Like voting Democrat in a statewide election, watching the Tennessee Titans this season has so far been an exercise in futility.

With Jake Locker injured, the Titans are a team without a franchise quarterback. This would be true even if Locker were not injured. The mishap-prone fourth-year man still plays very much like a first- or second-year quarterback, in part because he has played in only 27 games. The next bizarre injury awaits him just around the corner — the corner he will inevitably throw the ball to, in a key game situation.

Before the season, first-year coach Ken Whisenhunt told fans — rather head-scratchingly — that he wasn't asking for patience, even though fans would have given him plenty. Later he suggested he probably should have asked for patience — which raises the question of exactly which team he thought he was coaching.

Whatever the case, he is still playing with win-now expectations — and is failing miserably.

It's just Week 8 and Whisenhunt has already retreated to the last refuge of the outmatched: blaming the media's negativity for their woes, as if the team's 2-5 record and three straight late-game collapses (including a historic one against Cleveland — CLEVELAND!) were the fault of the people observing it instead of the people perpetrating it.

The offense is exciting in the same way driving a 1973 Vega is exciting: You know it's going to conk out, it's just a matter of when and at what cost. The defense, like Aunt Barb's soufflé, looks good coming out but typically collapses. Last Sunday found both those elements a united front of catastrophe.

As the Titans tried to salt the game against Washington, rookie running back Bishop Sankey ran out of bounds, stopping the clock. The Titans, of course, later punted, leading to a drive for the game-winning field goal (aided by an atrocious pass interference penalty by Jason McCourty, allegedly the team's No. 1 cornerback). To pile on the embarrassment, this drive was engineered by Colt McCoy, Washington's third-string quarterback — whose first pass of the year, earlier in the second half, went for a 70-yard touchdown over and through a meandering Titans defense.

"I think it's good for us, because I think we forgot how it feels to win. They say it's Tennessee Titans and we're supposed to win, but it's so hard to win," said Washington defensive end Jason Hatcher after the game.

Hatcher's team, by the way, now has the same record as the Titans.

So to recap: Yes, the Titans are being treated as an inevitable win by teams with worse records. A team that was 1-5 came into a game against the Titans expecting to win. And when a member of that team shared that sentiment, no one batted an eye.

This is a team with no face — no identifiable superstars. While Jurrell Casey is among the best young defensive ends in the NFL, and Kendall Wright is a promising young wideout, neither moves the needle in any appreciable way. No one talks all week about wanting to see those two play.

And it's not just that this is a team devoid of Pro Bowlers. There are a handful of spots on the roster filled by men who are barely pros at all. Is Blidi Wreh-Wilson really a starting NFL cornerback? He is if one accepts that the Tennessee Titans are an actual NFL team, not some bizarre pantomime facsimile of football tossing.

If that's harder to accept each week, it's the Titans' own fault. They have all the external trappings of a football team: the players, the uniforms, the stadium, the fans (though live-in-the-flesh fans at LP Field are a disappearing commodity).

But like an out-of-season summer-stock troupe, the Titans are a rotating cast of no-names playing out the same script year after dreadful year.

If that continues, the Tennessee Titans, like Tennessee Democrats, will spend another year out of favor — with no end to their insignificance in sight.

Email editor@nashvillescene.com.