Let’s Do Contact Tracing To Place Blame For That Horrific Titans Loss

November 13, 2020November 13, 2020 Austin

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. The Titans lost to the Indianapolis Colts.

And this time on a Thursday night. This must be how Jaguars fans feel after TNF games against the Titans.

This was a baaaaad bad game for the Titans. Credit the Colts, who played very well, but it’s hard not to feel like this game was won on three special teams plays: a botched 17-yard punt, a blocked punt for a touchdown, and yet another missed field goal by Stephen Gostkowski. (If Gostkowski is trying to get back at the Titans for eliminating the Patriots from the playoffs last year, it’s working. Well played, Belichick.)

Since contact tracing seems to be all the rage this year, and the Titans are obviously very familiar with COVID, I figured we should do some contact tracing to see who we can pin the blame of this loss on. Let’s see just how deep we can go.

Trevor Daniel

Who the hell is Trevor Daniel? He’s the Titans punter who was delivering packages for FedEx as recently as last week. That’s not a joke. Nor is it some sort of future Kurt Warner story (trust me), because Federal Express had only three punts: one of which was blocked for a touchdown, and one went 17 yards.

I should also point out he’s a Tennessee Vol, meaning he definitely brought some of that bad Vol juju west to Nashville this week.

But no, this one is too easy. Let’s go deeper.

Ryan Allen

Ryan Allen was the Titans punter on Sunday against the Bears. He actually punted amazing in the game, consistently booming punts, sending the punt returner deeper to field them. Unfortunately, throughout the short practice week, Federal Express apparently punted better than Ryan Allen. After watching TNF, it begs the question: just how BAD was Ryan Allen in practice if FedEx beat him out??

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But regardless, Ryan Allen was beaten out in practice, leading to the Titans starting FedEx.

But no, let’s go deeper.

Beau Brinkley

Beau Brinkley was the Titans long-time long snapper who missed a couple of snaps in the loss to the Bengals. Arguably the first two bad snaps of his 8-year career. Two days later, he was cut.

One of his bad snaps, however, came on a field goal attempt with the Titans All-Pro Brett Kern holding. With the low snap, Kern was forced to pick up the ball and roll out in an emergency pass situation. It was on this play Kern injured his wrist, causing him to miss the next few games eventually leading to Federal Express.

But no, we can keep going deeper.

Chase Daniel

This career backup, who has been lucratively paid throughout his career, clearly opened up the door or at least paved the way for other backups named Daniel to earn jobs they probably don’t deserve. Thus providing some sort of explanation as to how Federal Express (Trevor Daniel) got his starting job over Ryan Allen this week.

But no, this is too easy. We can definitely keep going deeper.

Ryan Succop

It’s easy to blame kickers for overbearing problems. Especially kickers who aren’t even on your team anymore. From 2014 until last year, Ryan Succop was the Titans kicker. In fact, he, Beau Brinkley, and Brett Kern each made up a special teams unit nicknamed The Tripod, which coincidentally was my nickname in college. Not to brag. Last year, Succop stopped kicking well and was ultimately cut from the team. Thus making The Tripod a bipod? And if there’s one thing we know about bipods, they don’t stand for very long. The emotional distress clearly got to Beau Brinkley first, who wavered in his long snapping duties, ultimately forcing a bad snap which led to the injury of Brett Kern, which led to the. starting of Ryan Allen, which led to the poor practice week, which led to Federal Express.

Since Succop couldn’t kick, now the Titans can’t punt.

But no, come on. We can keep going deeper.

The Movie Cast Away

Speaking of disastrous wrecks involving FedEx, anyone seen the 2000 Tom Hanks classic Cast Away? If so, then you know at the end Helen Hunt talks about the Titans and how they were “one yard… one lousy yard” away in the Super Bowl. So the Titans are forever linked to FedEx. Thus explaining why they felt the urge to give their punting job to a guy who delivered packages for FedEx.

Unfortunately for Trev Daniel, Titans fans are going to hope he gets lost on a deserted island for four years.

But no. Believe it or not, we can keep going deeper.

The Birth Of Titans O.C. Arthur Smith

Alright, roll with me on this one.

May 27th, 1982. Arthur William Smith was born to parents Fred and Dianne Smith. Fred is the founder, chairman and CEO of the FedEx Corporation, one of the world’s largest package delivery and logistics companies. As Arthur grew up, so did FedEx. Big enough to essentially fund the film Cast Away – with the amount of product placement they received. This film was more than likely seen by a young Arthur Smith, who was probably excited to see his father’s company on the silver screen. This probably led Arthur to pursue a career in football to ultimately get a job with the Titans, as they were mentioned in the film. He eventually gets that illustrious job with the Titans and works his way up to not only the offensive coordinator, but a good one at that. A good enough O.C., who’s voice carries weight within the building, enough to where when the Titans bring in a backup punter for a workout, Arthur Smith encourages the team to go with the guy who was a former FedEx deliver driver, despite how good Ryan Allen was the week prior, because Arthur’s still biased towards his dad’s company.

Elihu Yale

Who in the hell is Elihu Yale? Just hear me out, ok?

In 1701, the Collegiate School was founded. Eventually moving to New Haven, Connecticut in 1716, the Collegiate School was renamed to Yale College in recognition of a gift from British East India Company governor Elihu Yale. Yale College ultimately became known as Yale University. It was at Yale University in 1971 where Frederick W. Smith wrote a term paper for an economics class which outlined an idea for a company that would guarantee overnight delivery of small, time-sensitive products to U.S. cities. That paper got a C. But it also stemmed the idea for what is now known as the FedEx Corporation, which led to the movie Cast Away, which led to Arthur Smith’s pursuit of football coaching, which led to him getting the job with the Titans, which led to Arthur pining for Trevor Daniel to get the punting job because he previously worked for his dad’s company. Without Elihu Yale’s generous contribution, the Collegiate School is probably just a fad, but instead it led to the Titans using a package delivery driver as their punter. So thanks for nothing Elihu Yale.

But let’s see if we can go even deeper.