Tennessee Titans: Biggest takeaways from Week 4’s loss to NY Jets

Maybe the Tennessee Titans’ smartest guy in the room approach isn’t working.

This game should be a wake-up call for Mike Vrabel and company. Many who follow this team have discussed the arrogance of the head coach. His decision to promote internally to fill both the offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator positions on his staff didn’t sit well when it happened. Months later, the criticism has grown louder.

You would be hard-pressed to find anyone that thought these were good hires, and through four weeks, it’s now obvious that they weren’t. Both the offense AND defense are underperforming spectacularly, and the blame should fall on Vrabel’s shoulders.

Jon Robinson is beloved in this fanbase, and rightfully so, but he shouldn’t be blameless. The team’s first-round selection from 2020, Isaiah Wilson, isn’t on an NFL roster, and the first-round pick from 2021 has an injury history longer than a Ph.D. dissertation. Robinson has made some brilliant trades and mid-round picks, but his early-round picks and free-agent decisions have really hurt the team as of late.

Titan fans are tired of hearing the same thing after every loss. “We just have to execute” and “We believe we have the right guys in the building” arguments have gotten stale. The Titans simply must stop acting like they’ve accomplished something. Yes, the team went from perpetual irrelevance to playoff contender in the Robinson-Vrabel era, but can the duo take this team further? Many are questioning whether it’s possible.

This is a fair question. The Titans need to prove they can win the games they are supposed to win. It’s encouraging that the team gets up to play against good opponents, but they can simply not afford to keep having a couple of these games a year where they let inferior opponents steal a win.

If the Titans want national respect, they have to stop losing games like these. The respect will come when the team proves they have gotten over the hump. Can Robinson and Vrabel successfully motivate this team to win games like this? The jury is still out on that one.