When did we get this bad..?

[titans0021]

Well after driving 10 hours today just to witness that guy, I feel as though I'm entitled to go on a proper rant. Yes, this could probably go in another thread, but honestly, my frustrations need to be vented in a fresh one.

We suck. Period. End of story (well not really).

Being up high enough to see the entire field, rather than watching it on television, really helped me appreciate just how bad Matt Hasselbeck is at football these days. I'm honestly not sure words can do it justice at this point.

It's one thing to have no velocity or arm strength to speak of, that's to be expected when you have been in the league for 34 years, but it's his complete lack of attributes that one would expect from a veteran quarterback that really gets to me.

One would expect a player that is supposed to rely on his "intelligence" to have success would, you know maybe once and a while, look like a semi-functional football player. The amount of times the guy simply stared down his primary read and threw the ball regardless of coverage is insane. He has his mind made up on where the ball is going before he breaks the huddle, often not even sending a second glance at the wide receiver running free down the sideline or the tight end breaking free from a jam and running an open crosser.

This brings me to Jared Cook. I may be wrong, but I do not believe the guy received a single target in the first three quarters. He was always open. Well maybe not always open, but he was open enough to the point that Vikings fans actually began to notice how consistently he was able to run free in the seam or find the zone between the linebackers and the safeties.

And Matt Hasselbeck wouldn't throw to him. Ever. Period. I get that he's not a beautiful route-runner, but he got separation all day. I can't imagine he can possibly be that open every week, but a competent quarterback gets him at least eight catches and a 100 yards today. An upper-tier quarterback probably gets him 10 and 150.

I just can't speak enough about how free Cook was able to get. Well maybe I can, I'll give it a shot. As terrible as Matt Hasselbeck is at being a real quarterback, Cook is just as good at finding seams in the secondary.

I don't know what to say about the running game. I really wasn't close enough to fairly evaluate CJ but I assume he was disappointing and the offensive line was embarrassing. Par for the course.

Now onto the defense...

I don't think anyone can truly appreciate just how important Cortland Finnegan was to this unit.

And honestly, that has very little to do with his play on the field. We have an extremely young defense which clearly relies on the "veteran leader" to set the tone for the rest of the unit.

With Finny, regardless of what anyone else says, he was a tough, cocky, chippy damn good football player that set an incredible example for the rest of the defense. We bent, but we didn't break. We held team's to field goals and we were at least something resembling physical. Basically, the defense was an 11-man group that looked and played like Cortland Finnegan.

This offseason, there was a lot made about Michael Griffin taking a leadership role on the defense. And it shows.

As much as the unit took on Finny's personality, it has now taken on the personality of Griff.

Soft, afraid to give up the big play, getting beat repeatedly in front of them because they are terrified of getting beat deep, soft, poor tackling, no heart, soft, below average. And soft.

While I'm on the defense, I just do not understand how coaches have not, in four years in the damn league, taught Jason McCourty to get closer to the line of scrimmage. He is a great tackler, has solid ball skills (albeit poor hands), knows how to play man coverage and has the size and speed to be a very good corner.

Yet, week after week, month after month, year after year, he gives up a 100 completions underneath because he refused to jam his man at the line. Quick slant, quick slant, WR screen, curl. Short route, short route, short route, 6 yards. 9 yards. 8 yards. 5 yards. 12 yards.

Seriously, just tell him to get up on the line. For the love of God. We've all seen it, why hasn't Jason or the coaching staff. Just fix it. Please.

We have no pass rush.

And Michael Griffin is soft. Which is unfortunate because our defense is currently comprised of Jurrell Casey, Colin McCarthy and nine Michael Griffins.

Finally, what the hell was Kenny Britt doing on the field at the end of the game? Are you kidding me? Somebody that is a crucial part of your offense, that has not practiced all week, that has a history of injuries and is currently nursing an ankle, is both on the field and making catches in a 23-point game with less than a minute left. What? I am trying to understand in what world that possibly makes sense. I mean honestly, I have been trying for hours. How can you have him out on the field? How? Please, I beg of you, someone tell me how?

That's all I have. We suck. This is going to be a brutal next three months.
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Adopted Titans - Chris Johnson and Fernando Velasco.

[-Hope-]

Simple answer: this coaching staff sucks. Nobody wants to hear it right now, but this coaching staff sucks more than Jeff Fisher sucked. I'm ready to get rid of them all.

We have significant holes in our roster, yes, but this team is not without talent, and they're certainly not close to bad enough to be getting destroyed like a division 2 college team week in and week out. This coaching staff is blowing everything. I'm disgusted with the job they've done and I'm sick of watching this team. I'm absolutely done with Titans games until the coaches make major changes or they're flat-out fired, because right now all we are doing is regressing.
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Sig by Kempes

[Double Agent]

Yeah, you said it, bro. The decision to let Finnegan walk while franchising Griffin is one of the most laughably terrible personnel moves this team will ever make.

