USA TODAY International Edition
Titans becoming NFL villains and liking it
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Walking victoriously off the field Tuesday night, Titans left tackle Taylor Lewan – outspoken in the manner of a successful podcast host – approached a camera.
“They hate it. They were angry at us. They thought we did everything wrong. Don’t put us in adversity,” said Lewan in a video soon circulated by the Titans’ team Twitter account.
This is how the Titans are fast becoming the villains of the NFL.
They are starting to resemble a loathed wrestler who taunts and enters the ring to boos.
And here’s the thing: I think they love it. It’s a role that works for these Titans.
We saw that clearly with the surprising 42- 16 rout of the Bills at Nissan Stadium.
Had Buffalo pummeled the Titans as many anticipated, NFL schadenfreude surely would have followed, feelings that a measure of justice had been dealt a team that had been responsible in some ways for its own unfortunate COVID- 19 outbreak and the inconvenience it caused others.
The Titans weren’t so compliant. They pummeled the Bills.
So the losing team was the one that – through no fault of its own – had been forced to do the accommodating, traveling to play a rested opponent in a game that wasn’t even certain to happen until Tuesday morning’s COVID- 19 tests came back negative.
That’s not going to sit right with everyone, but a lot of this hasn’t.
So much that was said, all the criticism, talk of forfeits, a desire to see punishment from the NFL, the Titans heard it.
Lewan was the most direct, but teammates offered similar takes on the same us- against- the- world theme.
“Things were being said, personal things were said against our team, our guys,” quarterback Ryan Tannehill said. “It really felt uncalled for. So yeah, we were a little ticked off about how we’ve been treated, how we’ve been looked at over the past couple of weeks.”
A football team using exterior comments as internal fuel is hardly a fresh approach. They all do it. Bulletin- board motivation is more prevalent in this sport than any other, and certainly with the Titans.
There isn’t an NFL team that thrives more on doubts and disrespect. The Titans’ most memorable performances of late have come when few thought they’d win and they knew it, games like last season’s opener in Cleveland, the playoff win in Baltimore and Tuesday against the Bills.
“I’ll keep it plain and simple: We expected to win, and we don’t need nobody to give us a chance,” cornerback Malcolm Butler said. “We’re a good team. If you’re with us, you’re with us. If you’re not, you’re not.”
“This team kind of always plays with a chip on our shoulder, for whatever reason,” Tannehill said. “We are who we are, and people look at us a certain way.”
Doubts for this game weren’t so much about the Titans not being good enough as they were because of a shorthanded roster and the lack of practice time. But the Titans didn’t appear to differentiate, because as Tannehill put it, “We were under a lot of heat. Honestly, I didn’t quite understand it.”
On the Bills side, coach Sean McDermott punted when asked afterward about how the league handled shuffling this game: “I’ve got no comment on that.”
“Obviously, it’s a difficult situation,” Bills quarterback Josh Allen said, “that it sucked to be in, quite frankly.”
For other NFL teams, there’s no good response to such questions. No one is immune to the same predicament as what the Titans faced. Being overly critical now could come back to bite a team later, and with games having to be altered last- minute, complete fairness for everyone isn’t realistic.
There’s no one really to blame for that. Those who land where the Bills did this week have every right to bemoan the situation and curse their bad luck.
But what the Titans did in their outbreak offered a reason to curse them instead.
Their players gathered to work out when they weren’t supposed to do it, creating an impression – alongside reports of things like players not wearing masks in their own building – of a rogue team thumbing its nose at league protocols that other teams had been following, even if that weren’t the case. The Titans haven’t been contrite in the slightest, probably because they don’t believe it is owed.
Turns out, too, that retribution thought to be headed the Titans’ way might not be after all. That’s judging by comments Tuesday from Roger Goodell.
After the NFL’s commissioner told reporters on a conference call that “This is not about discipline. This is about making sure we’re keeping our personnel safe,” CBS analyst Jay Feely said during the game broadcast that Goodell “told me that no one in the Titans organization willingly broke any of the protocol rules.”
Sounds like, at most, a slap on the wrist. A great sign for the Titans, no doubt.
But if “they,” as Lewan said, hated the Titans winning Tuesday, then they’re really going to hate that verdict.
And there’s a good chance, especially if the Titans keep winning, they’re going to hate them, too.
For these Titans, that might the best thing that could happen.