Wiedmer: Titans' Locker goes from hero to goat in seven days

photo Tennessee Titans quarterback Jake Locker (10) passes against the Dallas Cowboys in their game Sunday, Sept. 14, 2014, in Nashville.

NASHVILLE - Once more brought to the ground by an angry and aggressive Dallas Cowboys defense, Tennessee Titans quarterback Jake Locker was subjected to the following critique from a frustrated young fan early in the third quarter of Sunday's 26-10 loss at LP Field:

"You're ruining everything, Locker."

From hero to goat in seven short days.

"Yeah, Jake didn't play his best in the first half," said first-year Titans coach Ken Whisenhunt afterward. "But we had opportunities to make a couple of catches to get us going and we didn't do it. We all had breakdowns. We had dropped balls. We had missed tackles. [Those are] things that we've got to get better at."

As his coach pointed out, it certainly wasn't all Locker's fault that the Titans now stand 1-1 heading into Sunday's trip to Cincinnati. But if his 18 completions in 34 attempts for 224 yards and a touchdown weren't horrific, his two interceptions were a stark reminder that he remains very much a work in progress as he enters his fourth NFL season.

And if his teammates expect to make the playoffs for the first time since the 2008 season, they're going to have to step it up a notch or three, as well.

At least all of them save tight end Delani Walker, who turned in perhaps the best game of his nine-year professional career in totaling 10 catches for 142 yards and one spectacular 61-yard score.

"If it's the best game I ever had, it doesn't matter. We lost," Walker said. "This was very frustrating. This is our house, and we tried to protect our house and we didn't do it today."

Not exactly. You just can't fall behind 16-0 in the home opener, surrender 220 rushing yards (167 to DeMarco Murray), give up 10 catches and 103 receiving yards to Dez Bryant, never draw closer than six points the rest of the way -- and never have the ball down by as few as six in the second half -- and expect your fan base to retain hope that this autumn will be vastly different than the five futile ones that have come before it.

Even Locker seemed to sense this was a huge lost opportunity to inspire the Titans' frustrated followers.

"[Before the game] it was an atmosphere like I hadn't felt since I've been here," he said. "It's just unfortunate to go out and play like we did today. We can only hope the people here stick behind us."

Nor was that goal helped by a Titans organization pregame gaffe that underscored why the past week just may have been the worst in National Football League history away from the playing field.

Apparently unaware of most NFL fans' need to take a long, hot shower following the release of video showing former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice punching out his future wife in a casino elevator, the Titans blared a somewhat G-rated version of some rap compilation known as "Friday Night Remix," which features more than a few lyrics that could easily be seen as being demeaning to women.

"We review everything we play on game days and play radio versions, but clearly with the subject matter included, the song should have been flagged and eliminated from the play list," Don MacLachlan, Titans executive vice president of administration and facilities, told ESPN.com regarding the tune that began blasting away approximately 35 minutes from the opening kickoff.

But it wasn't flagged. Instead, it merely reminded anyone listening of league commissioner Roger Goodell's possible cover up of that tape. And Minnesota running back Adrian Peterson being charged with child abuse for taking a switch to his 4-year-old son. And San Francisco's Ray McDonald and Carolina's Greg Hardy both battling their own domestic abuse cases.

Throw in last week's news that nearly 30 percent of former NFL players will eventually suffer some form of dementia and no one could be blamed for wishing to never hear or see "NFL Off-Field Remix."

But as long as they take NFL bets in Las Vegas, the league is likely to remain quite popular on the field.

And at the risk of throwing sound reasoning into all sports' instant analysis culture, Dallas Cowboys QB Tony Romo offered a bit of wise and weary wisdom of reading too much into any team's season after two weeks.

"We make a lot of big statements about what every team is going to be after week one," he said. "I'm sure at the end of today you'll find out that a lot of things we all thought last week are completely different this week. It's going to take four or five weeks before you kind of see what teams are going to be; who they are and what they're going to struggle with and what they're going to do well."

What must again concern the Titans Nation, however, is whether or not Locker -- who was 0-6 on third-down conversions in the opening half -- is the maturing quarterback he appeared to be at Kansas City a week ago ... or the same manic, mistake-prone one he too often became over the past three seasons.

To that point, when Locker was asked why the Titans played so much better in the second half than the first, he answered, "If I knew, we would have changed it earlier."

Fair or not, if he continues not to know what makes his team play better sometimes than others, there will soon be far more than one young voice in LP Field complaining that Locker is ruining everything.

Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.

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