The Tennessee Titans are 0-2 to start the Robert Saleh era after a 24-20 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles at Nissan Stadium on Sunday. Jalen Hurts’ touchdown pass to Darius Cooper with 9 seconds left put Philadelphia over the top after the Titans took their first and only lead on a Joey Slye 33-yard field goal with 1:56 remaining. The Titans scored 20 points, ran for 120 yards, and looked far more competitive than their Week 1 disaster against the Jets. None of it mattered in the final minute.

I slept on it. Here’s what stuck with me Monday morning.

Skoronski and Simmons handle Eagles takeover in opposite ways

I’ll start by addressing the Eagles in the room, which is all the Philly fans who took over Nissan Stadium.

Buck Reising said on his Primetime show on the A to Z YouTube channel Sunday night that this was the most overtaken Nissan Stadium crowd he’s ever seen by an opposing fan base. From what it looked and sounded like on the TV broadcast while I was doing our game day shows from home, from the video Easton tweeted out, and from everybody I talked to who was there, it looked like an Eagles home game in Nashville.

There’s an obvious reason for that. The Eagles are a phenomenal fan base. They travel well. The Titans are a fan base that’s pissed off. 

Tennessee is now 12-48 in its last 60 games dating back to the Todd Downing DUI that followed the win against the Green Bay Packers on Thursday Night Football in November of 2022. A 12-48 stretch doesn’t exactly pull your home fans out after a dumpster of a game against the Jets in record heat where the heat index was over 100 and, according to Christina Pink on the Fox broadcast, the turf was routinely over 150 degrees throughout that game.

I thought Peter Skoronski did the best overall job of any Titans player asked about the crowd, and one notable guy decided to plead the fifth. 

“(It’s) the reality of living in Nashville. People want to visit,” Skoronski said. “But I understand in terms coming off a week like (the Jets game), their fan base is huge. You come in here, and our fans, maybe don’t feel as motivated to show up. So we got to give them a reason to come, and we got to put a good product on the field they want to come watch. So credit to the fans that I felt that were there, man. I felt like they were outnumbered, but they did a great job, and we appreciate them.”

He’s not wrong. Part of being in Nashville is that everybody circles this game on their road calendar when the schedule comes out in May.

Titans running back Tony Pollard echoed Skoronski’s thought that the Titans have to give fans a reason to show up.

Now, Jeffery Simmons did a good job answering the football questions. But when Simmons was asked about the fact that the stadium was about 80% green.

“I don’t have anything to say about that.” 

That was a pretty loud, strong, non-answer answer from Simmons.

Cam Ward was also asked if the crowd affected their ability to communicate on the field. 

“Not really,” Ward said. “Had to be a little bit louder. Had to go on silent down the stretch on third downs a little bit. But whatever comes with it, we’ve got to adjust to it. So that really doesn’t play a factor in anything.”

Outside of when the Tennessee Vols play bowl games or season-opening games in Nissan Stadium, that’s the closest thing it’s looked like. I remember back in 2012 when the Chicago Bears came to town. That’s around the first time I remember the stadium being taken over by opposing fans. This was a couple years after the Nashville floods, and downtown and Broadway had started to be reimagined and redeveloped. I kind of added to the opposing fans in the building that day. I was out of college and brought a college buddy of mine who was from Chicago and a big Bears fan to watch the Bears absolutely drum the Titans in 2012. 

According to the folk tales, the Bears drank Lower Broadway out of bottled beer that Sunday. I can’t confirm nor deny if I helped with any of that. But hey, that was 2012 Broadway. They have a lot more beer on Broadway these days.

The Daboll play call that won’t leave my brain

I woke up even more frustrated with the Brian Daboll play call on first and goal from the 9-yard line with 2 minutes and 37 seconds left.

I wrote about this already. I talked about this in the postgame show. I’m probably going to talk about this over the next several days. Daboll is going to go to the podium on Thursday and say nothing about it. But that play call on first and goal from the 9 with 2 minutes and change left and the Eagles holding two timeouts . . . I’ve already made myself clear about how I feel.

The goal of that play is to not lose yards and make the Eagles burn a timeout because you’re trying to get yourself in a situation where you kick a field goal after the 2-minute warning or score a touchdown and force Philadelphia to burn all its timeouts. The sack on the bootleg where JC Latham either had the worst block of all time or didn’t know his assignment is confusing. Paul Kuharsky tweeted out the All-22 look at it, and I don’t even know what they were trying to accomplish, which makes the decision even worse. Just run the ball.

That sequence allowed the Eagles to have a full minute and 47 seconds to go down the field without any timeouts and score a touchdown to win the game. It didn’t make sense to try to get too cute on that play.

The end of the first half was NOT the wrong decision

I saw a lot of media asking questions about the Titans coaching hesitantly at the end of the first half, where Tennessee settled for a field goal as time expired to make it 14-10 at halftime. I don’t have any problem with that.

Think about the sequence. It’s halftime, you’re down by a touchdown, and the Eagles get the ball to start the second half. You have to either get points or not give up points in that situation. Yes, the Titans had two big plays from Elic Ayomanor and Tyjae Spears with 28- and 27-yard gains back to back. The 1-yard run on first and 10 from the 18 is no big deal. 

But once JC Latham draws the false start trying to bait an Eagles lineman who jumped into the neutral zone for an extra five free yards, you’re backed up to second and 14 with 38 seconds. The incomplete pass makes it third and 14. What are you going to do? You have to run the ball to get the clock down and kick a field goal.

That wasn’t coaching scared. That was actually the right situational football. 

“It was third and really long, and finish the half with the ball, finish the half with points,” Saleh said. “Last thing we wanted to do was—that was my call. Last thing we wanted to do is have the clock stop, kick a field goal and they have time to go get three points of their own.”

The situational football that was botched is from first and goal at the 9. A lot of people are missing the point on which coaching decisions to critique on the offensive side of the ball.

This is the Titans team I expected to see in Week 1

To wrap this up, this is the Titans team I was expecting against the Jets. Not perfect by any means on offense, but more productive: more points, more first downs, a better run game. Tony Pollard went for 64 yards averaging over 4.5 a carry. Spears had 41 yards averaging almost 6. Both had long runs, and those count. Running for 120 yards and averaging over 4 yards a carry when Ward’s two quarterback sneaks are bringing that average down is the type of Titans offense I expected.

The receiving production is also what I expected because of how spread out the targets are. Five different players caught two or more passes, and Carnell Tate led the team with three. That’s just what this offense is going to be until more of the identity is figured out.

The defense bucked up and responded, which Saleh brought up. This is the response he expected from the defense in the second half against the Jets that didn’t happen in Week 1. Complementary football showed up for the Titans on Sunday.

A lot of moral victory questions were asked in the locker room. A lot of “what can you learn from this,” “what can you take from this,” “what kind of confidence does this give you” type of questions. To every man of them, all of them answered politely with how the question was asked, but it was clear the Titans aren’t taking any moral victories.