Growing a beard isn’t the most surprising thing Jeff Fisher has done this year. Not even close. For that distinction, you’d have to review the tape of the Titans’ dramatic comeback victory over the New York Giants—a win that has looked more impressive with each passing week.
In that game, Fisher approved a strategy that once might have seemed unthinkable (though warmly welcomed) by Titans fans who had grown accustomed to seeing Eddie George line up in power formations that advertised the team’s commitment to the run with everything but a flashing neon sign. Against New York, Fisher’s bunch regularly deployed a spread of receivers whose exact whereabouts the Giants’ secondary could never quite account for.
Even more telling, when the Titans got the ball in overtime with good field position, the coaching staff planned to run the ball and reassert George. That would be the safe, time-tested, Titanesque way. But McNair prevailed on them to stay with the spread formation. The Titans quickly sliced their way down the field and ended the game.
Keeping New York’s defense off balance proved to be a key that afternoon. But the spread formations also illuminated a key to the team’s whole season: The Titans now live or die not with George, but with Steve McNair.
The debate may continue about which player most deserved the Most Valuable Player award. Overlooked among all that palaver, however, is a more significant title that McNair has clearly won this year: MVT (Most Valuable Titan). That should come as no news to Titan fans—even those who not so long ago wanted Neal O’Donnell as the starting quarterback.
Yet it is remarkable how subtly but indisputably that McNair has become, to borrow Reggie Jackson’s old self-bestowed title, “the straw that stirs the drink.” That transformation has made all the difference in the team’s fortunes this season. And the crucial voters in McNair’s case were not the media nor the fans but the Titans’ own coaching staff.
The Titans used to be Eddie George’s team. Once, the whole offense seemed to run through him—even when he wasn’t carrying the ball on first, second and third downs. Eddie was the barometer of the team’s success. Give him the ball at least 25 times, and they’d almost always win. If he rushed for more than 100 yards, victory was almost certain.
No longer. This season, the Titans have found they can win regularly even if George runs only 15 to 20 times and gains only 70 or 80 yards. It’s too simple to say that McNair makes up the difference. More accurately, Fisher and friends, notably offensive coordinator Mike Heimerdinger, seem to have found a balance.
For several years, the Titans’ backfield wasn’t quite big enough to hold both George and McNair. The former is both a slasher and a power back, ideally suited to the punishing, wear-’em-out, ball-control game Fisher has always favored. McNair, by contrast, is a multipurpose weapon who’s most effective in a more wide-open assault. To defenses, he’s an X-factor, the unpredictable element whose ability to run or throw long downfield makes him (like his speedier descendants Donovan McNabb and Michael Vick) almost a spread offense all by himself.
As long as the Titans remained an Eddie-oriented team, McNair’s gifts went underutilized. It also became easier for defenses to stop him, knowing that McNair’s play-making skills would so often be kept in reserve until third down.
On the other hand, installing a West Coast offense with McNair as ringmaster of an aerial circus would deprive the Titans of much of their battering toughness and physicality, both of which George provides in heavy doses. And it would return the ball much more quickly to opposing offenses, which could do to the Titans what the Titans like to do to others.
Many coaches (paging Tom Coughlin) are philosophically rigid and couldn’t change if their jobs depended on it. Titans fans had come to suspect Fisher was one of them, especially after witnessing an increasingly less successful succession of first-and-Eddies.
But as the facial growth demonstrates, Fisher is capable of sprouting surprises. Now, he and Heimerdinger seem to have found a middle ground between Air McNair and All Eddie. As a result, the Titans are throwing the ball farther downfield when McNair leaves the pocket. (It’s not Frank Wycheck’s fault that the tight end is no longer the team’s leading receiver; in fact, it’s a positive indicator.) Simultaneously, though, the Titans have been able to retain their personality as a powerful running team that hogs the clock, smashes mouths and wears down defenses.
To appreciate how much difference the Titans’ new balance has made, consider their previous meeting with the Giants, a couple of years ago. Firing on all cylinders, they crushed New York, a team that went on to the Super Bowl, in a 28-14 game that was far more lopsided than the score. Though the Titans won 13 games that year, the performance against the Giants was one of the few in which they dominated the clock, the score and the line of scrimmage all afternoon against a strong opponent.
Now, skip forward to the last six games of this season. The Titans have recorded not just one dominating performance but several. First, they smoked the Steelers early and held on. They dominated Indianapolis in a smackdown game. They not only crushed the defending Super Bowl champions in a match that most neutral observers expected Tennessee to lose; they ripped so many new orifices that the Pats were still oozing when their plane got back to New England. Then they humiliated a Jacksonville team that had every reason to save a strong showing for a hated rival. Just as important, at the Meadowlands the Titans demonstrated they could play from behind when forced to abandon their ground game.
Though he was snubbed in the MVP voting and bestowed the equivalent of Miss Congeniality for the Pro Bowl, McNair is finally getting some serious attention from the Talking Head Sports Geniuses. Even there, however, the focus seems to be less on McNair’s knack for breaking down defenses than on his iron will and ability to play well in spite of pain and lack of practice.
Nonetheless, McNair has already won the most important vote of confidence—the internal one. In so doing, he is forcing fans to consider what once would have been a heretical idea. The Titans might be able to win without Eddie, but they’d go nowhere without Steve.
How it looks from the La-Z-Boy
Titans 24, Steelers 20
Of all the potential opponents this week for Tennessee, the Steelers are in some ways the scariest. They know the Titans well; they’ve proven they can win in Nashville; and their defense can shut down even the best running game. On the other hand, that defense is highly vulnerable to a passing attack; their battering ram, Jerome Bettis, has been hampered by injuries; and they’ll be playing on six days’ rest, compared to 13 for Tennessee.
Don’t be surprised if the Tites have to shake off some rust. But there’s a reason teams play for home-field advantage. The Steelers saw last week how valuable it can be. Now, less pleasantly, they’ll be reminded again.
Raiders 23, Jets 21
The Jets are hot. Just not hot enough.
Falcons 24, Eagles 17
At least until they play Tampa, the Falcons are starting to acquire a sense of destiny. It also helps to have a QB nobody can catch.
Buccaneers 23, 49ers 16
West Coast offense, say hello to Gulf Coast defense. Then say goodbye.
