Titans Take Holiday, Prepare For Browns
By Larry Stone December 23, 2001

With back-to-back wins over playoff-bound teams, Titans head coach Jeff Fisher said his team has played solidly in all three phases and had fun.

'I know the success we've had the last two weeks against two real good teams...really is a result of the play of our quarterback, the way we're protecting up front, and our ability to make plays down the field, and of course our third-down efficiency and our special teams play has been error-free the last couple of weeks,' Fisher said at his weekly press conference Sunday. 'Not great by any means, but good enough to win.'

After giving up field position but no points to the Raiders in Saturday night's first half, the Titans offense started fast in the second half scoring ten third quarter points. But the Raiders came back following a Steve McNair interception and quickly tallied ten points of their own.

'We had a drastic coverage mistake on the long ball to Jerry Rice, who made a great catch,' Fisher said. 'Typically in the past it's taken a couple of series to overcome that. But we got right to it, got it over with and the guys kept playing.'

'We're pressuring up front. We're defending the run very well and we're mixing things up in the secondary enough. The irony there is we're making enough mistakes in the secondary to where it looks as if we're doing some creative things and falling into place and quarterbacks are having a hard time reading the defense.'

With the score tied at ten early in the fourth quarter, Fisher said McNair again showed why he's having an outstanding season.

'Steve, without practicing and in his condition, played as well as I've seen him play in key situations, specifically the last drive,' Fisher said. 'On 3rd-and-7, 3rd-and-10, the completion to Mase for 29 and 22 to keep that drive alive were two huge throws and were the difference in the ballgame.'

Baltimore's win over Cincinnati Sunday afternoon means the Titans need a Colts victory Sunday night to retain any hope of the playoffs. Fisher again Sunday sounded realistic.

'If we're fortunate to play well the next two weeks and win out, I'm quite confident that it would simply mean that we missed by a game,' Fisher said. 'It would therefore illustrate how important every game, every play is early in the season. We are right when we say you have to start fast early in the season and then build wins early and hang on because a lot happens in the middle part of the season.'

'It would just suggest to them that the way we're going about it is right. We have to do better early in the season. That's going to require a better off-season than we had last year.'

The Titans coaching staff will work on the Browns gameplan Monday while players will be off. The team will reassemble Wednesday to begin practice for Sunday's game.