NASHVILLE, Tenn.—The Tennessee Titans are not happy with themselves. No, not even a little bit.
A defense that set a tall goal of finishing among the NFL’s best this season went from allowing a league-low 66 yards rushing to giving up 166 yards to Jacksonville. The Titans had only one sack after getting 12 combined in the two games before.
“We just didn’t play well,” defensive end Kyle Vanden Bosch said Thursday. “There really was no reason for it. We didn’t play up to our expectations. We didn’t play the kind of football we had been playing most of the year.”
And they are determined to do something about it when they visit Denver (4-5) on Monday night.
“That’s the great thing about the NFL is you go out the next week and fix your mistakes and prove yourself again,” Vanden Bosch said.
Denver coach Mike Shanahan said losing a couple players can hurt the continuity. The Titans played without defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth because of a sore hamstring, and defensive end Travis LaBoy sat out with a concussion. They have five sacks apiece.
“All of the sudden you’ve got to fill somebody in at the last second, and it’s sometimes not easy to do,” Shanahan said.
“It was really the run that caught them off balance. But you don’t have one of the best rushing defenses in the National Football League over the first half of the season unless you’re really good.”
Denver has given up 17 sacks. Vanden Bosch said Broncos quarterback Jay Cutler is similar to others in that he can be streaky.
“If we let him sit in the pocket and get hot early on, we could have a lot of problems. It is important that we try to disrupt his timing. Don’t let him sit back in the pocket early in the game,” Vanden Bosch said.
Linebacker Keith Bulluck said they know they must play their best each Sunday to be one of the NFL’s top defenses. They still rank second overall in yards allowed, although they fell to fourth against the run giving up 77.1 yards per game.
Bulluck said going 6-2 over the first half of the season means nothing with the risk of going 0-8 in the second half ruining what a team worked for early. He said now is the time for teams to start throwing their weight around if they want to be in playoff contention.
“What we have to do on Monday is get back on track, and it’s great we’re on a national stage so we get to come out once again and show what we’re about,” Bulluck said.
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OLD FRIENDS:@ Speaking of defense, the Titans still aren’t sure if they’ll be trying to stop ex-teammate Travis Henry. The running back released by Tennessee in March has missed two of the last three games with Denver.
If Henry plays or if it’s Selvin Young, the Titans know what challenge to expect: Stop a very physical running attack.
“They’re probably going to adjust some things based on what we did,” defensive end Kyle Vanden Bosch said. “Denver’s offense has been Denver’s offense for a long time. They try to run the ball against everybody, and they do it with success against almost everybody.”
But it’s not as if the Titans have some extra knowledge having had Henry as a teammate for two seasons.
“I played against Travis a few times at Buffalo,” linebacker Keith Bulluck said. “He hasn’t changed his style since then. … So it’s more about the plays that he gets and how he gets the ball and his favorite runs.”
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PRO BOWL VOTING:@ Fans can vote for their favorite players for the Pro Bowl through Dec. 11, and more than 35 million votes have been cast so far. Not a single Tennessee Titan, not even usual fan favorite Keith Bulluck, is leading at any position in the AFC.
Colts defensive end Dwight Freeney is the AFC’s top vote-getter on the defensive line, while Vince Wilfork of the Patriots tops the interior linemen.
Titans quarterback Vince Young went to the Pro Bowl as an injury replacement last February. Defensive end Kyle Vanden Bosch also was an injury replacement after the 2005 season.
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FEEDING THE HUNGRY:@ Vince Young was busy practicing Thursday. His mother, Felicia, worked on his behalf in Houston donating about 5,000 pounds of food—two truckloads—to the Gulf Coast Community Services Association.
Felicia Young made the donation on behalf of her son’s foundation and her own ministry. She said she remembered the group helping her family years ago.
“When I realized the agency was still around and still continuing its mission of helping families, I called right-away to tell Vincent. Vincent attended one of the agency’s after-school programs,” she said in a statement.
She said he remembered the group’s after-school program and wanted to help.
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HAYNESWORTH’S CELEBRITY DINNER:@ Defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth and his wife, Stephanie, will be hosting their second Dining for Dimes celebrity dinner on Dec. 10. All proceeds go to the Nashville division of March of Dimes.
Haynesworth will be joined by teammates, musicians and celebrities. The dinner at a Nashville restaurant is limited to 250.
“The bar was set high after raising $60,000 at the first annual event,” Haynesworth said. “We are up for the challenge to better that amount and then some this time around.”