I'm pretty sure at this point that Kendall Wright will be a great player though, so at least there's that. That's the only positive vibe I can throw out right now, everything else sucks.
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Adopt-A-Titan: K Rob Bironas and P Brett Kern

[titans0021]

Note:

The below is referring to Jason McCourty, who frustrated me almost as much as Griff.

"While I'm on the defense, I just do not understand how coaches have not, in four years in the damn league, taught him to get closer to the line of scrimmage. He is a great tackler, has solid ball skills (albeit poor hands), knows how to play man coverage and has the size and speed to be a very good corner.

Yet, week after week, month after month, year after year, he gives up a 100 completions underneath because he refused to jam his man at the line. Quick slant, quick slant, WR screen, curl. Short route, short route, short route, 6 yards. 9 yards. 8 yards. 5 yards. 12 yards. "
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Adopted Titans - Chris Johnson and Fernando Velasco.

[-CJ28MVP-]

McCourty plays off the receivers because thats our stupid scheme. It's been that way for years. The same way we also put our safeties 20 yards deep every down regardless of situation. We're basically playing prevent defense the entire game and its stupidi

[titans0021]

[Finnerception]

Anyone else notice the correlation between letting Daniel Loper walk and us failing to make the playoffs since?
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[Titanium]

We have 0 playmakers on defense, 0.

We never get that interception to spark a momentum change, never get a big hit and a fumble recovery leading to a td.

We get 0 pressure on the QB.

We play soft soft soft defense and that all goes back to Gray. Fire him, the experiment has failed, start over.
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Fire everyone!

[KingTitan]

I'm never on the "if we kept player x we would be better" bandwagon. With Finny, I don't think play would be significantly different because our scheme makes it where we are...

But he did have leadership and the question has always been how much do you pay for that?

Cause in the same breath we lost Hope, who people ragged but was a leader on that team.

The front office to me has been very good in making moves. But the move that will be their demise is giving Griff that extension. He showed NO reason to get it.

At least with Amano, he was part of an amazing line, even if he was the weak link.
and
CJ was CJ2k.

But Griff had one good season.

Last year we were impressed with how "Gray used guys to their strengths."
Something is going on inside Baptist Sports park. Gray's defense was touted as being aggressive, using various and multiple looks. Yet we see pretty much the same poop every week.

Either our players are idiots or just not as good as they thought.

We talked all summer of using Ayers to rush the passer and I think I've seen him do it 2 times.
We were supposed to put Ayers, Casey, Morgan and Wimbley on the line at once to rush the passer.

Was Dave Ball that crucial?

Local Radio started to talk of the demise of Stewart and Roos.....Stewart has been idiotic. I haven't seen Roos just get whooped but he isn't lock down as much as he used to be..and his run game has weakened.

You just expect an NFL team to show up one day and they just haven't. I'm giving Munchak until after the bye before I want him fired. I don't know how many changes can be made on a short week, but after the bye I expect changes.
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"I'm not locked in here with you. You locked in here with ME!"

[KingTitan]

Don't often quote Bleacher Report, but this article of winners and losers was pretty accurate in my mind...

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1362247-titans-vs-vikings-tennessees-biggest-winners-and-losers-from-nfl-week-5
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"I'm not locked in here with you. You locked in here with ME!"

[Finnerception]

[KingTitan]

[Dionysus]

We got this bad when we decided to take the aggression out of our defensive playcalling at the beginning of the regular season, and convert to this miniaturized prevent defense. What the Hell happened to all of this "pressure" Jerry Gray was talking about during the offseason? We were actually seeing it in the preseason in several games. We gave different looks, we played man coverage, we blitzed, we got turnovers. Now, we just rush for and drop into deep zones. We don't even use Tommie Campbell in the coverages, even after Gray did all of that gloating about him. We basically went back to the same crap we've been doing for the past decade. We went away from everything that was working or at least looked like it would work. What gives? Do we owe the mafia or something, and agreed to tank our games? I mean seriously, I just don't get it...getting blown out in every loss? This has gotten beyond ridiculous.
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Wedding Vow: I promise I will love you until the day you really p-ss me off.

[s_camp]

Possible moments at which we got this bad:

- Letting Jeff Diamond go
- Letting Floyd Reese go
- Giving Fisher control far beyond what is due to a head coach
- Drafting Vince Young
- Letting Fisher go
- Replacing Fisher with a position coach
- Bud Adams buying an AFL franchise <---- This is my vote
- Letting Finnegan go while paying Griffin
- Paying CJ

[RuskieTitan]

No. Screw Floyd Reese. He set us into cap hell, and I won't forgive him for that.
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^^ryknowssd^^
Supporter of the Death Penalty in CFB
FF Hunger Games I Winner