Adam Rank has an…interesting take on the Tennessee Titans 2019 season.
It isn’t the first or the last time, but color me shocked to see that someone at the NFL Network has disrespected the Tennessee Titans.
No, I’m not talking about Dan Hanzus and his continuous use of Ti-toons to describe Tennessee or Deion Sanders admitting that he doesn’t know who Kevin Byard is despite Byard being an All Pro in 2017 and leading the NFL in interceptions over the last two years.
This time, it is Adam Rank who tried to gloss over the Titans. I’m not exactly sure what the rules on this are, so instead of embedding the video I am going to link it here (h/t to Brandon Williams for capturing the segment that led me to looking this up).
In that video Rank projects the Titans to finish the season at 3-13.
It is only the tail end of the analysis, but he basically says it is nothing personal to Taylor Lewan and Marcus Mariota but it would be unrealistic for every team to go 13-3. He used the tough schedule as a defense for why the Titans would do so poorly, then condescendingly says at least you will have a good draft pick.
Look, I get it. It is June and no one gets too excited about a team going 7-9 or 9-7, so you try to spice it up and say things you either aren’t informed about or that you think will lead to a reaction.
Still, this one is just outlandish. The Tennessee Titans are one of the best franchises in the NFL over the last three years and that isn’t conjecture, it is just a stone cold fact. If you had to guess, how many teams have had winning seasons every year since 2016?
The answer is six and those six are the: New England Patriots, Pittsburgh Steelers, Tennessee Titans, Kansas City Chiefs, Dallas Cowboys, and Seattle Seahawks.
While they may not have the peak that other teams do, they certainly don’t have the valley either.
When you watch the full clip (if for some reason you actually want to) here are the main issues he has with the Titans:
-He thinks the Jacksonville Jaguars are a playoff team even though they lost their most consistent and potentially most important defensive player along withe key veterans. Not really an issue he has with the Titans, but it is just a dumb thing that he says.
-They have a tough schedule.
…that is it.
He never references specific players except to shield himself from criticism from Taylor Lewan who would call him out for being this ignorant and blurting out Marcus Mariota’s name because that is the only other player he knows.
In fact, for a large part of the nearly two-minute segment that he talks about the schedule he looks uncomfortable and confused like he doesn’t really know what he projected for the Titans or didn’t remember who he had winning specific matchups.
Does he talk about Mariota’s key year or what impact this would have? No. What about the improvements made in the offseason? Nope. Alright, does he bring up a single player or stat about the defense? You guessed it, no.
Honestly, when you watch this video you come away feeling more sad for Adam Rank than mad. Clearly he either rushed to get this together or was told what selections to make and he sprinted through this segment because he was just unprepared.
I didn’t time it, but every team (or nearly every team) in the NFL got more time than the Titans and its just more sloppy than anything.
The biggest takeaway from this isn’t anything that Rank said, it is the fact that you shouldn’t be watching NFL Network or guys like Adam Rank if you want insightful news or analysis of the Titans. If you are looking for sound bites and wild guesses then sure, but at this point Titans fans all know the deal with bigger, national outlets and publications that don’t have specific reporters or contributors for specific teams right?
Take Adam Rank with the world’s smallest grain of salt and move on because I promise I spent more time writing this article than he spent filling out his schedule projections and watching the Titans last year combined.