Former Titan wide receiver Kalif Raymond had two touchdowns Sunday, one on a 7-yard pass reception and another on a 90-yard punt return.

-- Photo By Paul Sancya | Ap

I was going to use the space for this week’s column to do a nice little feature story on a Titans player and his role on the team.

But that has been postponed for now due to the need for an emergency therapy session for Titans fans in the wake of being absolutely demolished Sunday in Detroit.

That 52-14 beatdown at Ford Field is easily among the five worst losses the franchise has endured since setting foot on Tennessee soil back in 1997 – taking its place right alongside a 59-0 embarrassment in New England in 2009; a 55-7 debacle in Green Bay toward the end of the 2012 season and the 2015 game in which they lost 20-6 in Houston.

Granted that last score doesn’t sound so bad, but it was the game in which quarterback Zach Mettenberger was sacked seven times and literally had to crawl off the field from being sacked so hard and so often that day. It also was the last game Ken Whisenhunt would work as an NFL head coach, as Amy Adams Strunk fired him two days later.

If team founder Bud Adams were still alive, Sunday would have definitely been a “Call Bud” game, the kind that would prompt a reporter or two with the owner’s home phone number to call to allow him to rant and perhaps threaten to make changes.

His daughter might not be quite as impulsive as Bud, but that trait is still in her DNA. Ask Whisenhunt. Ask Jon Robinson after A.J. Brown dunked on the Titans just months after being traded to the Eagles in 2022. Ask Craig Aukerman last year after two straight blocked punts landed the Titans in the L column and Ryan Stonehouse in the hospital. And ask Mike Vrabel, who picked the wrong time to make a power play after consecutive double-digit loss seasons.

Where to begin?

After Sunday, one wonders if the seats of rookie head coach Brian Callahan and his staff are starting to get a little warmer, even though everyone should have known going in there would be some choppy waters to navigate.

Callahan a first-time head coach and play-caller. His offensive, defensive and special teams coordinators are first-timers, as well. Add in a new offensive system, a bevy of new players, a quarterback change and the aftershocks of trading DeAndre Hopkins and Ernest Jones for draft picks, and Sunday was a certain recipe for disaster.

The Titans are now a mind-boggling minus-13 in turnover margin in seven games. Some thought the turnovers would stop, or at least slow down, with Will Levis out of the lineup due to a shoulder injury. But that has not been the case with six giveaways in the last two games with Mason Rudolph at quarterback.

The defense has its culpability in this, as well. The Titans have one interception and one fumble recovery all season. Special teams – and that’s an abomination unto itself –has one fumble recovery.

A few things did look better at times Sunday, with the offense throwing for 220 yards in the first half and the offensive line giving up only one sack.

But four turnovers, untimely penalties and horrific coverage on special teams that set up three different Lions scores more than washed away any progress that might have been made in the passing game.

Accepting responsibility

Callahan has owned the Titans’ struggles in the early going with a transparency that was rarely displayed by some of his predecessors. Will that honesty buy him, his staff and the front office any goodwill with ownership? Maybe, to a point, but a few wins would probably help more.

“We have not come close to playing anywhere near the type of football that I think we’re capable of,” Callahan told reporters after the loss. “The way we turn it over – four turnovers – you’re going to get blown out by every team in the league.

“And then we don’t capture the ball at all and we just don’t complement each other at all,” Callahan continued. “Right now, our special teams gives up yards. Defense doesn’t get a stop. We don’t do anything on offense. We turn it over. Everything needs to be better.

“That’s all there is to it. We’ve got to look at it and find a way to get those things corrected, and until we do it’s gonna be hard.”

Truth is, it probably can’t get a whole lot harder than it looked Sunday with the Titans at the bottom of the heap being embarrassed by a Lions team with serious Super Bowl aspirations.

But the bad part of this is there are still 10 more games left in this season.

The biggest thing now for Callahan and his staff is not to panic. That piece of advice could go for Adams Strunk, as well, as some of her impulsive decisions have no doubt played a role in the Titans’ three-year tailspin.

The only real solution for now is simply to be patient, keep working and try to find a few wins somewhere over the next 10 weeks as the schedule softens a bit.

“We’ve got to stop losing games. We’re losing ourselves games. We’re not putting ourselves in position to win. We don’t play a clean enough brand right now to put us in a competitive spot,” Callahan said.