Owner of a Lonely Start…

As I(Lucas) sat down excitedly with my miniature corn dawgz and soda pop to watch the game, I felt like life couldn’t get much better. Unfortunately I could not have been more right. The ensuing game felt like a tumultuous romantic relationship, with unbelievable highs (thanks, CJ!), and fraught with confusing lows (Jacoby’s hot potato routine, Collins’ fumble, no defense). It was the sort of bipolar, masochistic experience that I used to believe was reserved for my Vandy games. These Titans are setting up to be a little like my ‘dores. They try hard, have their chances, then things just blow up. Sigh…

Isn’t Chuck Cecil supposed to be, like, good at coaching defensive backs and stuff? Jim Schwartz may be a bigger loss than Haynesworth. The blown coverage, lack of meaningful pressure on Schaub, and overall lack of discipline are distressing. If it weren’t for the Texans’ upping of the ante on defensive execution, Collins wouldn’t have even had a chance to fumble away the game on a potentially game-winning drive. Cecil’s red shirt is pretty fly, though.

The most exciting individual defensive play occurred off the grid during the scrum that ensued after Bulluck lost his helmet into the Texans sideline. Jones got a standing ovation for punching a Texan and getting booted, which was pretty awesome. I think this is turning into a real, visceral rivalry. It seemed somewhat disingenuous before, but that probably has to do with Houston’s former whipping boy status, which I guess no longer applies.

What’s with the return game? So far we haven’t seen anything from our young returners. They look scared, bobble and drop balls, and don’t seem too explosive when they do get a chance to run.

I think Alge Crumpler might have taken a massive dumpler- he looks to be 30 pounds lighter this week. His moves in the 4th quarter were graceful and elegant. Has he gone from dancing with candy bars to dancing with the stars?

It is impossible to ignore Chris Johnson. Do they serve performance enhancing amphetamines at his favorite soup kitchen? I don’t think he’s homeless; I’m pretty sure he just lives in another dimension. No, not the twilight zone- the end zone.

86% of teams that go 0-2 to start out the year don’t make the playoffs. I think that this stat is somewhat misleading. I’d like to know how many teams that go 2-0 make the playoffs. I bet it’s less than one might think. Most teams that go 0-2 are terrible. Tennessee is not, so I’m not gonna get too sad about that stat.

I(Ryan) couldn’t agree with you more Lucas. That was the football game equivalent of watching a Rocky movie. A back and forth affair. Tons of non-defended offensive blows, and in the 12th round someone(the Titans) got dramatically knocked the F out.

Since when has our defense been that awful? Not since November 23, 2008 when we had our 10 game winning streak halted by our week 3 opponent, the Jets 34-13. How did we rebound you might ask? Well, we were handed the biggest cream puff of all time; the 2008 Detroit Lions. Unfortunately, we aren’t gonna get that lucky this time around.

We’ll be on the road this week, suiting up against Rex Ryan’s much improved New York Jet’s defense. That’s the same New York Jets that just shut down both the Patriot’s and the Texan’s offenses. That includes holding the Patriot’s from scoring a TD for the first time since 2006.

With all that being said, I don’t think it’s our offense that we should be worried about. As Lucas touched on, Chuck Cecil and the defense seems to be our biggest question mark. I don’t want to be super critical of the guy. We lost both games by a whopping 3 points each, but we can’t seem to stop anyone when it counts. We’re playing physical, but we can’t manage to create any turnovers. Our secondary seems more worried about stopping the run, than covering receivers. All I can do, is hope that we can bring Mark Sanchez back down to earth with a much needed Titan’s victory.