Jeff Fisher Is Out

Considering what he might have had to work with if the upcoming season wasn't canceled, I'm not surprised Jeff Fisher is no longer the Tennessee Titans head coach. It was looking like he wouldn't be here past next year anyway. How was he expected to win with his assistants bailing and an uncertain future at quarterback, no matter which of the names might have come here.

For years, I'd felt Fisher had taken this team as far as he possibly could, and I wished he would move on. The usual response to that was, "Well, who would the Titans get to replace him?" The fact is, once you're stuck with a guy you don't have much confidence in anymore, it really doesn't matter. You just want someone new, and hope that even if the new guy isn't very good, it leads to a better hire.

I think once a man in a certain position has had success with his style, and Fisher experienced it early in his tenure with a Super Bowl trip in 1999, then that's exactly the style you are going to get no matter what the personnel. I think it's perceived, right or wrong, that a man in Fisher's position just can't adjust to another way of doing things if the personnel isn't there. Rather than, "this might work," it's "Well, this worked before so we're going to keep doing it, even if it's a massive failure right now."

And what I'm getting to with Fisher's style is, he liked vanilla offense with the very rare twist. He liked to run the ball, with little deception. And the discipline on these teams could get very frustrating. I don't think the Titans were ever a huge overall penalties/yardage team (except this year), but they always seemed to get a penalty at the wrong time, at a crucial moment in the game. That's at least the perception I've had over the years.

So I sort of got tired of that whole thing. I'd like to see something different, because we experienced a lot of 8-8's and one-and-dones in the playoffs. We were hoping that Fisher could replicate 1999 every year, forgetting how lucky the Titans were back then and how that Bills game was a few seconds away from being the type of loss we'd later come to expect from them. Because Fisher liked to play a pounding run game with very few points scored, it meant that any mistake could turn the game on its ear, despite completely dominating teams in the stat category. Famously, in 2000, the Titans lost one of their defining playoff games against the Ravens after having outgained them in every offensive category except the score, because turnovers absolutely killed the "dominance" they were otherwise enjoying.

We like Fisher because of those happy feelings from 1999 and his no-nonsense approach appealed to Nashville, and it will be sad to see him go because we've lived with him so long. Many of us are ready to gamble that this franchise will be a perennial 4-12 team by putting in a new guy, because we know what we get with Fisher and it's hard to imagine his style would have taken them far ever again, even when they havethe better team on the field. In the end, Fisher underachieved more than he achieved, and despite the idea that the Titans might be worse off without him, it's something I'm ready to accept.

Finally! This Is What It Feels Like!

Watching Kenny Britt jump up and grab that ball yesterday, I suddenly saw the Titans do things that always seem to happen to them.

That 99-yard drive. Holy crap, how many times had this thing been set up for your usual Titans mediocrity, starting with that first 4th down way back in their own territory? Then you see Kenny Britt make sure he made the catch to keep the drive going. In the past, I swear receivers were looking for pass interference penalties rather than just catch the ball.

And weren't you just waiting for someone on the offensive line to get a false start penalty and stall the drive?

For the first time since the Miracle play and the subsequent playoff run to the Super Bowl, I felt genuine excitement for the Titans.

Last week I brought up the teams the Titans are going to have to jump in order to get to the playoffs. This past week was profitable for this team as many of the competition took steps back this weekend. Here's the update:

The Denver Broncos have the first wild card spot by themselves right now, with a 7-4 record. Remaining schedule: KC, Indy, Oakland, Philly, and KC again.

Two teams fell to 6-5 and one joined their ranks. Pittsburgh, Jacksonville, and Baltimore.

Pittsburgh (Oakland, Cleveland, Green Bay, Baltimore, Miami)
Jacksonville (Houston, Miami, Indy, New England, Cleveland)
Baltimore (Green Bay, Detroit, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Oakland)

The 5-6 group got very crowded:

Miami (New England, Jacksonville, Tennessee, Houston, Pittsburgh), by far the toughest remaining schedule

NY Jets (Buffalo, Tampa, Atlanta, Indy, Cincy)...the Jets might actually have a good chance of sneaking in.

Houston (Jacksonville, Seattle, St. Louis, Miami, New England)

Tennessee (Indy, St. Louis, Miami, San Diego, Seattle)

So, 3 teams in this group won yesterday, and 4 lost. Profitable, and it means that the Titans are now 1 game out of the 2nd wild card, barring the tiebreakers, which means they're probably still technically 2 games out. But hope for some upsets and hope for the Titans to keep it going. The chances are still slim, but, as Jim Carrey said to Lauren Holly in Dumb and Dumber after she told him there was a 1 in a million chance that she'd ever go out with him, "So you're saying there's a chance!"

