The Tennessee Titans will spend Sunday noon opening their final season at the old Nissan Stadium with a matchup that carries a little extra edge and a lot of uncertainty. The New York Jets are first up, and so is the Robert Saleh era in Nashville.
Saleh’s first game with the Titans also happens to come against the team that let him go two years ago. He has already brought a familiar group of former Jets with him, adding John Frankin-Myers, Jermaine Johnson and Jacob Martin to the defensive line.
Martin has said he can make any game personal, though Johnson sees it as just another contest. That’s the approach Saleh wants from his players, too.
“Keep the main thing the main thing. Just put your best foot forward and whatever happens, happens.
Sometimes in these moments you can try to make it bigger than it needs to be,” Saleh said. “It’s a Week 1 football game in the NFL, every game is-no one game is more important than the other.
And whatever emotional charge that you may or may not have for the opponent, it doesn’t matter, because it’s you’re playing another opponent, and it doesn’t matter who they are, it doesn’t matter who’s on the other side; we’re going to win.”
There’s plenty of noise around this one because both teams were stuck at three wins last season. That has led fans on both sides to treat the opener like a “must win,” especially with Saleh facing his former club.
But it’s still only Week 1, and history offers a reminder that a bad opener doesn’t define a season. The Patriots lost to the Raiders in Week 1 last year and still ended up in the Super Bowl.
Even so, the Titans are carrying their own baggage into Sunday. They haven’t won an opener in six years, and they haven’t won a home opener since 2010, when they beat the Raiders 38-13.
That stretch adds up to 16 years. Tennessee has just six wins over the last two seasons, so a clean start would go a long way in a building that hasn’t seen much of that lately.
“One hundred percent. Every game you go into you’re trying to win.” said Saleh during a Titans practice the week prior.
“I want to make sure we’re clear on that. Yes, are we growing?
Yes, are we young? But it doesn’t matter.
We one hundred percent want to win this football game and we’re going to attack the heck out of it, we’re going to attack the heck out of these next three days in preparation and then we’ll see what happens.”
Much of the attention in Nashville is fixed on second-year quarterback Cam Ward, who needs a quicker start than he had as a rookie. Ward already went through two head coaches in 2025, Brian Callahan and Mike McCoy, and now he’s working under Saleh and offensive coordinator Brian Daboll. His training camp had its highs and lows, and he didn’t throw a touchdown in the preseason, which has left some nerves around Music City.
Saleh, for his part, has been unwavering in his support of Ward and his belief that he’ll have a successful NFL career. The quarterback will face a Jets defense that didn’t record an interception in 2025, a drought no team had matched since the league moved to a 16-game schedule in 1978.
The Titans tried to give Ward more help this offseason by signing receiver Wan’Dale Robinson and drafting Carnell Tate fourth overall. Tate had several strong practices during camp, but he didn’t catch a pass in three preseason games.
Up front, though, the Titans may have found something encouraging. The offensive line has reportedly been the group that has stood out most in camp and the preseason, with JC Latham playing his best football to start year three and veteran Austin Scholtman alongside rookie Fernando Carmona locking down the center and right guard spots.
On the other side of the ball, Jeffery Simmons said Tennessee’s defense has to start with its front four setting the tone. For him, that begins with Jets running back Breece Hall, whom he views as a major threat.
If the Titans can slow Hall and force Geno Smith to carry the load, turnovers could be there to be had. Smith has 32 interceptions over the last two seasons with Seattle and Las Vegas, the most in the NFL.
Tennessee heads into the opener in unusually good health. Cedric Gray is the only player listed out, and the linebacker will miss the game after suffering a concussion in an off-field incident.
The Titans enter Sunday as 1.5-point favorites over the Jets.
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