One of the major problems with the preseason for a team like the Tennessee Titans is that people confuse what actually matters and what doesn't in search of meaning.
For example, throughout the offseason and training camp, coaches and players have maintained that joint practices are the most important work of the offseason. In preseason game settings, the goal is to get young guys reps, keep your starters healthy while working some of the basics, and to make sure that everything is on track from a communications and operations standpoint.
No team wants to put all their best plays on display in the preseason because that will take away the element of surprise for the regular season, and in a game where the margin of error is so small, that might be the difference between a win and a loss. There is clear evidence for this, because teams routinely ban spectators from taking videos when they are watching practices.
For the Tennessee Titans, joint practice results were more telling than the preseason
It stands to reason that the most accurate picture of what you are going to get from a team (and some of the young, unknown players like Carnell Tate) is what you see during joint practices. Not only is the playbook more open, but you get more reps of starters versus starters, and players practice like their job depends on them winning these reps.
With all of that in mind, it is a huge deal that the Titans held their own against the San Francisco 49ers, Seattle Seahawks, and Chicago Bears in their three joint practices, and in some cases, they won the day. Last year, those teams had a combined 37-14 record; all three were playoff teams, and the Seahawks were obviously the eventual Super Bowl winners.
Does that mean the Titans would beat those three opponents in the regular season? Probably not, because of how young this team is and the cohesion those teams possess, while the Titans are working on that process. But it does mean that the upcoming season should be more competitive than they have been in a long time.
Just like preseason game performances, these joint practices shouldn't push you into making massive overcorrections on what you thought the Titans would be before training camp started. But when it comes to the situations where the Titans are trying to win and calling things like they would call them in a real game, they are way ahead of schedule.
That is a reason to be excited, and despite those results spanning hundreds of snaps by the starters, some Titans fans are overreacting to the six drives we have seen where the vanilla version of the Titans offense has only been moderately successful.
When you put all of that together, does it really make sense to panic, or is that the PTSD of past Titans' failures leading you into a downward spiral of fear and anxiety?
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