Expectations, reality, stomachaches

Well, Tennessee Titans fans, the worst has come. I’m Nick Suss, this is Talkin’ Titans and it's time to evaluate, not re-evaluate.

There's this restaurant in my hometown that always gives me a stomachache. Always. Pretty much every time I've eaten there since I was 12, I've left in pain. It's good food, so I still eat there almost every time I visit home. And then, like clockwork, 30 minutes later I'll be sitting in my parents' living room furious at myself for putting myself through it again.

There's a word for this. Well, there are a few words for this. One of them is "stupid," and I clearly am that. But I think another is "evaluative." There's value in knowing what's going to happen and reflecting on it. I'm a firm believer in this idea that people shouldn't get mad about the things they expect to happen . People should be hyper-aware of their expectations and, if their expectations become reality, they should use that reality as a chance to examine a coming future.

All of this is to say: Look, we all knew the first month of the season was going to be brutal for the Titans . I spent an entire offseason writing about how I thought the Titans would start 0-3. Fans and pundits alike talked all summer about how the Titans have to endure a brutal first month of the season and an 0-4 start shouldn't be outside any realm of possibility.

Things change, of course. It's reasonable that people wanted to recalibrate expectations after Jordan Love got hurt or after seeing how ahead-of-schedule the Titans' defense looked. But fundamentally, the Titans are where they were supposed to be . Which stinks. I'm not sitting here telling you guys that you should be okay with the Titans not being good enough. But I am saying that this isn't the kind of start that is worth wasting rage on. This is the kind of start that happens when a first-time coach with first-time coordinators and a young quarterback leading a team full of newcomers learning to play together play three pretty darn good teams to start a season.

Yes, it's a different kind of bad than we expected. My predictions for this team revolved around the offense being competitive in high-scoring losses. The fact that so many of the weaknesses in 2024 are the same as the weaknesses were in 2022 and 2023 is a massive bummer . But, end of the day, bad is bad, right? There's an impulse to think you'd be more encouraged if the Titans were losing every game 37-30, and that's probably fair. But, again, remember the expectations. Remember all the talk about how this Titans team was built to struggle early and then figure itself out as it got into rhythm in October and November? That's still possible. That's still on the table.

This season is what it is. We can all be sold on how it's a reload, not a rebuild. We can peddle the semantics. But this is a Year 1 of a new regime, a culture reset, a starting-over moment. So, the Titans are taking a while to reset. It happens. Don't let yourself get worked up and defeated about the thing you knew was coming.

Thanks for reading! There's more for you below. And if you have ideas or questions, email me at nsuss@gannett.com.

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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Expectations, reality, stomachaches