The Tennessee Titans open the 2026 regular season against the New York Jets, the team that fired head coach Robert Saleh less than two years ago. Two more sleeps before kickoff. The hay is in the barn. So the question worth asking before Sunday: is Titans-Jets a must-win?

Easton Freeze and I sit squarely on opposite sides of this debate, which makes for a fun back and forth, since the Titans fan base is similarly split. However, it’s worth noting that on our A to Z morning show Friday, the YouTube poll was 71% “yes” and 29% “no” when asked if this was a must-win for the Titans. 

Titans-Jets Week 1 is not a ‘must-win’ game by definition

Freeze: Here’s the thing about calling a Week 1 game “must-win”: a must-win game in the NFL has to actually mean something. A must-win game is a game where, if you don’t win, something tangibly bad happens that you likely can’t come back from . So what actually happens to the Titans if they lose this game? They go 0-1 and head into Week 2. That’s it. There are 16 other games after this one.

Who needs this win? Titans-Jets ‘must-win’ has emotional theme

Stanley: I went legal pad style on this one. Drew a line down the center. Six items under “yes,” four under “no.” My answer after working through both columns is clear. This is a must-win game. Absolutely. This is the most must-win a Week 1 game can possibly be.

The six groups this game is a must-win for: 

• A majority of the fan base
• Amy Adams Strunk
• The Titans business side
• The local media business 
• The Titans ecosystem, the broader business community
• Robert Saleh’s personal feelings.

Saleh’s emotional stake is its own category. But the other five all need a 1-0 start to avoid the most toxic situation possible for the seven days that follow, when Tennessee welcomes in the Philadelphia Eagles, a team that will probably whoop that tail by two touchdowns. Then the Titans go to the New York Giants on the road against guys they fired last year with a chance to fall to 0-3.

That’s how quickly things spiral.

The four items this is not a “must win” for on Sunday: 

• Robert Saleh’s job security
• Cam Ward’s future 
• The entire roster
• The entire coaching staff

The Titans’ nightmare 0-1 scenario

Stanley: Think about what happens if the Titans lose this game. They hand the Jets their first Sunday Week 1 win in 12 years. With Geno Smith. With Aaron Glenn, who is not a good head coach. With Woody Johnson getting to go 1-0 against the guy he fired, in that guy’s own stadium.

You’d be giving one of the worst owners in football validation for making a bad decision and making an emotional decision. This is the same guy who said he uses his son’s Madden ratings opinions on players. There is so much nonsensical stuff about the New York Jets that you do not need to allow them to go 1-0. They are trying to get a new quarterback next year. They are trying to lose.

If the Titans go 0-1, we get the continuation of controversy. Nobody hears anybody else. Just yelling and making points out of emotional reaction. The discourse becomes insufferable. “Cam sucks.” “Robert Saleh is now 20-37 as a head coach.” “The Titans need to fire somebody.” “Amy’s a bad owner, she’s just gonna react and fire somebody.” “Borgonzi is gonna go because this is year three for Borgonzi and he can’t even beat the freaking Jets.”

All of the stupid stuff starts to gain momentum and steam.

The ‘must-win for who?’ argument doesn’t hold up either

Freeze: The counterargument I heard this week is that this game is a must-win for the fan base, for Amy Adams Strunk, for the Titans’ business side as it promotes the new stadium and brand change, for the local media business, for the broader business ecosystem around the team, and for Robert Saleh’s personal emotional feelings about playing the team that fired him.

I’ll grant you the Saleh element. Of course he wants to beat the Jets. He’s a human being. But I don’t think Robert Saleh is so emotionally fragile that a loss here derails his season. He’s a professional. If you agree that 36 hours after a loss he’d be fine and ready to coach the next game, then by definition it’s not a must-win for him.

As for everything else on that list, it all sound/ like an argument about what this team needs from the season, not the opener. And if those factors make this a must-win game, then you know what next week is? A must-win game. And the week after that. And the week after that. We’re going to do the must-win game thing all 17 weeks, and that’s ridiculous.

The Titans ‘casual fan’ problem is the real danger in a Week 1 loss

Stanley: The diehards are going to care regardless. They’ll just be really, really angry. But then you’ve got the casual fans who don’t want to buy in unless they have a reason to. They’re going to look at an 0-1 loss to the Jets and say, “Lost to the worst team in football, the worst-run organization in football. Screw that, I’ll just do something else on my Sundays.”

That is the ultimate terrible aspect of losing this game. If the Titans lose to the Jets and go 0-1, apathy gets cemented in the periphery of this fan base harder than it ever has been.

Fan apathy is a season-long fight, not a Week 1 fight

Freeze: The strongest version of the opposing argument is about apathy. If the Titans lose to the Jets, casual fans won’t buy in, the discourse turns toxic, and the peripheral fan base cements its indifference. I understand that concern. But that logic applies to every game in which Tennessee has a real chance to win. It applies in the Giants game. It applies in the Browns game. It applies in the Commanders game in November. If every time you lose a winnable game the apathy sets in, then your entire schedule is riddled with must-win games. And if every game is must-win, then no game is must-win.

The bottom line is this: the Titans are the furthest they can be from the last stop on this train. They have 16 games ahead of them after Sunday. The next one comes six days later. Nothing catastrophic happens to this franchise if they lose Week 1, unless they continue to lose. They control their own destiny. Making this one game any more important than the other 16 because it’s the opener, or because it’s the “biggest game in Cam Ward’s career” — which there’s no evidence for — is emotional and childish, not grounded in reality.

What a Titans win over the Jets does

Stanley: If the Titans do start 1-0 with a win over New York, you break up that apathy concrete. You start to get people back. You start to get people to care about the quarterback, about the roster, about some of the young pieces we all like, and the coach we think is pretty good who got screwed over by the Jets and got a lot of his former players who feel the same way.

This is why the Titans have to beat the Jets. It’s for all of these things to start building. Because if you go 0-2, with the Eagles coming to Nashville in Week 2 and you’re sitting at 0-2 at home, you’re losing so many people. So many people.

Tennessee is favored in two games out of the gates this season. This one, and the Washington Commanders game in November. That’s it. You have to beat the Jets.

The Titans’ early schedule is not as dire as people think

Freeze: A lot of this conversation stems from the belief that the Titans’ pre-bye schedule is so brutal that this is one of only two or three gettable games. The Jets, Giants, and Browns obviously look like the best swings to pick up a win before the bye week. I’m not going to deny that. But I don’t see all the other games as these impossible juggernaut outings either. This isn’t a situation where you can shoehorn your way into calling it must-win because the next month is impossible and they’re all on the road or something to that end. That’s not the case here!

I see a coach in Robert Saleh who is in his first year and has a leash. I see a general manager in Mike Borgonzi who, by all indications on my end, has a leash. And I see a quarterback in Cam Ward who the organization is intending to be patient with in a fundamentally different way than it was with Will Levis. There is a deeply ingrained, impossible-to-ignore element to being the 1st overall pick versus being a second-round pick. Ward would have to be straight-up horrible for the next month for this organization to already be out on him.

Will fans blow up if Tennessee loses Week 1? Of course they will. But what Week 1 loss for the Titans in the 2020s hasn’t been an emotional blow-up spot for the Twitter fan-brain masses? That’s the nature of Overreaction Monday. That’s the nature of a one-game sample size.