It’s another reunion week in the NFL. After Peyton Manning went back to Indy in Week Seven and Mike Shanahan returned to Denver in Week Eight, long-time Oilers/Titans coach Jeff Fisher welcomes his former team to St. Louis on Sunday.
Not surprisingly, Fisher didn’t have much to say about it on Tuesday.
“I’m not playing, and I think there’s 16 players on the roster that were there when I was there,” Fisher told reporters. “So, it’s a different football team, so I’m excited for our guys. We’ll get them back and have them ready to go.”
Fisher overlooked the fact that he’ll be squaring off with some coaches he knows fairly well, including Titans head coach Mike Munchak, who worked with Fisher from 1994 through 2010, offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains, who worked with Fisher from 2006 through 2010, and senior defensive assistant Gregg Williams, who worked with Fisher from 1990 through 2000 in Houston/Tennessee and who Fisher hired last year before the Saints bounty scandal forced Williams out of the NFL for a year and out of St. Louis before he worked even a single game.
Coaching will be at more of a premium in this one, given that Fisher and his new staff have to prepare in six days while the Titans had 14.
“The schedule makers felt like we could overcome these things and we will,” Fisher said. “Often times, when you have so much time off, the timing’s off, so we’ll see.”
Beyond the connection between Fisher and the Titans, the game is a rematch of Super Bowl XXXIV. It’s also the first game played by Tennessee since the passing of Bud Adams, who founded the team in 1960.