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All aboard the hype train. The Tennessee Titans have been the darlings of the NFL offseason. Seemingly everyone is buying in, which is pretty astonishing considering the things that were said about the Mike Mularkey hire just 18 short months ago.
The latest? USA Today. They have the Titans going 12-4, winning the AFC South and getting a 3 seed in their latest NFL projections for 2017. Here’s what they had to say.
Only a tiebreaker (for a woeful 2-4 division record) kept this rising club out of postseason last year. As long as Marcus Mariota remains on the field, the Titans might not only turn the corner but roar around it. They will hit a rough patch from Weeks 11-15, with a Thursday night game in Pittsburgh and consecutive games on the West Coast as part of a stretch when they play four of five away from Nashville.
They had the Colts going 5-11 (!!), Jaguars at 8-8 as well as the Texans at 8-8. The Titans ended up getting the third seed in the AFC, just behind the Patriots and Steelers. The writer (Nate Davis) had Tennessee going on to lose in the wildcard round to the sixth seeded Chargers.
This unprecedented love for the Titans is certainly a welcomed change of pace. No longer are the Titans the butt of every joke on twitter, which is nice. Tennessee is now tasked with living up to expectations, however, which is totally new. We’ll see how they handle it, but there’s no reason not to be excited for this football team this fall.