Week 234 got them again. No, it’s not all on the defensive line, but could Jeffery Simmons be any faster to announce it?
Said Arden Key: “We didn’t adjust, we just couldn’t adjust.
Did you know what to do to adjust? Were you told what to do to adjust and fail to do it? Were you not capable of doing it?
“We just didn’t adjust. We just didn’t adjust as a defense.”
Why not?
“I don’t know. I don’t know why not. That’s a coaches’ question. I don’t know why not.”
Too much was made of the Q&A about the Titans' physicality and toughness last week, but that’s what happens with a video clip of a coach raising his voice and swearing in defense of his team. Brian Callahan backed his guys, and they didn’t return the favor, getting gashed.
“That’s a super-disappointing performance, really not at all what I think we’ve shown over the course of the year,” he said. “Didn’t get off blocks, didn’t win the line of scrimmage, didn’t tackle in space. And then the speed of Jonathan Taylor showed up and we couldn’t get him on the ground. He had two extremely large runs and the quarterback had the other. Sometimes that’s all you need to have a day like that. Two 70-yard runs puts you in a pretty rare category to begin with.
“So not good enough. Got to be able to able to get the ball carrier on the ground, got to be able to shoot gaps better than we did.”
Taylor had the TD runs of 70 and 65 yards and Anthony Richardson ran for 29. That’s 164 alone, two-and-a-half times more than the Titans (22 for 65).
Here is the 65-yarder from Taylor. Watch Simmons’ angle.
65 yards in a flash. 💨#ProBowlVote x @JayT23
— Indianapolis Colts (@Colts) December 22, 2024
📺 CBS
pic.twitter.com/neNjcAmK6w
“We’ve got to be where we are supposed to be,” Simmons said. “Stopping the run is not hard. You look at a game and you see 300 rushing yards or however many they had, it’s like ‘Dang, the D-line’s getting beat. But like I said it takes all 11 to stop the run. They were doing a lot of pulling, getting guys on the edges, now it’s like we’ve got DBs trying to set the edges. So they had a good plan, props to them for trying to get on the edges of our defense. …I feel like we just weren’t fitting right.”
The line is well blocked here, but both James Williams and Daryl Worley had a chance to take smarter angles earlier.
65-yard touchdown ☑️
— Indianapolis Colts (@Colts) December 22, 2024
70-yard touchdown ☑️#ProBowlVote x @JayT23
📺 CBS pic.twitter.com/4rkXg1XN6r
This play linked here fits with what Simmons was saying, but I don’t feel like it represents the majority of the Colts’ rushing.
When the Titans have shown a bit of an identity, it’s been that they have run and slowed the run. Not against the Colts, who came into the game averaging 121 rushing yards, 13th in the NFL and allowing 142 (30th).
“It seems like we live and die with little mistakes,” Peter Skoronski said. “Sort of one thing kills us, takes forever to get out of it. I think we’ve just got to mature individually and as a group to kind of push through things that go wrong and keep going but it seems like every little thing that happens, it turns into a mudslide.”
This echoes a quote from Skoronski back on Oct. 23 when he spoke of the team’s failure to respond well when it reaches an inflection point.
That things are the same two months apart doesn’t bode well for Callahan, as his two buzzwords from the start of his time as Titans coach have been “relentless” and “resilient” and his left guard’s feelings frame a team that’s got little of those as it turns toward Week 17.
So why should a fan of this team stay invested, but a ticket to the finale in two weeks?
"Got to honest with you, it hasn’t been nothing to see,” Key said, shaking his head. “I don’t know what it’s going to take. A prayer? Yeah, prayer. A whole lot of prayer. Pray for us. Lord help me.
Endure it together?
"I mean that’s what a fan is, man," he said. "You’re here with us on the ups and the downs. That’s a true fan.”