Tennessee Titans lowest point in 2019 sets up magical 2020 start

Poetic justice for Titans.

Let’s talk about how Tennessee Titans Head Coach Mike Vrabel set the team up for a legendary 2020 season way back in 2019

I don’t know how many of you remember October 13th, 2019. More accurately, I don’t know how many of you want to remember that day.

But as we sit here, mere hours removed from the start of the Titans 2020 season, one filled with Super Bowl dreams that all of a sudden don’t feel quite so out of reach, October 13th, 2019– or Week 6 of the 2019 NFL season, is a day worth revisiting. For three big reasons, including one franchise-altering coaching decision from Mike Vrabel.

Reason Number One: October 13th, 2019 marked the second game in as many seasons that the Tennessee Titans were shut out by a team quarterbacked by Joe Flacco. The first time, back in 2018 while Flacco was still a Raven, was also during Week 6! And happened on the 14th of October.

Meaning that not only were the Tennessee Titans shut out twice within the span of a calendar year, but they were also shut out twice by teams starting Joe Flacco at quarterback.

Is this important? No, not really. But the Football Gods work in mysterious ways, and I can’t stop thinking about how weird that is.

Reason Number Two: October 13th, 2019 was a low point for that year’s Tennessee Titans offense– but “low” might be underselling it, as all the worst parts of that inconsistent group we saw through the first five games were on full display here in their sixth.

The offensive line allowed sack after sack, wide receiver one and wide receiver two AJ Brown and Corey Davis combined for just five catches, eventual NFL Rushing Champion Derrick Henry was replaced by his Bizarro World self that has never heard of football and didn’t quite know what to do on the field (or 15 carries for 28 yards if you prefer numbers over analogies), and Marcus Mariota, who if nothing else could be counted on in 2019 to keep the ball safe, turned in his worst performance in five years as a pro– with two picks, 63 passing yards, and a single-digit quarterback rating (I didn’t even know they went that low).

Things were bad, and they got worse.

Reason Number Three: October 13th, 2019 felt like the waving of the white flag. Getting shut out, at any level of the sport, is the ultimate sign of ‘Football Ineptitude.’ It was a punch in the face for fans who were foolish enough to talk themselves into the Titans building on yet another 9-7 season, with insult being added to injury when Ryan Tannehill was thrown into the game in the middle of the third quarter, in place of a struggling Mariota. Benching the QB1 in the middle of a humiliating loss (again, at the hands of a Joe Flacco team) and slipping to 2-4 on the year, it started to look like Tennessee was punting on the season.