Down In The Dumps With Tennessee

I know there is not a lot of us Tennessee Titans fans out there. (We gained a few "fans" last year with our incredible season). But Tennessee Titans article, here I go.

To all those long time Oilers/Titans fans, we have had our ups and downs. The "Music City Miracle". MC9 leading us to the Super Bowl...only to fall short by inches in the end.

But what hurts me is when we let big players go. I know we had cap issues in 2005 when we lost key players like Derrick Mason and Samari Rolle (Both to that team I sometimes hate more than the New England Patriots... maybe not that extreme).

Back to this year, with this problem the Albert Haynesworth problem.

First off, I should say that this problem did not start this year it has been going on for several years now.

I know we are a small market team. I realize they are not like my Boston Red Sox. But come on Tennessee.. You slapped the Franchise Tag on Fat Albert the year before opting to sign him to a long term deal later. You have danced around getting him a long term contract for too long.

This Titans/Haynesworth problem reminds me of a high school kid and homework... they put it off as long as the possibly can.

Tennessee should of locked him up last year not put the problem off until next year. They could of bailed themselves out this off-season, they did not of course.

They could of re-signed him before the free agent period. They decided to play around with Albert and a long-term deal.

At this point all was not lost, they could of still resigned him during free-agent period. This would be a bit more tricky because other teams offers were flying in. The one we know about is the seven year..... ready $100 million dollar contract.

Albert is hands down the best defensive linemen in the N.F.L. who would always demand a double-team. He was a huge piece of this defense the biggest reason why we were ranked in the top for run-defense. So what now?

Can't have Haynesworth, now we lost our force up front.. you have to ask yourself now are we done? is the winning in Tennessee over as soon as it started? What are our options?

Yes, guys, Al is gone we are obviously not better without him but... I believe we are still a very good team. We are not completely crippled by this we still have a great d-line lead by Vandy, we should be fine (Of course we still have Bulluck at linebacker).

We will be fine; our schedule dose not look to difficult...knock on wood. I believe we can weather this storm at least I hope we can.

Now I guess we can go after a wide-out—how many years in a row now have we watched the draft and expected that great WR who slipped and was to be taken then by Tennessee? It never happened.

Well, what about going out and getting a star. Some people want T.J. Houshmandzadeh—think I spelled it right. I would like to go after Boldin. I know the Boldin idea is a stretch, but you got to ask yourself is he happy in Arizona? And you got to ask what will be the price.

Then again we could get neither, possibly not even a decent wide-out. Go into the regular season with the roster we have. We've done it before guys we have lost re-built and moved on.

I do not think it will be as extreme as 2005. Don't worry too much, just remember this is the life of a small market team. This is our team, the team that we somehow fell in love with. --Ed