Charlie and I have a friendly football rivalry since both our teams are in the mighty AFC South. I was giving him a hard time when he wasn’t giving up on winning the division despite the scuffling start by his Jaguars, but, lo and behold, they’ve found something, and their upset of the Cowboys last week changed everything.
After that game and at the beginning of the Titans game against the Chargers last weekend, I texted my fellow Titans-fan friend — having never lived anywhere near Tennessee, I only have one — saying we were going to lose the division. He responded that surely we could win two more games the rest of way. I replied that we only were going to play the Texans once more.
By the time we had lost the Chargers game, though, he agreed, that yes, we were going to lose the division.
Now, we’ve lost starting quarterback Ryan Tannehill for the season, and it’s even more obvious what’s going to happen. At least now the Titans will have an underdog vibe. Their second-string quarterback, Malik Willis, did win a game against the Texans earlier this year. He was all of 6-10 for 55 yards, which reminded a little of this epic Houston Oilers win in 1981, when the great Kenny Stabler was 1-6 for 3 yards (you can get away with that when Earl Campbell carries the ball 37 times).