A couple of asides:

The Titans, under Young, drove 99 yards in 2:36. Two weeks ago, Bill Belichick went for it on 4th down with 2:08 left and the prospect of giving Peyton Manning the ball at around his own 30, as if knifing down the field in that amount of time was going to be the most monumental task of his career. More and more, this risk seems justified to me.

There have been a couple of "Fisher could have lost us this game" moments in the last couple of weeks. Last week, that pooch kick which was taken to the 35 after being caught around the 20-25 yard line, giving the Texans more than enough opportunity to get in position to kick a field goal to tie the game. I have never been a fan of the pooch kick for that very reason. It is the special teams equivalent of the prevent defense, where ultra-conservative play allows liberal amounts of yards all in the hope that you don't give up a huge play which is rare in the first place.

Yesterday, it was the play at the end of the 1st half. As much as we've seen Young grow up this season, someone needed to tell him to throw the ball out of the end zone if he didn't have a play so they could have kicked a field goal. It's one of those things, we don't know how the game would have been played after that, there's no guarantee the same plays and actions on the field would have occurred in the 2nd half, but if they had, it would have been nice to allow Bironas to kick a field goal and win it towards the end. Then again, I can't guarantee Bironas would have kicked the field goal...in either instance! Ahhh! Damn, Chris, can't you just be happy with the amazing game-winning touchdown? OK, yes...I guess.

Hard to Believe, but 10-6 Might Be Good Enough

In no way am I suggesting the Titans will run the table the rest of the season and go 10-6, but remember when we thought even 10-6 wouldn't be good enough? Now it seems likely it will be.

After the division leaders, the current Wild Card contenders are:

Pittsburgh, Jacksonville, and the now-lowly Denver, at 6-4.

Miami, Baltimore, and Houston, at 5-5.

Tennessee and the suddenly-can't win Jets are next at 4-6.

So there isn't a team exactly running away with it in the second tier right now, and looking at the remaining schedules for these teams, it's likely 10-6 will get in, and possibly even 9-7.

Things can change, but in this group of teams we have Denver and the Jets just fading completely right now.

Baltimore and Pittsburgh have to play each other twice still. Pittsburgh still has the Packers and Miami on the schedule, too. Baltimore might have the easiest road left of all these teams, but they still have the Packers and they're such a who-knows? team they could easily lose at Oakland at the end of the year.

Houston has Indy, Jacksonville, Miami, and New England left as the tough games.

Anyone trust Jacksonville in this mix? They just barely beat Buffalo last week and now they play San Fran on the road, which will be a tough game, Houston, Miami, and New England for the next 4 games.

Miami has to play New England, Jacksonville, Tennessee, Houston, and Pittsburgh to end the year. Anyone seeing them go 5-1?

Denver: Giants, Colts, Eagles. They have several other interesting games, 2 with KC and 1 with Oakland. Anyone seeing them going even 4-2 on this stretch?

The Jets, who I think are completely insignificant at this point (and yes, they beat the Titans and have the same record...which satisfies me no end after hearing the 3-and-0 chants after that game), still have to play Carolina, Atlanta, Cincy, and Indy.

Again, I'm not even saying the Titans will go 10-6, but that 10-6 will get the playoff berth. The Titans have a pretty rough road ahead as well, with Arizona, Indy, Miami, and San Diego left as the tough games. I mean, being 4-6 is not a good prospect going into that kind of remaining schedule. However, they have 4 out of 6 games remaining at home. The way they are playing, the Seattle and St. Louis games should be locks for at least a 6-win season. Come away with winnable games like Arizona and Miami, maybe get a break against Indy or San Diego, you might have a 9-7 team looking at a decent chance.

Kansas City and Oakland, both 3-7 teams, will have lots to say about the Titans' minuscule chances. They've come up with some impressive wins. If they sneak by some of these teams mentioned above, then this could get really interesting. We could be looking at the rare 8-8 team getting in.

Seriously, after the 0-6 start, who thought the Titans would be 2 games away from the leading Wild Card contenders?

Terrible Towel Controversy!

So Lendale White and Keith Bulluck stomped on some Steeler "terrible towels" after the 31-14 win over the Steelers Sunday. This, like all stupid shit, has become a controversy and a way for sports writers to earn a paycheck discussing it. And as usual, these people have lost their minds.

