Titans Fans Urge Team to Focus on Rebuilding Roster After Loss to Jaguars

A once-promising season for the Tennessee Titans came to an end with a 20-16 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars in a game that decided the AFC South champion on Saturday night.

Head coach Mike Vrabel looked like he was going to pull another wildly successful campaign out of nowhere. The Titans were 7-3 after a victory over the Green Bay Packers on Nov. 17, but that wound up being their last win of the season.

The Titans led most of the way on Saturday, but two costly mistakes late in the fourth quarter cost them. Rayshawn Jenkins' strip-sack of Joshua Dobbs was returned for a touchdown by Josh Allen to give Jacksonville its first lead with 2:51 remaining.

With the Titans looking to regain the lead, Dobbs completed a pass to Hassan Haskins well short of the first-down marker on 4th-and-13. The Jaguars ran out the clock after regaining possession to secure their first playoff berth since 2017.

As for the Titans' future, fans seem to be united in calling for a rebuild in the wake of their epic collapse to finish the 2022 season:

This was a strange season for the Titans, going back to draft night when they made the move to trade A.J. Brown to the Philadelphia Eagles after the two sides couldn't agree to terms on a contract extension.

Despite facing a cap crunch last offseason, the Titans elected not to restructure any of the contracts for their highest-paid players that would have allowed them to add more talent. Doing so would have impacted their future cap numbers and limited their flexibility going forward.

General manager Jon Robinson was surprisingly fired on Dec. 6. The Titans were still in first place with a 7-5 record when the move was announced. He oversaw playoff runs in each of the previous three years and back-to-back AFC South titles in 2020 and 2021.

A number of injuries to key players left the roster in a bad shape down the stretch. Dobbs started the past two games after Ryan Tannehill was placed on injured reserve due to an ankle injury that required season-ending surgery.

Tennessee didn't have more than 227 passing yards in each of its last six games.

Despite all that turmoil, Vrabel had the Titans in position to win the AFC South with less than three minutes remaining in the fourth quarter. Even though it didn't work out, this was a competitive game against a Jaguars team that has won seven of their last nine games.

A playoff appearance would have been a nice moment for the Titans, but this roster, as presently constructed, needs a lot of work before it can hope to compete with the top teams in the AFC.