Team
Tennessee Titans
AFC South
This is the full anatomy of a fall from contender to cellar. The 2020-2021 teams could win because one unit was always carrying, the offense, then the defense. The decline isn't one broken phase; it's the loss of the thing that was working before the other thing could be fixed. When both the offense and defense rank bottom-five in the same year, there is no longer anything to hide behind, which is exactly the 2025 reality.
How far it fell
In 2020 the Titans had the NFL's 3rd-best offense and scored 30.7 a game. Five years later: 30th, and 16.7.
TrendTEN points scored per game and offense/defense EPA rank, by season
| Season | PPG scored | Offense rank | Defense rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 30.7 | 3rd | 28th |
| 2021 | 24.6 | 15th | 9th |
| 2022 | 17.5 | 25th | 18th |
| 2023 | 17.9 | 18th | 23rd |
| 2024 | 18.3 | 30th | 21st |
| 2025 | 16.7 | 30th | 28th |
The 2020 Titans were a genuine offensive juggernaut: 3rd in EPA/play and 30.7 points a game, carried by an elite run game even as the defense ranked 28th. The bottom fell out fast. Scoring dropped to 24.6, 17.5, and has sat below 19 every year since, bottoming at 16.7 in 2025 with the offense 30th and the defense back down to 28th. The 2021 team briefly paired a strong defense (9th) with a fading offense; by 2025 both units were bottom-five at once, the floor of the franchise's modern run.
Why it matters. This is the full anatomy of a fall from contender to cellar. The 2020-2021 teams could win because one unit was always carrying, the offense, then the defense. The decline isn't one broken phase; it's the loss of the thing that was working before the other thing could be fixed. When both the offense and defense rank bottom-five in the same year, there is no longer anything to hide behind, which is exactly the 2025 reality.
The Titans' offense is bad everywhere, then quits when it matters most: 31st in clutch EPA.
AnomalyWorst offensive EPA/play in competitive late-game spots, 2023-2025 (reg season)
| Rank | Team | Clutch EPA/play | Plays |
|---|---|---|---|
| 28 | LAC | -0.075 | 323 |
| 29 | IND | -0.117 | 329 |
| 30 | LV | -0.147 | 190 |
| 31 | TEN | -0.150 | 265 |
| 32 | CLE | -0.229 | 315 |
TEN offense: overall vs late-and-close, 2023-2025
| Situation | Off EPA/play | NFL rank |
|---|---|---|
| All plays | -0.108 | 29th |
| Competitive 4th qtr / last 5 min | -0.150 | 31st |
Tennessee's offense is a bottom-five unit on every snap (-0.108 EPA/play, 29th), but it gets *worse* when the moment matters. In competitive late situations, win probability between 20% and 80%, 4th quarter or the final five minutes, the Titans crater to -0.150 EPA per play, 31st in the NFL, ahead of only Cleveland. This is a team that cannot manufacture a drive when it knows it needs one.
Why it matters. The clutch dropoff is the opposite of a contender's profile, where offenses tighten up late and find a way. Tennessee's reverses: an already-poor offense loses another step exactly when defenses pin their ears back and the margin for error vanishes. With a young, churning quarterback room and porous protection, the late-game environment magnifies every weakness instead of hiding it.
What happens next
Rock bottom is a trampoline: teams this bad gain almost four wins the next year. And there's a new voice in the building.
Tennessee 2025 profile (reg season)
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Record | 3-14 |
| Points for / against | 284 / 478 |
| Point differential | -194 |
| Expected wins from margin | 3.3 |
| Blowout record (9+ pts) | 1-9 |
Teams with 3 or fewer wins since 1999: the next season
| Teams | Improved | Gained 4+ wins | Avg win change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 57 | 52 of 57 (91%) | 31 of 57 (54%) | +3.7 |
Since 1999, 57 teams have finished with three wins or fewer. Fifty-two of them improved the next season, more than half by at least four wins, and the average bounce was +3.7. Tennessee is living proof of the exception, though: they are one of the five teams that failed to bounce, following 2024's 3-14 with an identical 3-14. Expecting that lightning twice more means expecting a nine-percent outcome to repeat. With Robert Saleh taking over as head coach in 2026, the plain expectation: the Titans win more than three games in 2026. Not good. More.
