Titans’ Mularkey fired after resisting changes

— The Sports Xchange —

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — After their best season, at least advancement wise in 14 years, the Tennessee Titans began the offseason with upheaval, ridding themselves of head coach Mike Mularkey.
The parting of the ways comes even though Mularkey led them to the divisional round of the AFC Playoffs for the first time since 2008 and to their first playoff win since the 2003 season.
Mularkey went 19-15 over his two full seasons as the Titans head coach, and yet even as he was qualifying for the playoffs with a win over Jacksonville and winning a wild-card game at Kansas City, rumors and reports of his job being in jeopardy continued to dog his final days, until he was let go Monday, just a day after his season-ending press conference and reports of a contract extension supposedly being forthcoming.
Apparently, the extension that Mularkey and controlling owner Amy Adams Strunk were working on was contingent upon several things – namely making changes on his coaching staff, accommodating the offense more for quarterback Marcus Mariota and the Titans apparently believing that Mularkey and his staff couldn’t take the Titans to the next level, which is a championship.
“I think there’s a lot of factors that go into decisions that you make that impact the football team, this obviously (was) a big one. That’s certainly something that was discussed,” Titans general manager Jon Robinson said, when asked if staff changes were a part of the equation.
Mularkey had said in his season-ending press conference the day before that he expected his coaching staff back and was pleased with the progress Mariota had made this season.
In terms of whether Mularkey had taken the Titans as far as he could, Robinson somewhat sidestepped the issue, but seemed to answer yes in a roundabout way.
“I think there’s a lot of good football players on this team. I think at the end of the day, we felt like we needed to go down a different path to move forward,” Robinson said.
As for the offense and Mariota’s development, the quarterback took a step backward in year three, throwing just 13 touchdown passes and 15 interceptions after 26 touchdown passes and nine picks in 2016. A lot of that had to do with injuries, as Mariota spent the offseason rehabbing from a broken fibula, then battled an assortment of issues during the season. He missed one game with a hamstring injury.
But there was the belief that the so-called “exotic smashmouth” was not the best fit for a young quarterback who had come up in a spread system and often operated out of the no-huddle in college. Those things were not consistently a part of the Titans’ offensive scheme, and were much less prevalent this year than in 2016.
“I think that the NFL game has evolved a little bit, and I think that being able to – like I said earlier in my statement – maximize the ability of players, again, to put the team in the best position to win football games,” Robinson said.
So now the search begins for someone to match Robinson’s philosophy and Mariota’s skill set.
–In the aftermath of the Titans’ 35-14 loss at New England that eliminated them from the playoffs, quarterback Marcus Mariota and a number of players said the team’s offense underachieved this season.
When asked his feelings on how the Titans played against the defending champion Patriots, Mariota said, “embarrassed.”
“We have a lot of areas to improve,” Mariota said. “I think throughout this entire season, we didn’t play a complete game of football. One phase plays well, the other one doesn’t. And again tonight, we just didn’t make enough plays.”
Other players echoed the theme of not being consistent and building on their 2016 offensive success.
“I’ll be the first one to say that we underachieved this year,” left tackle Taylor Lewan said. “To make it this far, that’s extremely promising, but we can’t do that again in the 2018 season. We’ve got to come out guns a blazing. We have the firepower to do it. It’s just a matter of getting it done.”
–One thing the Titans were none too happy about in their 35-14 loss to the Patriots was the officiating, as at least two calls went against them that changed the momentum of the game.
First, receiver Eric Decker was called for an offensive pass interference penalty with the game tied at 7-7. The call negated a 13-yard gain on third down that would have moved the chains. Tennessee eventually punted and New England score the go-ahead touchdown on the next possession.
“That one, I don’t even want to talk about. That one goes down in history,” then-head coach Mike Mularkey said.
Later, the Patriots were called for a false start before a punt, only to have officials huddle and change the call to encroachment on Titans safety Brynden Trawick. The result was a first down that also led to a touchdown drive that made the score 21-7, and the rout was on.
“It is what it is,” Trawick said. “When you play these, you’ve got to play fundamentally sound and don’t leave it in the refs’ hands.”

REPORT CARD VS. PATRIOTS
–PASSING OFFENSE: D — Marcus Mariota’s final numbers were OK and rookie Corey Davis had two touchdown catches. But the offense was out of rhythm in the second and third quarters, and Mariota was sacked eight times in the game.
–RUSHING OFFENSE: F — A week after running roughshod over the Chiefs, the Titans’ offense was frozen in New England, as Derrick Henry ran for just 28 yards. Mariota led the team in rushing with 31 yards, and he was a non-factor in the run game in the second half due to a quad injury.
–PASS DEFENSE: F – Tom Brady threw 53 passes, completing 35 of them for 337 yards and three scores. And the Titans who talked a good part of the week of needing to pressure Brady never sacked him once.
–RUSH DEFENSE: C — The Titans have been good against the run most of the year, so the Patriots didn’t even make much effort to get the ground game going. They only seemed to run it when their receivers needed a rest from running routes. Still, Dion Lewis had 62 yards and New England had 102 as a team.
–SPECIAL TEAMS: C — No major special teams gaffes, but no real impact in a positive way either, as the Titans could have desperately used a punt or kickoff return as a spark.
–COACHING: D-minus — The Titans looked good on their first touchdown drive, going 95 yards in 11 plays to take a 7-0 lead. But the creativity and good balance on offense went away shortly thereafter. Defensively, the Titans insisted on taking Rob Gronkowksi and Brandin Cooks out of the Patriots’ offense, so Brady killed them with the likes of Danny Amendola and James White.