Titans fans are fed up. The ones who bothered to show up Sunday let their feelings be known about Brian Callahan and the organization as a whole near the end of the first half.
The question now is whether ownership and the front office feel the same way.
In case you weren’t watching, this is how it unfolded:
The Titans got the football back with just over two minutes left in the first half and hadn’t really shown anything on offense while trailing the Colts 17-6. They proceeded to run the ball five times with Tony Pollard and had a fourth down and 1 at the Indy 39 with 41 seconds left.
The Colts called timeout as the Titans left their offense on the field. The Titans then responded with a timeout of their own, and the offense still stayed out, only to be replaced by the field goal unit. That late switch seemed to account for a delay of game penalty that turned a 57-yard Joey Slye attempt into a 62-yard try that was partially blocked.
Boos filled the stadium and only got louder when the Colts, taking advantage of the ball left at the Tennessee 48, kicked a field goal of their own.
Callahan’s postgame answer probably didn’t reassure fans.
“I was going back-and-forth,” he explained. “We were talking about going for it or kicking it. That’s a kick that Slye’s made and a chance to make it a 17-9 game in that moment.
“It’s a hindsight thing,” he added. “If you go for it and get it, great. If you go for it and don’t, you’re in the same spot. Thought we had a chance to get points there. Slye’s been really reliable from deep. He’s been a bit of a weapon for us and has been thus far in the season.
“Then we went to kick it, and they were waiting for some operational things to uncover. Just would like to go faster,” he continues. “Obviously had no intention to take a delay of game there; didn’t want that to happen. Obviously looks really bad at the end of the day. That was not the intention to do that.”
If that wasn’t bad enough, when the Titans inducted longtime broadcaster Mike Keith into their ring of honor, team president Burke Nihill was booed as he was introduced. Wisely, owner Amy Adams Strunk, who was on the field to honor Keith, stayed silent rather than incurring the fans’ wrath.
Things have to start trending upward in a hurry for Callahan’s seat to cool off, and a three-game road trip beginning in Houston will not make that easier.
Ownership does not take kindly to the Texans embarrassing the Titans. The sight of Zach Mettenberger crawling off the turf after taking seven sacks against a J.J. Watt-led Texans defense spelled the end of Ken Whisenhunt in 2015.
Just a couple of years ago, there were rumors flying that Amy Adams Strunk was not at all happy about Mike Vrabel losing to the Texans with the Titans wearing the beloved Houston Oilers throwbacks. Vrabel ended up fired at season’s end.
Now, with the Texans and Titans both winless, another head-scratching loss is not going to play well with a silent but impulsive owner.