Sports
Last week, the question you could hear all over town was, “What did Billy Volek do to deserve this?”
This week, perhaps the more relevant question is: what did Titans fans do to deserve what they’re getting?
And here’s one more, forwarded from a frustrated rooter: why doesn’t the NFL require drug testing for coaches and general managers too?
Answers, in order: Depends on with whom you talk; nothing; and hey, good idea.
But the questions themselves mark an evolution in the history of this franchise. Historically, Titan fans here could be fairly described as loyal, patient and optimistic. Not since the team arrived from Houston, however, could you find the widespread expressions of anger and frustration that were apparent last week, from blogs to office water coolers to radio call-in shows. Once-adoring fans appear to have lost confidence in the organization’s management (chants of “We want Volek” could be heard from the stands on opening day), and the mostly uncritical media have adopted a much harsher tone.
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Perhaps such emotions are common in other NFL outposts, but in Nashville disgust is something new. Maybe it’s because the Titans’ early success spoiled us. Maybe it’s because the team’s solid-citizen image went relatively untarnished until only recently.
Maybe it’s because accumulating fan unease over the way the team cut ties with several of its most loyal old soldiers—first Randall Godfrey, then Eddie George, then Steve McNair—finally boiled over.
Of course, if fans had no other reason to dog-cuss the Titans’ management, there were on-field performances that would have exhausted the patience of Annie Sullivan. We may have seen Jeff Fisher’s team overmatched at times during the past couple of seasons, but we’re not used to seeing the Titans look as though they were merely going through the motions. But against Jacksonville near the end of last season—and then, more disturbingly, this year—they showed so little competitive fire that Ben Stein would look like Rambo by comparison.
“Stunk” is probably too mild a word for the way the boys in blue and Columbia blue performed for more than three quarters against the Jets. But their play against the Jets looked adroit compared to their performance in San Diego, where the Titans put up little more fight than the U.N. peacekeepers at Srebrenica.
In the latter event, euphemistically described as a contest, new offensive frontman Kerry Collins earned a quarterback efficiency rating of 1.3. That’s slightly higher than you get for walking onto the field without tripping over your shoelaces, and slightly less than George Plimpton compiled in his plays with the Detroit Lions.
Collins also set what is surely another dubious record for Titan quarterbacks: He was booed by one of the NFL’s most hospitable home crowds just two series into his career with the team. (They’d have given Saddam at least three, provided he didn’t throw interceptions.)
Why anybody would feel an urgent need to boo Collins, as if the Titans would be a Super Bowl contender without his supposedly weak-link self, God only knows. After all, he did what any reasonably attentive fan would have expected of him: he played like a quarterback who came out of retirement with just two weeks to get into shape, scrape off the rust and learn a new offensive system. We didn’t need to study woolly worms or tea leaves to predict that Collins’ timing would be farther off than the dubbing in bad Japanese action movies.
Of course, the boobirds may not have been directing their disaffection at Collins but at the brain trust who put him on the field. Which brings us back round to the question of Volek’s abrupt demotion and ultimate banishment to San Diego.
No one seemed to know what prompted Volek’s sudden fall from grace. If the players knew—though they seemed as clueless as anyone—they weren’t saying. When someone asked General Manager Floyd Reese, he referred the questioner to the coaching staff (in a hint that he didn’t exactly embrace the change).
The two parties most directly involved engaged in a round of “he said, he said.” Volek professed hurt and surprise. Fisher, in an unusually (for him) blunt rebuttal, said that Volek’s attitude was to blame. The agent for the heir to Air McNair had asked to be traded last fall, then again after the Titans drafted Vince Young, and yet again after the team signed Collins.
Never explained was why this made Volek unfit to lead the team through what everyone knew was a transition season. It’s hardly surprising that Volek, who would like a shot to start in the NFL while youth is still on his side, would desire a trade.
That the Titans would accommodate him, when they accommodated him, makes you wonder what kind of playbook these guys are working from. If requesting a trade had been a deal-breaker for management, they could have traded Volek in the winter or spring and received value in return. As it was, they essentially gave him away for a conditional sixth-round draft pick.
On top of that, they paid $2 million of Bud Adams’ real U.S. money for an even bigger lame duck in Collins. Picking him up might have made sense in June or even early July. Handing him the keys in mid-August looks like a recipe for a miserable season—even worse than the Titans would have endured had they simply thrown Vince to the vultures from the get-go.
The team played better on Sunday in Miami, especially on defense. Or maybe the Dolphins, who’ve struggled mightily, just aren’t very good. Either way, it’s hard to picture this team, which looked on paper to have improved in the off-season, to rise above last year’s record of futility.
Ultimately, which quarterback is the answer is the wrong question. Perhaps what we should be asking is whether the Titans’ management team and coaching staff can still function effectively together—and which parts of it will be around next summer, after another losing season.
How It Looks From the La-Z-Boy
Cowboys 20, Titans 10
Vanderbilt 41, Temple 7
Tennessee 38, Memphis 14
Florida 23, Alabama 14
Georgia 24, Ole Miss 7
Auburn 28, South Carolina 10