Why it matters. The forecast leans entirely on structural forces rather than roster optimism: turnover variance, a coaching reset, and the simple fact that a -194 differential contains its own correction. Tennessee's own 2024-to-2025 stagnation is the strongest counterargument on file, and it is why the claim here is deliberately modest. Four to six wins would satisfy it; a second consecutive three-win rerun would make the Titans one of the strangest data points of the quarter century.
Myth test: Tennessee abandoned the run. The scoreboard took it away.
2025 rush rate by score state: Titans vs NFL (reg season)
| Score state | TEN rush rate | TEN snaps | NFL rush rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leading | 50.6% | 154 | 50.4% |
| Tied | 45.7% | 173 | 45.6% |
| Trailing | 32.2% | 668 | 37.2% |
The folklore says the franchise that built its identity on the ground game forgot its roots, and points at 2025's 37.4% rush rate, 30th in the NFL. Look at the same season by score state instead. When Tennessee actually held a lead, it ran on 50.6% of snaps, more than the league's average leading team. The problem is that it almost never held one: the Titans trailed on 67.1% of their offensive snaps, 3rd-most in football, and trailing teams throw. This is the establish-the-run causation running backwards, as it always does. The 2020 team did not win because it ran; it ran because it was winning. The 2025 team did not lose because it threw; it threw because it was losing.
Why it matters. This changes what the fix looks like. If you believe the identity was abandoned, the answer is a stubborn commitment to early-down runs, which the data says is how bad offenses stay bad. If you believe the scoreboard drove the mix, the answer is building an offense good enough to hold leads, at which point the run-heavy look returns on its own. Tennessee's own leading-snap behavior shows the ground-game instinct is intact and waiting for game states that allow it.
How this team plays
The smashmouth identity is gone. The run-heaviest era in football now throws like everyone else.
TrendTEN rush rate (run share of pass+run plays) and NFL rank, by season
| Season | Rush rate | NFL rank |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 46.1% | 4th |
| 2020 | 49.9% | 3rd |
| 2021 | 48.0% | 2nd |
| 2022 | 48.4% | 5th |
| 2023 | 43.6% | 10th |
| 2024 | 43.5% | 13th |
| 2025 | 37.4% | 30th |
From 2019-2022 the Titans were the league's signature ground-and-pound team, top-5 in rush rate all four years and 2nd in 2021. Over that 2019-2023 window they piled up the 3rd-most rushing yards in football (11,379), trailing only Baltimore and Philadelphia. By 2025 the identity has been gutted: a 37.4% rush rate ranks 30th, more pass-leaning than 29 other teams. The franchise that defined the modern smashmouth offense now runs the ball less than almost anyone.
Why it matters. Tennessee's whole formula was controlling the clock and the line of scrimmage with a downhill run game, then taking play-action shots off it. When the backfield production faded and the team started falling behind early, the run game became a luxury they couldn't afford. Abandoning the identity didn't fix the offense; it just removed the one thing the franchise was actually built to do well.
The Titans cannot protect the quarterback, and it isn't new: 349 sacks allowed since 2019, 3rd-most in football.
