Picking Nashville: The Road to the 2019 NFL Draft

The team had fallen back into mediocrity, and attendance was dwindling. But following the death of longtime owner Bud Adams, his daughter, Amy Adams Strunk helped breathe new life into the franchise.

A new kind of underdog story was underway. After a half-century holding the NFL Draft in New York, the league decided to hold it in another big city -- Chicago or Los Angeles. Nashville wanted it, and wasn't taking 'no' for an answer.

After coming up a single yard short in Super Bowl XXXIV, the youthful Tennessee Titans thought they were poised to be a contender in the years to come. They never made it back to football's biggest stage. 

Instead, the years that followed the team's miracle 1999 season saw the team descend into mediocrity. Then tragedy struck. Twice.

Hardened by two years on the road with little fan support, Tennessee's pro football team headed into the 1999 season with a new name, a new stadium and new confidence that they could compete with the NFL's elite. 

The new-look Titans were talented and tough, and they wasted little time letting the league know it. Jeff Fisher, Eddie George and company set their eyes on a Super Bowl run, and they performed a miracle along the way.

The situation would get much worse before it would get better for the Oilers in their move from Houston to Nashville.

A stopover in Memphis brought on more turmoil and it didn't get any better when the franchise finally made it to Nashville, but had to play at Vanderbilt Stadium.

The trying times were tough and the players didn't realize it in the moment, but a unit was being forged that would eventually contend for the Super Bowl.

In the summer of 1995, a small group of Nashville leaders quietly set out to accomplish a feat that seemed beyond improbable at the time: bringing an NFL team to town. 

The events that followed — a secret meeting, an unlikely alliance and a political battle that divided Nashville — forever changed the city and paved the way forward for owner Bud Adams, Coach Jeff Fisher and a team with plenty to prove. 

This is Picking Nashville.

COMING APRIL 9

Ahead of the 2019 NFL Draft in Nashville, The Tennessean's journalists set out to chronicle the city's pro football history:  An underdog quest for a team. A meteoric rise to Superbowl contention. A fall into mediocrity punctuated by the murder of its one-time star quarterback. And a resurgence that has brought renewed excitement to Nashville.  

Through tragedy and triumph, this is the unlikely story of how the Music City scored an NFL team, performed a football miracle and fought its way back to the national spotlight.