Titanic Memories - Soapbox Jr.
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.
I’ve touched on this before, but Dad and I were reformed Dallas Cowboys fans after Jerry Jones fired the only coach the franchise had known since 1960: the great Tom Landry.
The Cowboys were our team, but when they weren’t on national TV in Nashville, we often got Houston Oilers games. That worked out fine—especially when they had one of the most powerful running backs of all time, Earl Campbell. Thanks to Earl, Bum Phillips, Dan Pastorini, Elvin Bethea, and plenty of others, the Oilers became our AFC team while the Cowboys stayed our NFC choice.
Houston Oilers founder and AFL co-founder K.S. “Bud” Adams was a character—unpredictable, stubborn, and ultimately the reason Tennessee got an NFL team. His push for a new stadium to replace the aging Astrodome ended with him following through on threats the City of Houston didn’t think he’d have the cajones to do. But that was pure Bud.
If I remember correctly, Dad was part of the effort to bring the NFL to Nashville. After all the votes and red tape cleared, Bud announced on November 19, 1995 that the Oilers would play in Tennessee starting in the 1998 season.
Ticket sales in Houston tanked once fans knew the team was leaving after 1997, so after an 8–8 season in 1996, the Oilers moved a year early. The 1997 season was played in Memphis at the Liberty Bowl, and with the new stadium still not ready in 1998, the team finished its Oilers run at Vanderbilt’s Dudley Field.
Dad got tickets to the final Tennessee Oilers game in 1998 against rookie sensation Randy Moss and the Minnesota Vikings.
The Oilers lost and finished 8–8 for the third straight year, and it honestly felt like a preseason game at a small college stadium. Also, Tennessee isn’t exactly oil country, so when fans were handed rally towels that day and the new name was revealed, it felt right.
Tennessee Titans.
I loved it. Powerful. Mythic. A perfect fit with Nashville’s “Athens of the South” nickname and the Parthenon in Centennial Park.
Dad bought two PSLs in the club level of Section 233—first row, no obstructions, right around the 17-yard line. He wasn’t sure how often he’d use them, but I was thrilled.
That first Titans season turned out to be magical: undefeated at home, 13–3 overall, and the most excitement the city had ever felt around football. I was in Durango with Mom and Dad after Christmas and cut my trip short so I could fly home for the city’s first-ever NFL playoff game.
The Jaguars had won the division despite losing twice to the Titans, forcing us into a Wild Card game instead of a bye. I debated flying back—but if I hadn’t, I would’ve missed one of the most iconic moments in NFL history.
The Music City Miracle.
Longtime fans of the franchise remember all too well how the Oilers blew the biggest halftime lead in history to lose the Wild Card game to the Buffalo Bills by a field goal in the 1992 season, a magical overtime comeback for the Bills but a humiliating end for the Oilers. But this game was different, and controversial, at least if you lived in or grew up in Buffalo.
On January 8, 2000, after a brutal, back-and-forth game with the Buffalo Bills, it looked like history was repeating itself. With 16 seconds left, the Bills took a one-point lead. The kickoff was short. Lorenzo Neal fielded it and handed it to Frank Wycheck, who barely had time to throw the ball across the field to Kevin Dyson—who caught it just behind where Wycheck released it. A lateral. Unless - of course - you lived in Buffalo.
Dyson took it to the house. 21–16.
What's really remarkable is how many things went wrong with the execution of the play - but that's a story in and of itself - key personnel being out of the game, one player fell down, a kick that was shorter than expected. Dyson had never practiced the play before, but he found himself in the perfect spot to make history.
I’ve never seen nearly 70,000 people go from heartbreak to an eruption of jubilation so quickly. The review confirmed it: legal lateral, touchdown stands. Dad wasn’t with me, but once I got a decent cell signal, we talked about what we had just witnessed.
The Titans then beat future division rivals Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts the next week in the divisional round, then handed Jacksonville their third loss of the season in the AFC Championship to punch a ticket to Super Bowl XXXIV.
Dad came back from Colorado, and we went to Atlanta to watch the Titans face the St. Louis Rams. The comeback was incredible—one of the best fourth quarters I’ve ever seen—but they came up one yard short of forcing overtime. Still, I was incredibly proud of how hard that our hometown team fought.
Over the years, Dad stayed closely connected with the Titans organization. A charity auction led us to the now-retired Bob Hyde in community affairs, and we regularly exchanged auction items for fundraisers. Dad sang the national anthem multiple times, recorded the Titans on 2 – the coach’s show - theme song, and in 2011 was honored as the 12th Titan when the team adopted the tradition of raising the #12 flag, something the new general manager stole from his previous job with the Seattle Seahawks.
Dad came to several games over the years, usually in December after touring slowed down. One that always stands out was a brutally cold Monday Night Football game against the Chiefs in December 2004.<
Somewhere around 2008, I think, Dad bought three more seats on the same row, just one section over giving us five seats.
And that brings me back to the last time I was in the stadium in December when the Saints beat the Titans 34-26.
Another disappointing season, but our rookie QB made great strides over the course of the season, and a good draft class or two, and some key free agent signings – along with a new head coach – should turn things around, but probably not until they are in the new building.
For the past two seasons, it has been a mess around what is now called Nissan Stadium because the times they are a-changin’. For the 2027 season, the Titans will play in what will be a domed stadium called New Nissan Stadium.
Because Nashville is such a tourist destination, the city and state desperately wants to host a Super Bowl, but unless a stadium in an area that is likely to not have cold temperatures in February, it’s not going to host a Super Bowls, so a new domed stadium is under construction, and if the designs, and the PSL costs are any indication, this is going to be one luxurious stadium.<
My friends left right after the game, but I had some “Titans Bucks” credit that I wanted to use before it was too late, so I walked from the West side to the East side where the main team store is located. While I was over there, I got a bit melancholy as I looked around an realized this would all be gone in just over a year, with plans for a residential and shopping district reminiscent of The Battery where the Atlanta Braves new stadium is located, right in the heart of hotels, restaurants and condos.
t had been a while since I had seen it, but I knew there was a founder’s wall, and I thought it was on the East side entrance, but it turns out that was just for the East side founders, so after my trip to the team store, I walked back around to the West side, and there it was. “Charlie Daniels.” One of the original founders of what is now Nissan Stadium. I got a little choked up.
t’s almost a cliché now, but even when fathers and sons didn’t have much in common, sports was always common ground in complicated family dynamics.
Don’t get me wrong, Dad and I got along great, and we absolutely did not have a rocky relationship, but sometimes sports, and football, in particular was the door opener from which other conversation topics would flow.
It just reminded me how much I miss him. If he was on the road, and something good happened for the Titans or the Tennessee Vols on Saturday, I was always quick to call him just so we could talk about what we saw, because it was something that touched both of us inside.
As I walked back from the stadium to the lot seemingly several counties over, I felt a mixture of sorrow and gratitude for a chance to escape for a few hours on the weekends and scream, clap, whistle and just have fun with 69,000 close friends.
Not sure what to expect for the next couple of years, but things will definitely be different.
Thank you, Dad, for everything you did for us, all the long hours, and time apart from us and for giving me the opportunity to be a part of a sport that we both loved so much.
Titan Up!
What do you think?
Let’s all make the day count!
Pray for our troops, our police, the Peace of Jerusalem and our nation.
God Bless America!
#SonyReleaseHonkyTonkAve
#BenghaziAintGoingAway #End22
- Charlie Daniels, Jr.
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