ComparisonHighest sack rate allowed, 2023-2025 (reg season, dropbacks)
| Rank | Team | Sack % | Sacks |
|---|---|---|---|
| 32 | NYG | 10.0% | 181 |
| 31 | TEN | 9.8% | 172 |
| 30 | NYJ | 8.8% | 164 |
| 29 | MIN | 8.6% | 156 |
TEN sacks allowed and NFL rank, by season
| Season | Sacks allowed | NFL rank (fewest = 1st) |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 56 | 30th |
| 2020 | 25 | 6th |
| 2021 | 47 | 26th |
| 2022 | 49 | 27th |
| 2023 | 64 | 28th |
| 2024 | 52 | 27th |
| 2025 | 56 | 27th |
Tennessee's pass protection is a years-long failure, not a one-year blip. They've allowed a sack on 9.8% of dropbacks since 2023, 31st in the NFL, and across 2019-2025 they surrendered 349 sacks, the 3rd-most of any team behind only the Giants and Jets. In six of the last seven seasons they ranked 26th or worse in sacks allowed; the lone exception was 2020, the year the run game truly carried the offense and quarterback dropbacks were a change-up rather than the plan.
Why it matters. Chronic pressure is the surest way to kill a young quarterback's development and a poor offense's ceiling at once. Every rookie or stopgap the Titans have rolled out has played from a collapsing pocket, which inflates sacks, shrinks the route tree, and feeds the late-game faceplants. Until the line is fixed, no quarterback acquisition will look like the solution.
Take a deep shot on the Titans and you'll probably complete it: 6th-highest deep completion rate allowed.
SplitHighest deep completion % allowed (20+ air yards), 2023-2025 (reg season)
| Rank (worst) | Team | Comp % allowed | EPA allowed/att | Att |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ARI | 45.1% | +0.727 | 162 |
| 2 | CHI | 42.7% | +0.549 | 185 |
| 3 | NYG | 42.5% | +0.563 | 179 |
| 4 | IND | 41.1% | +0.523 | 185 |
| 5 | PIT | 40.5% | +0.621 | 163 |
| 6 | TEN | 40.0% | +0.481 | 175 |
| 32 (best) | NYJ | 29.7% | +0.239 | 182 |
On throws of 20+ air yards, opponents complete 40.0% against Tennessee, the 6th-highest rate allowed in the NFL over 2023-2025, and the Titans surrender +0.481 EPA per deep attempt (24th). The stingiest deep-ball defense, the Jets, holds receivers to 29.7%. That 10-point gap is the difference between a contested incompletion and a 40-yard chunk, and Tennessee keeps landing on the wrong side of it.
Why it matters. A defense that can't take the ball away (32nd in takeaways) also can't slam the door over the top, the two failures compound. Allowing one of the league's highest deep completion rates means surrendering chunk yardage and quick scores, which strands a feeble offense in a permanent catch-up state. It is the back-end mirror of the front's protection problem: the unit gets beaten in exactly the phase that swings games.
The record books
Tennessee has stood at both ends of the standings: three 13-3 banners, and now back-to-back 3-14s.
MilestoneBest and worst Titans seasons since 1999 (reg season)
| Season | Record | End of the list |
|---|---|---|
| 1999 | 13-3 | best (tied) |
| 2000 | 13-3 | best (tied) |
| 2008 | 13-3 | best (tied) |
| 2014 | 2-14 | worst |
| 2024 | 3-14 | 2nd-worst (tied) |
| 2025 | 3-14 | 2nd-worst (tied) |
| 2015 | 3-13 | 4th-worst |
Three Tennessee teams have gone 13-3: 1999, 2000, and 2008, and the 1999 group carried it all the way to a Super Bowl decided in the final seconds, a 23-16 loss to the Rams. The other bookend is where the franchise now lives: back-to-back 3-14 seasons in 2024 and 2025, an echo of 2014-2015, when the club went 2-14 and then 3-13. Only 2014's two-win season has ever been worse. The distance between the two ends of this table is the full span of what this franchise has been.
Why it matters. Franchise memory matters for calibrating the present: this organization has been elite three separate times since 1999, including twice within two years of fielding mediocre rosters. The bookend framing also sets the measuring stick for the rebuild. The 1999 and 2008 peaks were built on dominant defense and a bruising run game, both currently at franchise low ebb, which tells you exactly how far the climb back is and what it has historically been made of.
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