Chargers 42 Titans 17: The Titans Stole Christmas

getting a replacement for Fisher, then the rest of the moves don’t matter, JMHO.

Even on his one or two lower yardage games, he still played his heart out. Also, this game confirmed what most of us assumed: KB leaves a huge void when he’s not in there. It’s not just his own play, but his leadership, too. Suddenly, next year looks as uncertain as ever. Sigh………..

Nick Harper got benched!

point #1: Why is Jared Cook on the bench? He’s explosive and creates problems….is it the loyalty to Alge (like loyalty to Harper) Why don’t we play the best players!!??

No matter …our D forced only 1 punt.

If we cant beat the colts or the bolts…we cant go to the superbowl…..
We need a dominating d-line!!! and dominating LBS….. It all starts on the line and front 7.

all that said…..what the hell has happenned to Griff?!!! This whole defense of ours is just flat our scaring me….in a bad way.

But I feel more confident about his game. Any QB (or player) can have a bad game. But the the progress he’s shown is very encouraging and I feel good looking ahead to next year. I think he had left little doubt on who is the QB of the future. Now the team has to address the problem in defense.

Now lets beat the Seahawks and finish 8-8. I know there is frustration right now but you have to realize that not long ago we were 0 – 6 and entering this game we were thinking playoff , That by itself is amazing. So Go TITANS!!

sorry to be negative….I am definitely looking to a better next season…i’m already on a mock draft right now lol.

we sucked, period. the defense was trash, vince was trash and the coaching was trash. time for the dumpster fire pic to return.

But we shouldn’t even have a shot at .500 with our start.

jeff fisher please draft Ras-I Dowling next year and just cut harper and since we dont have a 2nd round pick in the third round draft some one who can actually return and take on to the house

ive been thinking ever since he took over the d we have gone from one of the most feared defenses in the nfl to one of the worst why not just replace him with someone who can actually get the job done

Coming over to say that I think your team is better than tonight’s loss. Overall, it was good to see the Titans rebound after a tough start this season, and who knows what could have happened if Fisher had put Young in earlier. Looking forward to seeing you guys come out strong next year.

/sincere comment!

That are all incomplete, the offensive playcalling is terrible.
Also, our entire defense sucks. Atleast Harper got benched.
Go CJ.

Maybe that will clear up his head, and bench some players.

anyone…. anyone

watching kenny britt return kicks is painful. seriously, he is going to develop some severe self-esteem issues if they keep trotting him out there to do something he clearly sucks at.

its to bad rod hood was inactive so there was really no point in benching harper that game because a rookie just came and took his place

HELLO WE HAVE LAVELLE HAWKINS WHY ISNT HE OUT THERE RETURNING
HE HAS THE SPEED AND THE MOVES THE ONLY PERSON WHO HAS BETTER MOVES THAN HIM ON THE TEAM IS CJ

of course if Jesus Hood were out there we probably woulda won by 30.

I wish Peyton Manning would hurry up and retire so we can get him back in Tennessee…as a head coach! :)

The loss of Albert was the single most important difference between this year’s D and last year’s.

Were we as effective at getting pressure with a 4 man rush? Not even close. KVB was less effective because he wasn’t rushing next to AH and the 6 headed monster at DT, never lived up to the “deep rotation” excuse we all used after Albert left.

Were we as effective against the run? Not even close. AH was in the backfield disrupting so many plays last year. Without him, we saw our DB’s, mostly Griff, cheating in the run game and getting burned in the pass game as a result. From 3 Pro Bowlers back there to one of the worst secondaries in the league. Don’t think that was a coincidence.

I didn’t want to pay AH the money he got. I’m glad we didn’t. I’m glad we don’t deal with his antics anymore(see getting kicked out of practice). But we need to figure out a way to fill that void this offseason. His play was greatly missed on the defensive side of the ball.

With CJ, VY, Britt, Cook..there’s a group of talent we’ve never collectively had since the McNair era.

He’s good with rebounding from a losing/.500 season so I’m kind of curious as to see what happens next year with this group.

There should be no question that in the draft we draft 80% defensive players.

With this offense and more talent on defense, I am excited for next year.

8 months 17 days to go for a fresh start. WOO! lol

The titans have had a pretty good decade. Better than 2/3rds of the NFL. I think it is naive not to credit the stability of the coaching staff for that. In fact, the only teams that have had a better decade than the Titans are teams that have had better Quarterbacks than Jeff Fisher has ever had.

