The Titans defense talked all of last week about starting fast against the Buccaneers. They were able to do that on Friday with the tone being set by Derrick Morgan. Here is what Mike Munchak had to say about the play of the defense Friday night:

think the first play was from Derrick Morgan. He hit the quarterback on the first play of the game. I think when you can do that, they are thinking about it especially when the quarterback is not going to play a lot and he is getting hit right away. I think that is something they were aware of. I thought the energy at the line of scrimmage was good. Jurrell Casey had some good hits. The pressure on the quarterback. Keyunta Dawson had a nice sack. He won pretty cleanly. Sen’Derrick Marks knocked the ball out of the quarterback’s hand on a sack for a turnover.

We have all been pretty tough on Morgan here this summer, but he looked like he turned the corner in that game the other night. Just like Chris Johnson, Morgan needs to show some consistency before we are ready to say that he has arrived, but a couple more games like that will do the trick.

It was nice to see Morgan start the game, but David Boclair of The City Paper made a good point on the radio the other day- if Morgan has 12 sacks this year is anyone really going to care that he isn't in the game on first down to pick up 20 tackles against the run? The answer to that is clearly no. Morgan just needs to prove he can be that 12 sack guy.