Tighten Up

The slogan isn’t very catchy or subtle. In fact, it feels a bit contrived.

And the home team doesn’t mind pushing it at you constantly from the time you arrive until the time you depart L.P. Field.

“Titan Up” they tell you!

 “Tighten Up,” Yourself is my reply.

When Paul and I left yesterday’s train wreck of a football game in the third quarter yesterday, I wondered when/if I will go back. It’s not so much that the 2-11 Titans lost to the 4-9 Giants. It’s how they lost.

You’d imagine a match-up of two such lowly teams would be fairly evenly matched. This wasn’t. In fact, before we settled into our seats, the Titans were down 10-0. A botched pass play and a returned fumble and boom, it’s 17-0 and the first quarter is still going.

That’s when I turned to Paul and said “Ready to leave yet?”

It didn’t take long. 

I’ve seen bigger blowouts during my years as a Titans season ticket holder (a Dallas 45-14 victory in 2006 – the infamous Albert Haynesworth ‘stomp’ game  - bested yesterday’s 36-7 debacle by two points), but I can’t remember a time when the Titans seemed so listless; so hapless.

Many teams have rallied from 17-0 deficits to win games in the NFL but in your heart of hearts, you knew the Titans had no answer. It was just going to get worse. And it did.

It’s been a long, hard fall for this once-proud franchise. It seems light years since I made the call to the Titans (from a payphone) the day after Super Bowl XXXIV. I said, in essence, “Count me in.” And from the year 2000 to the present, I have had two season tickets. I’ve been to multiple games every years (save 2001, which I skipped for obvious reasons).

It feels like 2000 is a lifetime ago. Shoot, it seems like ages ago since Holly, Paul and I went to the playoff game in 2009 vs. Baltimore and trudged back to our car through muck and mire, dejected, following a heartbreaking 13-10 loss.

These days, the team gives you the impression that it has fallen and can’t get up. The thought of making it back to the playoffs – mind you, that was just five years ago – seems totally unrealistic. Even a return to the mediocre years of 8-8 – where it seemed the franchise was stuck for years – is a long-shot.

The night we were at the playoff loss, there was tremendous energy and the place was packed. And for years leading up to that game, you could count on L.P. Field being sold-out; aloud, proud home field.

As the years of losing took their toll, the numbers in the seats started to dwindle. If I told you that the stadium was half full yesterday, I’d be exaggerating.

One of the Giants’ fans in attendance commented to me “the place sounds like a library.” And it did. It was a library full of Titans fans that came to study ways to react to years of losing football and to research how you respond.

After I asked one of the nice ushers to take a photo of Paul and I, he and I left the stadium and headed back across the Shelby Street Bridge to find the Jeep so we could head home. That bridge crossing seemed somewhat symbolic to me.

It’s possible I may have crossed over from being ‘season ticket holder’ to becoming ‘former season ticket holder.’

JG

Originally posted 12/8/2014