Teams with better decades:
The Patriots – Tom Brady
The Colts – Peyton Manning
The Steelers – Ben Roethlisberger; and the 1st half of the decade before Roethlisberger mirrored the Titans

These 3 teams are the only teams I can think of that have had a decade definitively better than the Titans. I know you could argue a few teams, but there are very few teams that were relevant in 2001, as the Titans were, and are now relevant in 2009, as the Titans were until they lost tonight. The Ravens, since they won a Super Bowl, could also be considered to have a better decade but they won their Super Bowl in a year when Quarterback play was at its absolute worst in YEARS (a fact conveniently forgotten by people who proclaim it “best defense ever”).

If Vince Young develops into a world class Quarterback, Fisher is a genius again. If Vince Young inexplicably flames out (I sincerely doubt he will), Fisher will probably get fired. If Vince turns into a decent pro bowl QB who has a couple of years of great play, then the Titans will win a lot of games, make a run or two deep into the playoffs and probably not win a Super Bowl. In other words, exactly what they have done the past decade.

Reality is coaching is overrated. It’s not about the X’s and O’s, it’s about the Jims and the Joes.

some of his personality traits are starting to wear on me, but I tend to think that:

- it’s unlikely we get someone to replace him that’s an improvement; i do think he’s a better than average nfl coach, just with some infuriating habits to go with his endearing ones.
- we have three or four great coaches on our staff that we might well lose if fisher went to another team
- I want them to focus on fixing the massively broken defense and not have the instability that would be introduced with a head coaching change. This is a mediocre team at this point, but the potential is there for them to be very very good in short order.

who’s checking out 2010 Mock Drafts this evening?

1.) We’ll never know if we can get a better coach unless we try. 16 years is long enough to assess mediocracy. He has gone seven years without a single playoff victory; any team with an eye on a CHAMPIONSHIP would seek an upgrade. Ask the Chargers about Marty Schottenheimer. Jeff Fisher is our Mike Ditka – the guy with ridiculous loyalty who stays well past the time when every playoff calibur team has figured him out.

2.) Pointing out the teams who’ve had a “better” ten years – you start with any team that won a Super Bowl. That includes the Ravens, Buccaneers, Giants, Colts, Patriots, Rams, and whoever wins this year. Face it, you and I would trade having a better cumulative regular season over a decade for a Championship ANY DAY. There is nothing worse than the combination of NOT winning a championship AND getting ousted early every 4-5 years when we DO have a good team. There are several teams who had a better decade. Telling me how we’re the Utah Jazz of football is not selling me on Jeff Fisher anymore.

3.) Few teams can trace their defects as directly to one person as the Titans can to Fisher. Collins, Harper, the return game, in-game coaching like in Miami, and the repeated barrage of penalties and repeat mistakes in every big game. 16 years of bad offsides penalties and ridiculous personal fouls is not situational, it’s habitual.

4.) Peyton Manning and the Colts do not wave the white flag with 5 minutes left in the THIRD QUARTER in an elimination game AT HOME – neither do the Patriots, Steelers, Giants, Cardinals, Saints, Vikings…..etc….. The fact that Jeff Fisher surrendered so early in the game shows why a one-dimensional coach is a liability when trying to win a championship. It wasn’t going to happen with the defense forcing five turnovers and 30 run plays today, so he just decided it couldn’t possibly be done at all. Onside kicks? Two point conversions? Bah! What’s the point? Let’s go home.

5.) No current coach has been given the tenure, the control, the patience, the loyalty, and the second chances Jeff Fisher has been given without having a ring to show for it. A dozen other coaches has won Super Bowls since Jeff Fisher took over this team. It’s NOT GOING TO HAPPEN under Jeff Fisher. We’ve see this movie, and we know how it ends. He’ll spend a few years piecing together a #1 NFL defense. In the meanwhile, he will be absolutely unable to find a way past 8-8 without it. Then when he finally gets it together, we’ll get ousted early for hyper-conservative play. He’ll pretend BLATANT weaknesses that ultimately get us eliminated don’t exist (Al Del Greco, et al), and then they’ll show-up plainly in an elimination game.

6.) The fact that Jeff Fisher isn’t PERSONALLY fumbling the ball, missing FGs, or jumping offsides is as moot as the fact that he didn’t catch the game-winning TD against Arizona. The fact is that these types of blunders have become something that no longer surprise us on a Jeff Fisher coached team. We know somebody is going to jump offsides at a critical moment; we know there will be brutal 15-yard personal foul penalties on 3rd-and-forevers that result in opposition TDs. We know we’re going to have an issue on special teams, whether it’s poor return coverage, a weak-legged kicker, or a bad return game. We are just used to it now. That’s unacceptable, and it WILL NOT EVER GET BETTER UNDER FISHER.