Here's what coach Jeff Fisher says:

"Why would it be a big deal? That if we play [the Steelers] again, they'll play harder? I don't think so," Fisher told ESPN senior NFL analyst Chris Mortensen. "They always play hard."

I didn't see it, only heard the broadcast, but from what I've gleaned from the scene, there were a ton of Steelers fans at LP Field waving these things like it was a home game. Whether this is a statement for bandwagon Titans fans who didn't think they had a chance and sold off their tickets, or a tremendous statement of the travel capabilities of the Steelers fans, I think if I were White or Bulluck, I'd be a bit pissed off about that sight as well.

Completely ludicrous are discussions like this (from the same ESPN article):

Three years ago, Bengals receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh wiped his shoes with a Terrible Towel after Cincinnati won 38-31 in Pittsburgh in early December to all but clinch the AFC North. When the teams met again a month later in Cincinnati, the Steelers -- motivated by Houshmandzadeh's shoe-wiping display -- won 31-17 for the first of their three conference road playoff wins that led to the Super Bowl.

Funny, the real story of that playoff game was that Carson Palmer was hurt on his very first pass of the game by Kimo von Oelhoffen, rendering the Bengals without their star quarterback. They played the game with Jon freaking Kitna. Love the parenthetical, "motivated by Houshmandzadeh's shoe-wiping display," as if this was THE reason for the game's end result. It's garbage, and this writer should be fired.

More notes from the inane (this from CNNSI):

Pittsburgh players and fans revere the Towel, and why go there against a team you might see again in the playoffs? For me, it falls under the heading of unwisely giving your opponent extra motivation. I promise you, if the Steelers and Titans do meet again, that footage will be run on a continuous loop in Pittsburgh.

And the effects on the Steelers will be akin to Prince Adam raising his sword and bellowing, "By the power of Grayskull!"

Folks, losing is motivation enough. And...and, even if we were to buy this 100% wholesale, I have to argue the whole "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction" thing. Say the Steelers are so motivated that they just look like they're about to tear Titan heads off. I have a feeling this works both ways. I doubt the Titan players will be running into the Cumberland River screaming, "They're just too motivated! Holy shit, abandon ship!"

If the Steelers beat the Titans in the playoffs, and it's a big if that they even meet, it will have nothing to do with a towel, unless Kerry Collins' hands are too sweaty and the towel boy does a bad job.

In fact, here is a clip that makes more sense than this controversy:

A Note From the Game

If you want to see my thoughts on the loss yesterday, check out my comments on Chris' last post. And I pretty much agree with his thoughts as well. If this truly is a team capable of winning it all, then it was a good loss. I'm still not so sure.

But I have to say one thing about the game that I thought was in incredibly bad taste. Before the game, the genius' that run the in-game entertainment decided to have a fake Fireman Ed on the field, who I'm particularly fond of. The fake did a J-E-T-S cheer, which only let all the away fans yell a hearty cheer. Awesome. Then, they let out what I guess is our OWN cheer, a horribly country, yet stupidly corporate cheer, straight from the WWE; a "Whoooo" or some crap like that. I think Steve Austin does it or something.

And then? They made Ed into an effigy and threw him off the top of the stadium. On video, of course. Simulating the death of an actual person. I thought this was way over the top. It was enough to make me wish I'd just stayed home. I have HD there, and cheaper food.

Titans Exposed By Jets

I had seen a few Jets games this year, and I had followed a few Titans games, and just on a hunch it looked ugly. The Titans, of course, had been fortunate to win some games this year based on the fact that the teams they had played had just a few more flaws than they did. This matchup with the Jets, as I had mentioned to Jets fans, scared me.

The "bend but don't break" defense had its special charms. You could rely on the Titans to allow yardage between the 20s and then make a play or rely on mistakes to stop drives. But when you have a guy like Brett Favre and a variety of offensive weapons at his disposal, the "bend but don't break" just found the limits of its tensile strength.

We always wonder if there's such thing as a "good loss." It's better to see what glaring flaws you have and can't get away with in the playoffs before the playoffs begin. The Jets are a potential opponent in a very down year for the AFC. The NFC has re-emerged lately, and the Giants look like the class of the league. If the Titans are to match up with any playoff opponent like the Jets (and I think the Colts will also be a player in the end), they're going to need to work on that offense a little more. I think the Jets scoring at least 24 points yesterday was inevitable, and a turnover cashed in another score for the Jets. So the Titans only hope yesterday would have been to catch those passes they dropped and do some more freaking play-action and open up the field.

