With the Tennessee Titans winning seven of eight games after punctuating an 0-6 start with a 59-0 loss to the Patriots, coach Jeff Fisher has opened up regarding the tactics he used to get the players re-focused on playing good football following their bye week.
Fisher tells Michael Silver of Yahoo! Sports that, in a team meeting held four days after the crushing loss at Foxborough, Fisher told the players that McNair entered the bye week nine years earlier doubting whether he still wanted to play football.
He’d been knocked out of a game against the Chiefs with a severely bruised sternum, and he was “devasated” to hear the fans roar with approval when backup Neil O’Donnell entered the game.
The Titans had a bye the following week, and McNair used that opportunity to try to work out his feelings as to whether it was time to call it a career. He ultimately opted to keep playing, and the Titans finished the 2000 season with a 13-3 mark.
Fisher urged his current players to do the same thing. “You can make the most of the bye weekend by getting away,” Fisher said to the team. “Take a few days to yourselves, come back on Monday and let’s just start over.”
When they returned, Fisher displayed a “revised” schedule for the season, with only ten games on it.
“Jacksonville is our season opener,” he said to them. “Let’s go out and get it done.”
So far, they have. With only one loss in eight tries, the Titans remain alive for a postseason berth.
And as we pointed out in the Week 15 Morning Aftermath, we’d love to see them get the No. 6 seed -- and to kickoff the postseason with a trip back to Foxborough to play the third-seeded Patriots.
The more immediate challenge, of course, is to beat the Chargers tonight, in a game that will be telecast on NFL Network.