NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Players didn’t play well enough. Players weren’t coached well enough. Players weren’t good enough.

The blame for the Tennessee Titans' 3-13 season was widespread.

I don’t know that it divided evenly into a third, a third and a third.

But it certainly wasn’t predominantly the fault of any one third.

The team fired coach Ken Whisenhunt on Nov. 3. It let general manager Ruston Webster walk on Jan. 4.

The new GM is an outsider, Jon Robinson who has done fine work at New England and in Tampa Bay. But the new coach could be an insider.

Mike Mularkey is his own man, surely. But he’s here in the first place because Whisenhunt wanted him.

Mularkey inherited the bad roster and a bad staff and bad players.

Interim coaches never have easy jobs or good situations.

To hire him now, though, simply grants too much absolution.

Though Whisenhunt had final say, Mularkey started the 2015 season with a title promotion. He went from tight ends coach to assistant head coach/tight ends and was given a big hand in shaping the run game.

The run game is the most fair thing to judge him on.

It ranked 25th in the NFL, up one whole spot from where it was in 2014.

Everyone was responsible for what unfolded with the Titans in 2015. The Titans need to move away from as much of it as possible.