NASHVILLE — The Tennessee Titans (9-4) got right off of a much-needed bye week in a 20-0 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars (2-11) on Sunday. If turnover-free football was the goal, Tennessee's +4 turnover differential was a mission accomplished.

The Titans get-right game had every element of the kind of football we needed to see.

In sweeping their second division opponent of the season, Mike Vrabel's team still has room to improve. Read that sentence again if you are someone who glossed over it as if regularly shutting down your team's greatest rivals should be a given. I must remind you that, in the NFL, nothing could be farther from the truth.

Today's win should remind you how the Titans have done this so many times en route to clinching their franchise-record sixth consecutive winning season. A plan was implemented by coaches and executed by the players. It certainly helps when the opposition does precious little of either.

Titans defense can be special

Well, well, well. How the turn tables.

We are a far cry from the 2020 Tennessee defense. Coordinator Shane Bowen's unit could only be described as "special" against Jacksonville. Four interceptions of Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence was the most for a Titans team in a single game since 2012, according to Jim Wyatt. The rookie received no help from a running game that Shane Bowen's defense held to eight yards on eight attempts.

If you hear safety Kevin Byard tell it, it took only two quarters of football for Vrabel's team to realize they could send Urban Meyer back to Jacksonville without a point scored.

"Probably going into halftime, honestly," said Byard of when Tennessee realized they could shut the Jaguars out. "That's something that we talked about leaving out of halftime, ‘Hey, let's go get a goose egg.’ We talked about coming out there, dominating, flying around, getting to the ball, getting turnovers. And like you said, it's just an exciting thing. I know we had a shutout in 2018 in New York, but to get a shutout at home I think (for the first time) since like 2000, so that's a pretty impressive stat right there."

Indeed, that was the case.

The 13-3 Titans last held an opponent scoreless in a 31-0 drubbing of the Dallas Cowboys on Dec. 25 during the 2000 campaign. With healthier bodies coming out of a bye week and a pass rush with fresh legs, Tennessee held Lawrence to a season-low passer rating of 35.5. Led by Harold Landry and Jeffery Simmons up front, the primarily four-man pressure allowed Byard and company to feast.

Was Tennessee's offense good enough?

The answer to that question depends solely upon your standard.

Was Ryan Tannehill's turnover-free performance good enough to win a football game? Without question. Would you like more that .75 points per turnover that the Titans defense created? There is no doubt in my mind.

That has largely been my experience with this Tennessee team throughout the rash of injuries.

Nearly every time I watch the Titans offense I feel that I am missing something, but expectations do require a resent over the course of the last month. When the game started with a fumble on the opening kickoff that Chester Rogers recovered and Tannehill lands on his back 2nd-and-7 at the Jaguars 48-yard line, you tend to sink into pessimism about the outcome.

In your mind, you've already decided that today's performance against a two-win Jacksonville team was not good enough.

Then, Tannehill takes off for 17 yards on 3rd down and draws a late hit penalty from a mistake-riddled football team. All the sudden, they're at the Jaguars 16 ready to bully their way in for the opening score and a lead that they would never relinquish. There they were, playing Titans football. Crashing into the red zone for a score just like they used to.

It might have been D'Onta Foreman instead of Derrick or Nick Westbrook-Ikhine instead of Aj Brown, but that was a return to form in a major way.

"Yeah, it's huge," said Vrabel of scoring first with a red-zone run. "It's hard. There's not a lot of space when you throw it, so any time that you can run it in down there in tight quarters is a huge boost, and I think you saw the excitement that obviously we all had. Nate (Davis)'s finish and somehow they throw his helmet off or it comes off or whatever, and I thought that that was a huge, just huge start to the game for us."

It only outlines every major difference between the Titans and the Jaguars right now.

Turnover differential (+4) buried Tennessee's opponent the way they had been buried in the last two weeks (-9), with obvious opportunities to win those games. Turns out the difference between 20-0 against Jacksonville and losing 36-13 at the Patriots really does boil down to execution on three or four game-changing plays. Anyone who values the idea of perfection over base level execution, regardless of aesthetics, isn't realistic about today's NFL.

Nothing about the Titans is perfect, but it has been good enough to stay afloat. Better yet for Tennessee, things are trending toward resurgence.

Continue to talk in reverent tones of "pick-your-poison offense and gaudy statistical days from Julio Jones. Daydream all you like about where Henry would be on the rushing leaderboard while reports leak out of his potential return. While you do so, Vrabel and his staff will toil over a plan to beat their next opponent using whatever and whomever they have available.

You can worry about the box score. The Titans are focused on executing the next play.

Featured Image: USA TODAY Sports.