I've been a Tennessee Titans fan my entire life. I didn't have much of a choice, see. I was born into a household that supported the local team, and I wanted to be just like my dad and brother, who are both Titans fans. The funny thing about my dad's fandom is that he started out a Steelers fan, I guess because they were the closest team to Clarksville at the time. But when the Houston Oilers moved to Tennessee in 1997, he dropped the Steelers and became a Titans fan, to support the new team, still in its infancy.

Looking at his choice today, any fan of the NFL would say he made a bad call, considering they have won 6 Super Bowls in total, and 2 since the Titans moved to Tennessee (2006 and 2009). The Titans? They went to the Super Bowl in 1999, their first season under the name "Titans," and lost to the St. Louis Rams 23-16. Wide receiver Kevin Dyson was only two and a half yards from the goal line to score and tie the game before his legs were tied up by linebacker Mike Jones. The image of Kevin Dyson reaching the ball out to break the plane is iconic.

But it wasn't enough. The Titans would go on to have perhaps the best season in franchise history the following season but would fall to the Ravens 24-10 in the Divisional Playoffs. A game, according to my dad, where nothing seemed to be going right for the Titans.

Before this season, the last time the Titans went to the playoffs, I was eight or nine years old. The last time they won in the post season? I was three or four. Now, they've managed to beat the Kansas City Chiefs 22-21 at Arrowhead Stadium. It was by the skin of their teeth, but it was a win.

Some fans look at it as a Pyrrhic victory, due to Coach Mike Mularkey getting the support of the Tennessee front office, and getting at least another season as the team's head coach. A large portion of the fan base sees it as winning the battle, not the war. Winning the war looked like getting Patriot's offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels in at head coach to help develop Marcus Mariota, who, according to his stats, has regressed quite a bit from last season. Some think he ought to be balling out like Jared Goff, Carson Wentz, Russell Wilson, or insert any good quarterback here. The thing about comparing Mariota to Goff, is so obvious that's it's easy to forget: the Titans are playing this weekend, and the Rams will be watching from home. So, who really cares if Mariota's stats aren't the fiery numbers we expected and see in young quarterbacks like Jared Goff. Mariota can carry a team that's doing everything in its power to lose, which, in my opinion, all the best quarterbacks are able to do. You don't have to look far to see what I'm talking about. Tom Brady leading the Patriots back in Super Bowl 51, in easily the greatest comeback in NFL history, is what a truly great quarterback is able to do. But fans are still upset, and I'm trying to understand in all this uproar, how justified it all is, and what it means to be a fan of a team that has gone through almost ten years of mediocrity.

We could be the Browns. That's what I think about whenever I get down on the team for losing a game they should have won, which happened at least a few times this year. The best examples that come to mind are the game against the Arizona Cardinals, where the offense looked anemic at best. But then, that made me realize. The Titans weren't far off from becoming what the Browns are today. We won two games in the 2014 season and three in the 2015 season. In 2016, just one off season under general manager John Robinson and head coach Mike Mularkey, we won nine games. This year, we've won ten, and are taking on the New England Patriots in the divisional round. It seems to me, Titans fans should be more relieved and ecstatic then down on the team. J. Rob and Murlarkey righted the ship, and have us sailing way ahead of schedule.

Now, to be fair to those fans down on the team, the Titans were supposed to wipe the floor with the division this year, and the stars aligned just right for them to do just that. Heavy injuries to both the Texans and Colts assured that we would be number one in the AFC South. Unfortunately, Jacksonville happened. But that still didn't seem to be a major concern, considering our week 2 victory over them, 37-16. Yet we managed to just barely make it into the playoffs, thanks to a clutch performance by Marcus Mariota in week 16 against Jacksonville.

So we're right where we were last year. Nine wins, seven loses, headed into the playoffs. It's hard to not be disappointed, considering the expectations set by talking heads during the off season. We started to believe our own hype, and subsequently forgot where we had come from. A five-win team across two seasons.

If you ask me, keeping Mularkey as head coach is the best choice this franchise could make. Frankly, you don't fire a guy who so drastically improved your team. I was one of the rabid fans asking for his head when they lost to three straight in the final stretch of the regular season against Arizona, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Although, I wasn't too down on them for losing to LA, considering they appeared to be Super Bowl contenders, and we played them tough.

The fact is, every fan thinks their team is the worst in the league. They hate their own players more, their more critical of every misstep. Everyone thinks every other team is somehow better than theirs. I don't think being down on the team makes you a fair weather fan. In fact, dealing with constant heartbreak through a team, yet coming back to watch every weekend, is proof of how much you really are a fan. It'd be easy to stop watching, but we don't. We say to ourselves, this is our time, now's when they're gonna pull everything together and make a serious run for the Super Bowl. We're down on them, in the same way we're down on a machine who's parts aren't meshing, are all acting out of accord, their raw talent flowing in an indirect current, instead of a streamlined vein towards the ultimate goal. There's only one type of fake fan: bandwagon fans. Those that jump ship the minute things start to stall or descend. I suppose I can't blame them. But they'll miss out on the struggle. They'll miss out on the inevitable moment where it all comes together, and we see that team, that we imagined. That one my dad saw when he decided to support an untested team. That imperfect trail blaze of glory.