North told Jones<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cYou don’t draft your way into prime time. So the Titans are one of the teams that don’t currently have a national television window assigned. But that’s what things like flexible scheduling are for. And if you look down the stretch for the Titans, they play San Francisco in Week 15, Kansas City in Week 16. They’ve got the same opportunity every other team has to play their way into a national window.”<\/p>\n
That sounds like a logical explanation, but one could argue the policy hasn\u2019t held true in recent years.<\/p>\n
In 2023, for instance, the Carolina Panthers were coming off a 7-10 season, but after drafting quarterback Bryce Young with the first overall pick, found themselves making two primetime appearances \u2014 including the second Monday Night Football game of that season.<\/p>\n
In 2024, the Chicago Bears also were coming off a 7-10 season but, after drafting quarterback Caleb Williams with the first overall pick, found themselves making three national nighttime appearances \u2014 two Thursday Night Football games and one Monday Night Football contest.<\/p>\n
Did the fact the Panthers and Bears had won seven games before drafting their quarterbacks \u2014 compared to the Titans\u2019 three last season \u2014 really make them that much more appetizing to the NFL schedule makers?<\/p>\n
Going back further, the Cincinnati Bengals were 2-14 in 2019, but after drafting Joe Burrow No. 1 in 2020, appeared twice in primetime that year. Did the Bengals really play their way into primetime that season?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also a little strange to hear North talk about teams playing their way into primetime when the New York Giants \u2014 who, like the Titans, finished with a 3-14 record last season \u2014 are scheduled for three primetime affairs in 2025.<\/p>\n
One of the Giants\u2019 primetime contests is against New England, which finished 4-13 last year \u2014 yet also is scheduled for three primetime slots.<\/p>\n
The potential advantage of playing no primetime games is that it allows teams like the Titans to get used to a familiar routine. Every game is currently scheduled for Sunday afternoon \u2014 at least 11 starting at noon \u2014 and there are no worries about short practice weeks caused by games on Monday or Thursday.<\/p>\n
Still, players enjoy competing on the national stage, and fans take their team\u2019s total of primetime games as a point of pride.<\/p>\n
We know now that if the Titans want the national spotlight this season, they\u2019ll have to play their way into it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Titans couldn\u2019t have expected to play many 2025 primetime games after finishing 3-14 last season. But shut…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54337,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2061],"tags":[1476,1036,127,260,391,7,1981,13626,122,1167,56,6,526,394,2411,527],"class_list":{"0":"post-54336","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennessee-titans","8":"tag-bryce-young","9":"tag-caleb-williams","10":"tag-cam-ward","11":"tag-carolina-panthers","12":"tag-chicago-bears","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-jonathan-jones","15":"tag-mike-north","16":"tag-national-football-league","17":"tag-new-england","18":"tag-new-york-giants","19":"tag-nfl","20":"tag-tennessee","21":"tag-tennessee-titans","22":"tag-tennesseetitans","23":"tag-titans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114516669776009313","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}