NASHVILLE, Tenn. — At 2-7 and featuring the league’s lowest-scoring offense (144 points), the Tennessee Titans aren’t exactly “must-see TV.”

In other words, if ESPN had the ability to flex out of Monday night’s matchup between the Titans and the Pittsburgh Steelers, they probably would jump at it.

But the four-letter sports network is stuck with the Titans and now everyone in the country gets to see the decay of a franchise that has fallen on hard times in the past six years, rolling through three coaches and numerous quarterbacks during that time.

But even if the viewing public might not be excited about remembering the Titans, the Titans themselves are excited for the opportunity to play in prime time and perhaps get a jump-start to what has been a bad season.

As a small-market team that hasn’t done a lot of winning lately (no playoffs since 2008, no playoff victory since 2003), the Titans aren’t on in prime time a lot — therefore a lot of their younger players are getting the experience of playing on Monday Night Football for the first time.

“I played in a lot of big games at LSU but none are as big as Monday Night Football,” said rookie quarterback Zach Mettenberger, making his third start since taking the job from Jake Locker. “It’s the only game on, that everybody will be watching. I definitely want to play well to get us the win. That’s the most important thing, and I think that’s extra motivation for guys in here to show what they can do.”

Other Titans see the game as an opportunity for the team to put its best foot forward in an otherwise dismal season.

“It’s something that we need. We’ve gone through the past couple of weeks some games where things didn’t always go our way,” cornerback Blidi Wreh-Wilson said. “Just to have a Monday night game at home against a good team that’s had some success recently, it’s good for us to go out there and put it all on the line against a good team.”

Wide receiver Justin Hunter, who will be making his first Monday night appearance too, said players should be excited to be on while no other games are going on.

“I feel like it’s going to give somebody a spark because this is a big stage and you want to play great, so everybody will come out fired up for it,” Hunter said.