No One Deserves This Run More Than Jurrell Casey

The TennesseeTitans are on a hell of a run. No one deserves it more than Jurrell Casey, who has seen this team through its lowest point.

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The Tennessee Titans hit the road on Sunday for a showdown with the Kansas City Chiefs in the franchise’s first AFC Championship since the 2002 season. Indeed, it’s been a long time coming. Most of the guys on the current roster have no idea what sitting through those 2-14 and 3-13 seasons was like. That’s not the case for defensive lineman Jurrell Casey, who has weathered that storm and stuck with the Titans to see their return to championship football.

Drafted out of USC in the third round of the 2011 NFL Draft, Casey saw action along the defensive line right away, playing in all 16 games as a rookie. He quickly became one of the most productive Titans, earning second team All-Pro honors in his third season (2013), and recording a whopping 10.5 sacks in the process. But, the Titans didn’t see any postseason success in those first three years.

Those mid-to-late 2000s Titans teams were notorious for letting free agents walk. The old perception about those regimes was that the Titans didn’t want to pay anyone. So, forgive us if we feared that Jurrell Casey would sign some big contract somewhere else. Instead, the Titans opted to extend his deal, and Casey decided to stick it out with the Titans.

Hearing him talk with such great pride about the decision to remain loyal to this franchise should have every Titans fan grateful for the guy’s attitude and work.

Back in 2014, the bottom fell out for this franchise. The team went 2-14 – it was one of the worst Titans teams I’ve ever seen. They didn’t look much better in 2015, going 3-13. The season and a half with Ken Whisenhunt at the helm set this franchise back, but ultimately kick-started the rebuild that would get the team to where it is today. To say it’s been an easy ride would be an outright joke – the Titans have gone through an ownership change, four head coaches, and nine quarterbacks in the last nine seasons to get here. Casey has seen a lot throughout his career….and a lot of it wasn’t that great.

To see it through for nine years, when he could’ve easily gone to a larger market where he probably would’ve gotten the attention he deserves for being one of the best defensive linemen of the last decade….man, that’s special. Casey is perennially underrated. He’s ascended to the upper echelon of all-time Titans, and he certainly deserves to enjoy the moment as the Titans find themselves one win away from an appearance in the Super Bowl.

You’ve earned this moment in the sun, 99.

Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD and #BeBetter. “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Nashville, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley

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