It’s an all-Titans (or at least a most-Titans) night here at PFT, so let’s share another tale from Tennessee.
Former Titans tailback Eddie George isn’t pleased with the level of effort he has seen from the team for which he once starred.
“What I saw on Sunday, I’ve never seen a team play with such a lack of enthusiasm, lack of effort,” George told Jim Wyatt of the Tennessean. “Even when they had a chance to win, the energy and body language wasn’t there. No one stepped up player-wise to meet that challenge. The energy I saw, it didn’t seem like there was a sense of energy from anybody. No one seemed to want it. You want to go in there with a purpose. They have to want it. I saw none of that.”
George seemed to put the blame more on the players than on the coaches.
“Everybody is vested -- it’s coaches, players, the training staff -- to get the guys ready. It’s strength coach Steve Watterson. It’s everybody,” George said. “But it comes down to the core unit of the team to say: ‘This is what we are about. We make up the team.’ At some point and time the coaches will coach, and get you ready. But the players decide on what type of team they are going to be. Are you going to be mentally tough? Or are you going to fold up your tents and lay down? And that is what I see. I see inconsistency with attitude. I don’t see any fire and that concerns me.”
Part of George’s concern is the future of head coach Jeff Fisher.
“I looked at Jeff’s face at the press conference after the game Sunday and I’d never seen him look that way,” George said. “He looked tired, he looked stressed. He’s always had that glass-is-half-full attitude, and he seems a little tired. It concerns me, what is going on. And I hope the guys realize the gem they have in Coach Fisher. Having played for him and having played for someone else, it is two totally different situations.”
By the way, the “someone else” to whom George is referring is Bill Parcells, who coached the Cowboys during George’s short, career-closing stint with the team. Some think that, if Fisher is fired in Tennessee, he’ll end up getting the job in Dallas.
If he plans on getting any other head-coaching job in the NFL, Fisher will need a darn good explanation for the apparent reality that his team has quit on him.