The success of the Tennessee Titans is not the typical Memphis vs. Nashville debate

I initially sent the tweet from a hotel room in Nashville late Saturday night because down below Tennessee Titans fans were pouring out of bars into the streets in celebration and the joyous, drunken noise threatened to wake up my 1-year-old son.

“Is Memphis happy for the Titans?” 

The responses came back almost immediately and, as of Sunday night, were still flowing into my Twitter feed. More than 2,200 interactions total. 

Memphians who hated the Titans because of their ill-fated season in Memphis more than 20 years ago. Memphians who don’t care or are simply ambivalent about the Titans. Memphians who’ve adopted the Titans as their NFL team because it’s the closest NFL franchise to Memphis. And Memphians who became Titans fans because they went to the games during that one ill-fated season at Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium.

The number of Memphians – not Memphanites as former Houston Oilers owner Bud Adams foolishly once called them – who who are genuinely thrilled that the Titans are one game away from the Super Bowl genuinely surprised me.

This wasn't your typical Memphis vs. Nashville debate, where Memphis just instinctively chooses whatever side is anti-Nashville.  

Which suggests if the Titans do beat the Kansas City Chiefs, if they do get back to the Super Bowl, the feelings in Memphis will be a lot more complicated than they were 20 years ago when the Titans last played in the Super Bowl. 

That it will certainly be a lot different than 2017 when the Nashville Predators went to the Stanley Cup finals because Memphis doesn’t care about hockey like it does football. 

More than 20 years after Memphis rightfully rebelled against the Tennessee Oilers and Adams and the NFL by not showing up to the Liberty Bowl during the 1997 season, the Titans have become the rare entity that may have partially bridged the gap between Memphis and Nashville.

Even if history suggests the Memphians who despise or don't care about the Titans – and there’s still plenty of those folks – despise and don't care about them for good reason. Even if history suggests the "Tennessee" Titans have never really tried to be the state's team. Even if history suggests the rivalry between Memphis and Nashville is very real and straddles not just sports but politics, race and socioeconomics.  

But maybe the right team and the right moment can, at least momentarily, overwhelm all of this. Maybe there’s a way to separate this Titans team from the franchise that symbolizes how Memphis got shafted in its pursuit of an NFL team all those years ago. 

These Titans, for instance, have a lot of the characteristics Memphis used to love about the Grit and Grind Grizzlies that thrived for a decade.

They’re a blue-collar bunch who play a throwback style featuring Derrick Henry running over people, a powerful defense and a likable head coach. They’re the underdog crashing the party in these NFL playoffs, knocking off the defending champion and the No. 1 seed led by the likely MVP to reach the AFC Championship game.

Many of their own fans in Nashville weren’t going to home games as recently as October. 

So here in Memphis, there are good reasons to be a Titans fan this year.

But here in Memphis, there’s also this truth: The feelings and the history are too complex, too tied up into everything else that seems to divide this state, for all of Memphis to just get behind an NFL team based in Nashville. 

So a lot of people are like Jason Spencer, who wrote in response to my tweet that anyone who is happy for the Titans “doesn’t remember that Memphis was the first runner up that got to fulfill the duties because the winner wasn’t ready.”

All those years when Memphis wanted an NFL franchise, when Memphis filled up the Liberty Bowl for meaningless exhibition games, when Memphis would hold season-ticket drives, only to watch Adams approach Nashville when he wanted to move the Oilers from Houston, maybe that makes supporting a franchise that used Memphis as a pit stop unthinkable. 

Or maybe you’ve gotten over all that, particularly now that Memphis has an NBA team that matches the identity of the city. Maybe you’re like Richard Coleman when he wrote, “I would want Nashville to get behind the Grizzlies when we make a playoff run soon. I’m on board the Titans’ train.” 

Maybe, if you grew up a Washington Redskins fan like me, you think about how far that three-hour drive to Nashville is. How I could never bring myself to root for the Ravens or the Eagles, even though Baltimore and Philadelphia are both closer to Washington than Memphis is to Nashville.

Maybe, though, these Titans can soften that divide. 

Because that hotel room of mine, it was in The Gulch right next to downtown. It’s an area where every building and every storefront can’t be more than a decade old. Where there are at least 15 large construction cranes within eyesight and every brunch spot serves avocado toast. Where the landmark is a mural of giant butterfly wings that was painted in 2016.

It’s an area that makes you wonder what the heck Nashville looked like 20 years ago when the Titans first arrived, before it was a tourist destination full of transplants and bachelorette parties. It makes you realize there are differences between Memphis and Nashville that will never change. 

So maybe the Tennessee Titans are just a football team with sensibilities both Memphis and Nashville can appreciate.

What’s the harm in celebrating that?

You can reach Commercial Appeal columnist Mark Giannotto via email at mgiannotto@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter: @mgiannotto