Last week I unknowingly unleashed a hornet’s nest with a simple factual statement.

Was it some highly-charged bold political statement like Dad might have made before he left us? Was I calling out someone for their behavior in a controversial way?

Nope, it was pretty uneventful, but the controversy followed nonetheless.

Sunday, January 4, 2026 officially marked the end of the 2025 NFL regular season. If your team makes the playoffs, you get at least one more game—and a shot at the “Big Game,” or as it’s sometimes legally referred to unless you’re an official sponsor… the “Superb Owl.”

On that day, my Tennessee Titans were soundly defeated by longtime rivals, the Jacksonville Jaguars —a rivalry that dates back to 1995, when the Jags entered the league as an expansion team in the AFC Central alongside the Steelers, Bengals, Ravens (freshly moved from Cleveland by Art Modell), and the Houston Oilers, who would soon relocate and eventually become the Tennessee Titans.