There isn't a nationally carried writer who knows the Tennessee Titans locker room better than Paul Kuharsky. He covered the team for The Tennessean for years, and developed a reputation for brutal honesty. He's still in the locker room on a regular basis, a resident of Nashville and discusses the Titans several mornings a week on the major local sports talk station.
Because of that, it's not a huge surprise that he would be the one to get Michael Griffin to open-up about his terrible play this season. Griff didn't go into great detail, but he definitely let be known that something off the field has been in his head, and he's working on getting it straight:
"If you watch tape from last year and this year, it’s not the same body language, it’s not the same attitude. It’s just not the same person out there on the field. There are other things that have been going on, things that I took care of this bye weekend. This was a good opportunity for me to go take care of a lot of things and go from there …"
"It’s like having a bad day on the job. Some people go to work and may not be having a good day, may have other things going on. It’s not an excuse. It’s like I am letting my team down by letting other things bother me. This is the Tennessee Titans’ facility, things that are bothering me outside this facility shouldn’t be bothering me inside the facility."This is a great place to be with a lot of fun guys to be around. Think about it, this game right here takes care of a lot of your problems. If you’re frustrated, if you’re upset about something -- or if you’re happy about something -- this is a great place to be."
Griffin has blogged for the Tennessean about how hard it is that his child is in Texas while he's living in Nashville, and maybe that's related to what's going on. As much as we like to think these guys can check it all at the door, anyone with a career, not just a job, knows it doesn't work like that. I really hope Griff can get back to form, because we need the dominant Pro Bowler we saw last year, not the distracted liability we've watched get burned over and over again.