The Tennessee Titans have recorded their fair share of average and underwhelming seasons in recent history — when’s the last time they finished the regular season with a record other than 9-7?
But the team showed it was capable of more than just average play when it made a run to the AFC Championship Game this past season, with only a 35-24 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs standing between it and a Super Bowl appearance.
As underwhelming as the Titans have sometimes been in previous years, they still could have cracked their way into the postseason in 2011 and 2016 under the new playoff format the NFL officially adopted on Sunday.
The new CBA adds a seventh playoff team in each conference beginning in 2020, meaning there will be 14 postseason teams as opposed to the previous total of 12.
And what would have been the record good enough to get the Titans there in both of those seasons? You guessed it: 9-7!
Just missed.
Here are the "7 seeds" from the previous 10 seasons that would have made the playoffs under the new format: pic.twitter.com/biA6XQHMvX
— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) March 15, 2020
What could Tennessee have done with a playoff berth in both of those seasons?
We’ll never know — but you can bet the final weeks of regular-season football will get a heck of a lot more interesting from this point forward.