Fans are ready for their Titans to make big run
The line wrapping its way through the aisles of the Academy Sports and Outdoors store at Hamilton Place had been forming for more than an hour when the Tennessee Titans Caravan bus arrived late Sunday afternoon.
“I come every year,” said Rhea County native and Cleveland, Tenn., resident Jonathan Ward, his 1 1/2-year-old son Josiah in his arms and a Titans ballcap on his head.
Added his wife Jasmine, who was watching over their 3-year-old daughter Alexis: “He’s obsessed with the Titans. Crazy wild. He’s hitting things during games, screaming at the TV.”
Added Jonathan in a soft voice, “Yeah, it’s pretty bad.”
The Titans were anything but pretty bad last season — they made the NFL playoffs for the first time since the 2008 season — and they expect to be even better this time around after replacing head coach Mike Mularkey with former Houston Texans defensive coordinator Mike Vrabel in January.
“Just the energy level,” said second-year wide receiver Corey Davis when asked the difference between Mularkey and Vrabel. “We got a taste of (the playoffs) last year. Hopefully we can make an even better run this year.”
Added second-year linebacker Jayon Brown, who appeared in every game last season: “They’re both good guys, both want to win. But I think we’re going to improve. We’ve been learning the playbook, working hard. We want to be a more physical team this season, and we want to win our division.”
If there’s any one reason Mularkey was let go beyond his insistence he not be forced to change his staff, it was his seeming resistance to alter his offense for quarterback Marcus Mariota. Vrabel, who has a defensive background, has already gone on record saying he has no trouble adapting to Mariota’s skills with a more spread-oriented attack that includes lots of misdirection and short passes.
Interviewed by ProFootballTalk. come shortly after being hired, Vrabel said of Mariota: “He’s a special talent, a special kid, and I can’t wait to work with him and help him in the next stage of his career.”
Because this special talent will be the guest speaker at the Times Free Press Best of Preps banquet June 14 at the Chattanooga Convention Center, Brown — who faced off against Mariota during their collegiate careers at UCLA and Oregon, respectively — was asked if he could provide a funny story about the ridiculously straight-laced Mariota.
“Not really,” he said. “He’s a playmaker and a tremendous leader. And when I was at UCLA, he whipped up on us.”
The feeling among those who came to Sunday’s Caravan stop was that the Titans may whip up on a lot of opponents this fall.
Brothers Adam and Andrew Mullinax try to get to at least one game a year. While both graduated high school from Boyd-Buchanan, Adam, 20, is now a student at Tennessee in Knoxville while Andrew, 18, goes to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
“We watch every game,” Adam said. “I get excited and I get upset.”
Added Andrew, “I think they’ll make the playoffs this season.”
Then there were the Sampson girls from Cleveland, Tenn., where Rachel Sampson is a second-grade teacher at Mayfield Elementary School. She and daughters Ellie, 4, and Shelby, 8, all showed up in Titans garb to collect autographs, posters and such.
“We watch a lot of games,” Rachel said.
Asked what she liked most about the Caravan, Ellie said, “The raccoon,” referring to team mascot T-Rac.
What Brown and Davis have most enjoyed during their first Caravan appearances has been getting to know their loyal fan base.
“I like it,” said Davis, who has spent much of the offseason training in Florida. “We’ve gotten to see a bunch of our fans. It’s nice to know there’s so much love for the Titans.”
Brown was asked about the strangest things he’s been asked to sign.
“Babies,” he replied. “And keychains. There’s not much room on a keychain to sign your name.”
Superfan Ward will tell you there’s not as much room as he’d like in his home to display all of his Titans souvenirs because his wife is a lifelong backer of the Pittsburgh Steelers. So even if young son Josiah was covered in the many shades of blue favored by the Titans, there’s apparently plenty of black and gold back home as well, including that occasionally worn by slightly older daughters Madelynn, 5, and Aniyah, 10.
Not that they really expect their dad to ease off his passion for Tennessee’s lone pro football team.
“When they beat Kansas City in the playoffs last winter,” Jasmine recalled, “he went running down the street without a shirt on, waving the team flag and screaming ‘Go Titans.’”
Yet even Ward might come up second to Shelby Sampson in the optimism department.
When her mom was asked how good she thought the team might be this year, Shelby chimed in, “On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d say infinity.”
If only to see how Jonathan Ward might react to that scenario, let us hope she’s right.