It still befuddles me as to why Jeff Fisher, a smart guy, doesn't ever want to use much play-action. Granted, I haven't seen a Titans game all the way through all year, but from what I've seen, deception is still not a part of the offense.

I'll take this stinging loss if it means beating the Jets in the AFC Championship game. That would be sweet, but there's a lot to clean up until then.

Are the Titans Lucky, Good, Both, or Neither?

The Titans are 9-0 and are drumming up excitement like back in 1999. That team was also famously offense-deprived and their defense was also bend-but-don't-break, leading up to that improbable Super Bowl run. Back then, though, I remember feeling some confidence in the team. This year's undefeated version seems destined to fail every week.

This is not a question we ask in the pre-salary cap era. The salary cap has redefined what being good in the NFL is, to the point we still don't know what the hell it is when we're supposed to see it. All of the teams currently vying for playoff positions are so deeply flawed, I think the NFL has become the least predictable of the sports, even though currently all sports are mired in some form of mediocrity being passed off as great.

The Phillies are champions of the MLB, but would have lost to a great many of the teams that won championships before it. The Celtics were last year's best NBA team and were pushed to the brink by a losing-record, but playoff-bound, Atlanta Hawks team. And in hockey, although the Red Wings were the best team and won the Stanley Cup, the Nashville Predators came fairly close (closer than RW fans would like) to ousting them in the first round.

But the Titans are riding what so many teams in this era that have won Super Bowls have been riding: that, "I don't see how they do it, but they do it," mantra that the earlier Patriots winners, the Ravens, Steelers, and Giants have all enjoyed. But the Titans' success could end just like that (snappping fingers), so uneasy is the precipice in the NFL. I don't know what to make of this team. Somehow they've scored the 4th most points in the AFC and lead the entire league in scoring defense. It's kind of hard to get truly excited. I get the feeling they could lose 7 games in a row after this and it wouldn't be a surprise.

OK, dumb media alert: I saw some comment on ESPN on Sunday that said the Jaguars, the Titans' next opponent, have some sort of pent-up feelings about that 1999 season where they lost 3 games, all to the Titans, including the AFC Championship. Those who know me know where I'm going with this: how many players are still around, from both teams, from 1999? For the Jags...Fred Taylor...isn't that about it? Titans: Jevon Kearse, who played in Philly for the last few seasons. I guess it could be a "war of hard feelings" between two players festering hard feelings for 9 years after they've already played each other once this season...but it at least seems insignificant. I don't know...maybe I'm dumb.

Wow

The Titans are 3-0. The Dores are 4-0 and RANKED. And Cutler is 3-0 to boot. A good time to be a Nashville football fan, wouldn't you say?

Nashville Postseasons 0-for-California

In the postseason: Predators lose to Sharks twice in two seasons, and the Titans have lost to the Raiders and now the Chargers in this decade.

We can't be upset much this year, because the Titans were lucky to get in. But in a close game like this, the terrible mistakes become magnified.

What the hell is with this secondary? It's OK, no less devastating, but OK, when a team manages to catch the ball even with a defender on them. But in this game, how many passes went to guys who didn't have one guy on them, not even within five yards?

Vince Young has an arm. He needs to use it. How many alligator-arm passes does this guy throw in a game?

Jeff Fisher: You are much too in love with the run up the middle. It's a great play when you mix it in with other plays. Remember in the first half when the Titans were doing play-action and all that? Where did this go?

And how many times do you see it when a Titan gets a first down, has a chance to score a TD, and then stumbles or steps out of bounds, and it ends in either a field goal, missed field goal, or turnover? This happened with the score at 10-6, the Titans in the red zone, and Ahmard Hall on a play that looked busted, then broken for an 11-yard gain, and then he inexplicably fell down. It ended in a missed field goal.

Perhaps winning this game would have set us all up for ultimate frustration next week, where the Titans, with an awful secondary, would have had to face the Patriots.

I'm glad they kept it close. The ridiculous predictions (34-7 from The Sports Guy on ESPN?) did not keep in mind how close these two played in the regular season. You ever see that? When two teams play evenly in a regular season matchup, but the experts predict a blowout? What the hell?

I'm not sure Vince Young showed that he's going to be an amazing NFL leader after this season. I'm not confident in him. I wonder how long the Titans will be patient with his lack of progress. I wasn't expecting him to kick large amounts of ass this season, but I did expect more than last season.