JACKSONVILLE — What more can be said about the way the Tennessee Titans (7-10) calamitous 2022 season just came to an end. A 20-16 blown play-in opportunity to the Jacksonville Jaguars (9-8) feels just as hopeless as the six straight losses that came before it.

Tennessee truly felt like they found themselves in a different kind of hell each of the last seven weeks.

The Titans death spiral from 7-3 division leader to getting bounced out of a 99% chance to make the postseason is unfathomable. Jacksonville did not lead this game until the 2:51 mark of the fourth quarter. A franchise on the forefront of finding new ways to lose of late gave up a strip sack of quarterback Josh Dobbs turned scoop-and-score when they had felt in control nearly the entire contest.

Now, the Jaguars reign over the AFC South.

Titans fought their asses off

No one can dispute that.

"We all stood by each other and supported each other," coach Mike Vrabel said. "We just got on a shitty streak and we couldn't get off of it. We couldn't make plays when we needed to. We couldn't play consistent enough when we needed to. It showed up again tonight."

That's been Tennessee's story since their last win of the season on November 17th.

Turnovers, penalties and execution issues consistently reared their respective heads. The Titans would appear to make positive progress for a quarter of play here or a half there and find themselves coming undone at the seams by wounds that were almost exclusively self-inflicted.

An offseason full of questions is nowhere close to being answered

Compounded with a second straight campaign of never-ending injuries, Vrabel's team could simply not stop the both figurative and literal bleeding.

The emotional toll, alongside the obvious physical ones, broke them. As Tennessee moves into the next phase of the NFL's calendar, critical decisions that have to be made tally a list nearly as long as one of the team's famous CVS-receipt sized injury reports. Abruptly bringing their on-field work to a halt only brings those issues further to the fore.

"I've been shooting up my ankle since Week 8, man" said a tearful Jeffery Simmons. The guys in the locker room, I love them. No matter what, I wanted to be on that field. I'll figure out what I can do this offseason to get better, but these guys mean so much to me. I just wanted to be on the field."

War terminology gets tossed around routinely in the sport of football.

We look at the giant rage-monsters on the field, symbolizing speed, physicality and strength and use them for entertainment. The love of the game, warrior mentality and camaraderie that they share with one another can often get lost in the shuffle. What we witnessed in the Titans postgame locker room was a confluence of all those things in. Raw emotion as to players' and coaches' futures, upcoming contract negotiations and faces who worked hard alongside one another that may or may not be seen again.

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All of it brought to a screeching halt.

Getting bounced by the Jaguars will be but a fleeting part of a larger conversation that is about to unfold. How many players currently under contract that have been core pieces of this team's last five years will return? Who will be the next general manager making those decisions?

Let us not forget the cottage industry that has been built around the job status of embattled offensive coordinator Todd Downing and his future with the team.

Where they go from here is far less complicated. Jacksonville sent the Titans home for the year.

Figuring out their next steps to keep it from happening in the future starts on the plane ride home.

Featured Image: USA TODAY Sports.