- Super Bowl Championships: 0
- Last Super Bowl Appearance: Super Bowl 34
- Claim to Fame: Executed the Music City Miracle
- Claim to Shame: Posted a 9-45-2 record in their first four seasons after joining the NFL in 1970, and have three seasons with just one win
In 1997, the Houston Oilers moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where there is no oil and almost as little winning. The team played their first two seasons away from Houston as the Tennessee Oilers, before changing their name to the Titans.
The Titans franchise has had a similar trajectory to Icarus, who flew to close to the sun, caught fire, and crashed and burned.
The newborn Titans, riding the high of the Music City Miracle, came one yard shy of sending Super Bowl 34 to overtime, only to come crashing down and remain in mediocrity ever since.
The 2017 Titans had high expectations coming into the season with their “exotic smash-mouth” offense that looked so fun in 2016. Unfortunately, the rest of the league had caught up to Mike Mularkey’s late 80s playbook, and the head coach seemed to abandon so much of the play-action and trickery that had worked the previous season.
The entire offense struggled to capture any real momentum, but they still finished 9-7 (also 9-7 ATS) and in the playoffs for the first time since 2008.
The 2018 season saw the introduction of Mike Vrabel as head coach, but the results were about the same, minus the playoff berth. The offense stagnated and once-promising QB Marcus Mariota failed to make any significant progress, leading the team to a 9-7 record and third-place in the AFC South.
Heading into 2019, the reasons for optimism around the Titans mostly relate to the defense, which showed shutdown potential last year. They surrendered just 303 points second-best in the entire AFC, including pitching a Week 15 shutout against the Giants.