As far as the season goes now, I am obviously disappointed. The only solace I have is the fact that it is unlikely that the needed scenarios would have otherwise played out (The Ravens losing to the Chicago Cubs, the Broncos losing to the Orlando Magic, and the Syracuse Orangemen playing to a tie with the Georgetown Hoyas). Still, it would have been nice to dream for another week.

I think I’m most frustrated at the fact that every elite team we played – The Colts, Chargers, Bengals, Patriots, etc., beat the living hell out of us. This team, especially the defense, is NOWHERE NEAR ready for the big boys. They don’t even belong on the same field with those teams; it’s not even fair.

Oh well, it will be interesting to see what kind of offseason we have with so many glaring needs and fewer draft picks. I hope there’s an actual plan in place this offseason, and NO, I don’t accept denial as a plan.

Chris Johnson had perhaps the greatest season of any running back in history, rushing for more than 100 yards 10 straight times and probably breaking the all-time yards from scrimmage mark, and yet this team still went 8-8. What that means is that the rest of this team was—for the most part—completely hopeless. I’m so tired of playing aging veterans over more-talented youngsters, and bottom line, I think this season was disaster enough to at least explain a coaching change. Personally, I think Fisher has ALWAYS been on the hot seat this year, and without Floyd Reese to save his bacon, I think he’s gone.

Ladies and gentlemen, I predict your HC next year is Mike Shannahan, and yes, I do think he’ll be a better fit for the personnel.

1. Without Albert we don’t get a push up the middle. The good QBs just step up in the pocket and kill us downfield. 2. Fisher isn’t the best coach but not the worst by any means. I wouldn’t fire him. 3. As much as I dislike Belichek, he has to be the best NFL coach. What he did last year when Brady went down convinced me of that.

the opponets offensive game plan being going after Harper. It’s so obvious & it’s too easy.

I’ve been a big fan of Titans since they came to Nashville. The thing I always admired about them was, good or bad, they played hard and never gave up particularly on defense. I now believe that was because the team always had great leaders on the field. This team doesn’t have that it seems to me. I’m not saying they totally gave up last night, but they gave up too many yards on the ground and gave up running TDs too easily. I think the defense knew they’d lose sometime in the first half and played like it.

This was a pretty good thread. Some nice back and forth. I tried to read all sides with an open mind. I think T-Rac and hal made some good points defining success in the NFL and how crucial an elite QB is to that mix. Winning a Super Bowl in a league where almost every coach and player is 100% dedicated to that cause and has the talent to do it, is hard. Damn near impossible.

I guess we almost pulled it off once 10 years ago. And I guess you could say it was that deep playoff run of ’00 that galvanized the Titan community into the passionate fan base we enjoy debating amongst today here on MCM.

I get frustrated when we choke in the big games. But I guess if you asked a Browns, Jets or Texans fan, they’d trade places in a second just to get to watch their team in a playoff game recently. And I guess we don’t always choke either. I’ll never forget that Ravens playoff game where we stuck it to them in their house. Or who can forget Eddie running all over the Colts in the ‘00 AFC divisional game? Oh, and that AZ game this year is a memory I will never forget. To be fair to Fisher, he don’t always choke. I’ve said my piece about him, but I don’t hate the man or thinks he’s worthless. I think he just needs to tweak a couple of his principles (vet love) and get lucky in this draft. If he can’t do something special with this group over the next couple years, I say give somebody else a chance.

Finally, most of us have been following this team for 13 years or less. In the history of the NFL, that’s not very long. I remember even a decade ago watching the Steelers struggle to ever win a big game. Something changed several years ago (T-Rac would say Roethlisberger – and he’d probably be right) and they became a team with swagger that knew how to finish games consistently. The Pats? Jeez, they used to suck – laughing stocks. Look at the friggin Cowboys these days. Their fans have enjoyed success like no other, but if they had only been in Dallas for the last 13 years, what kind of loyalty would they have? I guess we have a good thing going here in the short run.

I know I was leading the fire Fisher charge earlier, but after reading every word of this thread, sitting back and sipping leftover eggnog and putting on my thinking face, I guess I feel pretty lucky as a fan. It’s a fun team to root for. We’ve had some amazing players that were and are the envy of the league, a great stadium, instant tradition, fantastic finishes, an awesome radio play-by-play guy, a consistent no-nonsense team personality and one of the best NFL blogs on the internet.

Now back to the bitching!

It was a great feat he pulled off by keeping this team together as well as he did with everything that went against them this year. The injuries, D coaching change, loosing star defensive lineman, losing streak…overcoming all of that and still having all the players on board and playing their hearts out was an amazing job. A lesser coach would have finished with 2 or 3 wins.

and that goes for anyone else that laid down last night. there was plenty of reason to be motivated to beat the chargers with out a pep talk from the mustache. (the fact that i dont GET fisher anymore notwithstanding)