There’s blocking out the noise, and then there’s pure ignorance.

“I mean, we’re not stupid. We’re aware of what happens when you lose so many football games in a row,” Tennessee Titans tight end Chig Okonkwo said. “You can feel the urgency from everybody kind of picking up this week for sure.”

The Titans are 0-4, losers of 10 games in a row dating back to last season. Embattled coach Brian Callahan has rapidly risen to the top of “next coach fired” lists, as his record falls to 3-18 since arriving in Nashville. Speculation runs rampant. Social media is a minefield of negativity for players and coaches alike. And staying off social media isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution; everyone’s got friends or family, and nothing is stopping them from texting over a mean tweet or asking about the latest radio fodder.

Callahan says he thinks of outside noise as “poison,” seemingly echoing former Alabama coach Nick Saban’s “rat poison” diatribe. The reality, though ― unfortunate as it may be ― is football players and coaches in the modern age are pretty used to the poison. Not just in the sense where social media breeds vitriol, but also because just about everyone on the Titans has worked for a bad football team at one point or another. And they’ve owned a cell phone and had internet access through those struggles.

Guard Kevin Zeitler played for the 0-16 Cleveland Browns in 2017. Defensive end Jihad Ward, center Lloyd Cushenberry III and defensive tackle Shy Tuttle played for teams that fired coaches Urban Meyer, Nathaniel Hackett and Frank Reich before they even finished one season in charge. Guard Peter Skoronski played for teams that went 4-20 in his last two years at Northwestern. And his teams are 9-29 with the Titans. These are just the linemen.

“There’s beauty in the struggle,” Tuttle says.

The Titans visit the Arizona Cardinals (2-2) at State Farm Stadium on Oct. 5 (3:05 p.m. CT, CBS).

Titans hot seat talk: Lessons learned, critics faced

Let’s not sugarcoat it: Knowing how to play for a bad team still doesn’t make it fun.

“No one enjoyed it, but that angst and anger, it just set us up for the next year,” Zeitler said of the 0-16 year in Cleveland that set up the 7-8-1 campaign the next season. “And we were firing pretty quickly, and it was fantastic. Kind of like I’ve been saying, you’ve just got to keep going.”

As Okonkwo points out, negativity finds even the best athletes. He remembers hearing four-time NBA champion Stephen Curry discussing how he still has to work on blocking out critics deep into his already-a-lock-for-the-Hall-of-Fame career. Anyone talking about you, Okonkwo jokes, is probably talking about how they think you stink.

Sometimes you just have to lean into it. Tuttle says he remembers the defensive line room looking forward to its daily meetings even amid the Carolina Panthers’ 1-12 start and Reich’s dismissal in 2023. Okonkwo says the best strategy for not letting the criticism seep in is to remember how playing football felt before it was a job you could be criticized for.

And then there’s special teams coordinator John Fassel’s strategy.

“Everybody’s going to say they don’t hear it. All ‘Oh, we don’t hear the noise, we tune out the noise.’ Everybody hears the noise,” Fassel admitted. “Which is okay, I think. I think sometimes listening to critics is healthy, because maybe there’s some truth in it. You can decide for yourself what it is. Part of it too is also motivational. I think there’s a part you want to tune it out, but to me there’s also a part you kind of want to tune it in. Embrace, sometimes, the criticism.”

For those Titans in the Fassel camp, there’s plenty to embrace these days.

Nick Suss is the Titans beat writer for The Tennessean. Contact Nick at  nsuss@gannett.com. Follow Nick on X @nicksuss. Subscribe to the Talkin’ Titans newsletter for updates sent directly to your inbox.