It's time for the coaching staff to make some huge changes.
The franchise in general has reserved a seat at the mediocrity table. Their history reads like this:
Music City Miracle opening season, lose by a yard in the Super Bowl.
Jeff Fisher early playoff exit football for a few years. Got rid of a lot of their 99-00 season stars (Mac9, D Mason, some D pieces)
Suck, pick up some top picks. They ended up getting Pacman Jones and Vince Young. They used a lot of their other 2nd and 3rd round picks on DL and RBs. None of those DL and RBs are with the team anymore. In essence, they threw away 2-3 years of early picks on guys that aren't on the roster anymore.
Once they picked up the Pac and VY, they've had recurrent seasons of around .500, sans the season when they came out 13-0 and ended up getting beat at home to the Ravens after Ray Lewis and Ed Reed roughed CJ up.
1999 13-3 lost in Super Bowl
2000 13-3 lost to Ravens in playoffs
2001 7-9 no playoffs
2002 11-5 lost to Oakland en route to Oakland's SB trip
2003 12-4 beat Ravens, lost to Pats in playoffs
2004 5-11 drafted Pacman, a WR and S they couldn't use.
2005 4-12 drafted VY and Lendale White, a S they couldn't use.
2006 8-8 There was a situation in which the Titans had to win, and 10 other things had to happen so that they could make the playoffs. They lost, and missed out on playoffs. VY looks like the answer, finally get Michael Griffin, a safety they CAN use. Waste next 2 picks on WR and RB they can't use.
2007 10-6 L to Chargers in playoffs. Draft CJ2k, the jury is still out on the guy (more on that later), TE and DL that they threw away
2008 13-3 Fisher's chance to take it to the SB, lose to Ravens in playoffs after they injure CJ2K. Drafted Kenny Britt, guy is good, can't stay on the field.
2009 8-8 Drafted Derrick Morgan, no dice. Picked up a bunch of guys still trying to establish their identity. Took a "chance" on Blount, but cut him. Another year in which they barely missed the playoffs.
2010 6-10 Drafted Jake Locker
2011 9-7 Another year that they missed the playoffs barely. Someone else had to win to send them to the playoffs and that team lost. Titans rarely control their destiny at the end fo the season. Drafted Wright and some other guys who need to show their worth.
The Titans are in a situation where they were not able to utilize their crappy years to get top-tier talent. They guys that they did pick up have not ended up working out.
Furthermore, CJ is useless without the old Offensive Coordinator Heimerdinger. It's obvious. Ding knew what to do and what plays to call to really let CJ shine. This new staff is lost on what to do with CJ. A lot of the blame should be put on CJ, he's running horribly, hasn't been able to find his groove in a LONG time. It's easy to say that once the check hit the bank he turned off the juice. That being said, I still think that he'd be playing a lot better if Dinger was still around. Their old OC knew how to make CJ play to his skill set and utilize the guy for every bit of speed he has.
It's almost like the play calls are made to spite CJ. They want to force him down the gullett of the Ds that they play and it's just not happening. It's not the offensive line either. I do think that if you transplanted CJ to a lot of other teams that he would be back to his old form. Something is off, and the staff refuses to accept it.
It's time to line CJ up somewhere else or start using him in different packages. The staff wants him to be a AP or Steven Jackson, and CJ is not that. They're refusing to change their ways and it's frustrating to watch. It's obvious at this point in the season that CJ isn't going to play like CJ2K in the scheme that they've got him in.
It's obvious that the franchise doesn't have the front office to routinely bring in competitive talent like NE, GB, Pitt, but they're not even trying to bring in top guys anymore.
Their biggest off-season FA move was picking up Nate Washington. Nate is good, but they should have been making some more moves over the years.
The franchise needs to start over again. They ran off a good coach because the management had too much say in who was being drafted and who was to stay on the team. Now they're going to pay the price, and they were never able to right the ship with some great Draft picks. Just more of the same.
Until they change some stuff at the top, the Titans are always going to barely make the playoffs or barely miss the playoffs and get the same calibre of player year in and year out.