Thursday, December 9 Titans try to steady ship By Mark Cannizzaro Special to ESPN.com

The good news for the Tennessee Titans is that an 8-8 season is not a possibility.

	Titans quarterback Steve McNair hasn't thrown a touchdown pass in his last five games.

Entering this year, an 8-8 record had been the franchise's calling card, essentially a perennial record for the 1990s. With 10 wins in 1999, the Titans are guaranteed of at least a slight improvement from the last three seasons. But slight improvement isn't what this franchise is seeking.

The bad news, however, was the waxing they took from the mediocre Baltimore Ravens last Sunday.

Suddenly, the Titans have gone from battling the Jaguars for the AFC Central title to merely trying to right their ship for a strong wild-card playoff run.

A week ago, Jets coach Bill Parcells, enviously looking at the schedules of the Jaguars and Titans, said it would take "a bus accident" for either team not to make the playoffs.

Now, with a two-game lead, it'll take a bus accident for the Jaguars not to win the division.

Aside from one more game against Tennessee, which handed the Jaguars (11-1) their only loss, Jacksonville's other games are against Denver (4-8), Cincinnati (3-10) and Cleveland (2-11).

"It's not like we're looking and saying, 'We hope Jacksonville loses,' " Titans quarterback Steve McNair said. "Our goal is to get in the playoffs. Winning the division would be great, but our goal is to get to the playoffs."

Titans defensive end Kenny Holmes warned that Tennessee, which plays Pittsburgh and Atlanta as well as Jacksonville after Thursday night's game, should not take the playoffs for granted.

"Ten wins is not going to get you in the playoffs, not in our conference, with the way everyone is playing," Holmes said. "These next four games, we have to win. We're certainly not clinched, and we're not locked in to any playoff berth, that's for sure. Everyone knows that.

"All that talk about playing Jacksonville, that game is so far away," Holmes added. "You have to let that go and the more you think about that, the more games you're going to drop until you get to Jacksonville. This game right here against the Raiders is more important because we play it right now."

Last week's 41-14 loss to the Ravens will do one of two things to Tennessee, and we'll see which one as the next couple weeks play out.

The loss was either a wakeup call after the Titans had won 13 consecutive games against AFC Central competition, or it exposed the Titans as the pretenders they've been for the past few years -- pretenders with an easy schedule.

There has been a lot of speculation around the league that Jacksonville and Tennessee, because of their weak schedules, will not be battle-hardened once the postseason arrives. Things are certainly much different in the AFC East, where every Sunday seems like a playoff game.

"We're not concerned about what's going on outside, in the East and the West, or concerned with what Jacksonville's doing," Titans coach Jeff Fisher said. "We're playing to win the next game, and everything else is out of our control."

The tough talk aside, Fisher was clearly rattled by what he saw last Sunday. There was a lot of denial from both he and the players afterward.

"This is not the football team I am used to seeing," Fisher said. "The challenge right now is how we handle this. We have to move on."

Titans fullback Lorenzo Neal added, "There's no excuse for that type of play. We didn't show up. It wasn't the Titans ... we're supposed to win that game."

"We blew ourselves out," added rookie defensive end Jevon Kearse. "We missed assignments, we didn't execute on both sides of the ball. That didn't look like the Titans out there."

There are some who believe the Titans are vulnerable without a prolific passing attack. Eddie George was limited to a mere eight carries by Baltimore, and the Titans' downfield passing attack is fooling nobody.

"As an offense, they nickel-and-dime you," Ravens safety Rod Woodson said. "It's hard to win that way. You've got to make some big plays somewhere along the line. You can't expect to drive it down the field over and over."

In five of the Titans' last seven games, Tennessee has thrown for fewer than 200 yards, depending more on George and good defense. The Titans have not thrown a touchdown pass since Oct. 31.

"We haven't had the big plays in the passing game down the field, the run after catches in the last three or four weeks," Fisher said. "Obviously, we haven't got in the end zone throwing it."

With the team's best wide receiver, Yancey Thigpen, sidelined the last three games with an ankle sprain, a young receiving corps has failed to make big catches or produce big yards.

Raiders' second-year cornerback Charles Woodson indicated that no one is fearful of the Titans' passing attack.

Look for Tennessee to make the playoffs -- the Titans need to win only two of their remaining four games to accomplish that -- but it could a quick exit from the postseason from there. They're simply not battle-tested or diverse enough.

"We've got to believe we're a better football team than this and move on," Fisher said. "I believe we know how to prepare on a short week and bounce back. We're mad. And we've done good things this year when we're mad."

State of emergency in Seattle
Two weeks ago, the Seahawks were 8-2 and running away with the AFC West.

Now, entering Sunday's game against the Chargers, Seattle has lost two in a row and is fighting for its playoff life. The Chiefs sit just a game out of first place, and the Raiders are two games back.

What's happened to Mike Holmgren's magic? Is it wearing out?

"There's a little tendency for the guys who've been around here to say, 'Here we go again,' " Holmgren said of a franchise that hasn't reached the playoffs since 1988. "We have to eliminate the turnovers that have plagued us the last two weeks. That has to stop, otherwise, this is going to get kind of too tight down the road here."

Against the Raiders, four Seattle turnovers led to 20 Oakland points. The Seahawks have turned the ball over 10 times in the past two games. Seattle quarterback Jon Kitna has thrown more interceptions in the past two weeks (seven) than he did in his first nine starts (six).

"This is no time to panic," Kitna said. "We've lost two games, and if you look back, the two teams we've played have been flawless."

After the San Diego game, the Seahawks play at Denver, have a home game against Kansas City and then play at the Jets in the regular-season finale. The game with the Chiefs is clearly the big one.

Last straw for Parcells?
An interesting thing happened last Sunday when the Giants pummeled the Jets 41-28 in a game the Giants led 34-7 at one point. Jets coach Bill Parcells, who coached the Giants to two Super Bowl victories, walked away humiliated.

"I'm ashamed," Parcells said. "This is the first time in three years that I have been ashamed. I'm certainly not used to that kind of effort. It's been a long time. It's been four or five years since I've had one of those.

"They beat us every way possible today. There wasn't any kind of game or effort on our behalf. They were much better prepared than we were, and they made a much better effort, and the result showed it. We had absolutely no chance to win the game."

Entering the game, the Jets had allowed a mere 44 points in their past four games. The Giants fell a mere field goal short of matching what Arizona, Buffalo and Indianapolis (twice) had managed against the Jets' defense in the previous month.

The way the Jets quit on Parcells last week has fueled speculation about whether he'll return in 2000 for one more season on the sideline. Parcells, who's under contract to coach at least one more season, has said that he'll decide after the season about what to do.

His players, however, are wondering aloud now.

"I don't know what coach's decision is going to be about what he's going to do next year, but I think at this point, that would probably heavily weigh on people's minds, wanting to know whether or not he's making the decision to come back at this point," Jets receiver Keyshawn Johnson said. "I would think that I would want to come back."

Johnson went as far as to say that, instead of verbalizing to Parcells that he wants him back next season, he'll do his lobbying on the field.

Mark Cannizzaro of the New York Post writes a weekly AFC notebook for ESPN.com that appears each Thursday.