Alright, one more thing and then I'll shut up

I don't want to make this appear like I need the last word or anything, because I don't. I'm confident in my reasonings about the way I think, and I know that other people in the world believe another way. It's fine, it's what makes the world great, and I don't want to be a robot like everyone else.

First off, I think I may be unclear on the way I think about emotion. I think emotion is something that certainly motivates people to act in certain ways. I think every point that people make as far as "good" emotion is concerned, though, ties directly to confidence, which I explained is something I do believe in, I believe in as much as the hundreds of concrete statistics I have thrown down on these pages.

The Colts have confidence, and why shouldn't they? The Big Three are all good, and what makes them great is they make other players better--I don't think that's an argument, what makes an athlete great. They know they can score at will, there is no denying it. They can score 31 points any day, and so I have a hard time believing the motivation factor for that simple reason. Even when things are going good, they've strung together 8 wins in a row, and they're playing the Arizona Cardinals, they can score 31 or more, and there's no other motivation than to simply win the damn game (well, except maybe losing to the Arizona Cardinals...).

The Titans had confidence. They scored on the opening drive with no problems. Before a lot of people could sit down they had a 7-0 lead. What destructed their confidence was the fundamental lack of a true scheme. They knew they could run the ball, but they didn't ponder the what ifs of the world, like a 3rd and inches. They figured that should such a situation arise, the same things that got them to the 3rd and inches would bring them 1st and 10 on the next play.

When it didn't, the Titans lost confidence (all that work, for nothing). The defense started to lose confidence in the offense (if the offense is going to sputter, we're going to have to increase our effort...but against the Colts...sigh), and when the defense made some serious blunders (Andre Dyson, the face-mask and interference on the same play, 30 yard penalty, personal foul calls, etc.) they began to lose confidence in themselves (geez...no matter what we do, they're going to drive the ball on us...even if we stop them. That hurts). After that Dyson penalty, the Colts would score on almost every drive after that. I think that's no coincidence. The Titans had held them to 3 points until then and the beginning of the second half, afterwards it was 28 points.

I do remember the missed catches in the end zone, and it's another string of missed opportunities that I have no argument against. I have seen both Mason and Bennett make those catches. It further illustrates the dominance the Titans had before the scoring opportunities. In another universe, there are two extra touchdowns on the board because Mason or Bennett make their catch on one drive and Nick Harper doesn't steal the ball away from Mason in another--there's another lesson in the annals of confidence (even if we get the ball in the end zone, we're not going to catch it).

The previous week, I heard, I believe it was Rocky Boiman or somebody like that, in answer to a question about "getting mad, does that help you?" say, "No. Getting mad can hurt you. I'm just out there having fun."

I think another area of argument here that gets lost is that all of this comes down to predicting the final outcome of a game. I wasn't wrong about what would happen in the game on the points I covered. Had I known about this inability to cash in on short-yardage, I would have picked the Colts, and would have picked probably more than a 2-TD victory for them. Emotion is as impossible to predict as turnovers or 30-yard face-mask-interference penalties, so how my argument boils it down is that those things usually cancel each other out (certainly, there are factors that allow you to predict turnover ratio and penalties, and whether that should matter, but only if a team is prone to them--the Titans are certainly prone to penalties). Surely, the Titans didn't want to look at the prospect of losing to and being behind the Colts, a divisional rival, at home, this early in the season, and the Colts didn't want to go 0-2--those principles cancel each other out. To say one motivating factor trumps another is the age-old apples and oranges debate, even if you believe in any other factor than simply winning.

I hope I don't come on too strong, but this is, ironically, a subject I'm passionate about. It just sounds wrong to my ears to hear "revenge," "they don't want to go 0-2," and so forth as an underlying factor. I'm not asking for people to stop, so if in upcoming weeks you guys want to analyze any particular game and include some basis of emotion, I won't reply unkindly, I'll just give you my stats-driven take on everything.

In fact, I won't write about this subject again after today. Everyone, feel free to give me your reasonings on why these things matter, have the last word, and so forth. I am genuinely interested to know why people believe these things. The key question, is why.