Recap: Titans Defeat The Bills In Another Thriller

Chris Johnson exploded for one of the best games of his entire career, but it was just barely enough to give Bud Adams the deep satisfaction of beating the Bills… again.

CJ ran like a madman for the first time in two years. He was lighting quick, decisive at the line and elusive in the open field. This was the first game in a long time where CJ had that extra gear once he got to the second level. When he’s running like that, we can hang with any offense in the league, regardless of the QB (more on that to come).

The offensive line unit is finally coalescing into a group somewhat worthy of their coaches’ pedigrees. Don’t be scared, but I’m actually not going to complain one bit about that dude who plays RG… They did a very good job keeping Hasselbeck clean, and they did a phenomenal good blocking. It was especially noticeable how much better Harris and Velasco were at getting to the second level.

Because today’s scorn I exclusively reserved for Jerry Gray. Once again our D turned into the unit that you can bank on to surrender 30 points from jump, fail to disrupt the passing game and do a spot-on impression of a doormat on third down. The Bills have a lot of talent on offense, but no team in the league should get that close to scoring on every single drive against this defense. We need more talent, but we’ve got enough on the field to expect more than that kind of play.

As for Matt Hasselbeck, these two wins have only convinced me further that he’s just a West Coast game manager at this point in his career. If our offense doesn’t get a monster play from CJ or a short field via defense or special teams, it’s going to take around 5,000,000 plays to get within scoring range, and you’re just praying there isn’t a sack, penalty or drop that derails the whole process. On both sides of the ball, this team isn’t talented or disciplined enough for that to work consistently. We need Jake if we’re going to win against some of the better teams still left on the schedule.

Yet, my hat goes off to the guy. He’s helped right the ship after a rough start, despite being demoted to back-up for the first time in his career and having to watch the franchise chase Peyton just a few months ago.

Amazing what a difference a few weeks make, ya know? All of the sudden these guys are showing they can win ugly.

Now, the sooner we get Jake and McCarthy back, maybe we can see them win some games in a prettier fashion.