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It's all in their heads Titans upset that they still have something to prove
Posted: Saturday January 22, 2000 11:11 AM
By John Donovan, CNNSI.com NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The pre-big game ritual is in full blossom. The head games already are being played and re-played. Gentlemen, start your psychobabble. The game before Sunday's AFC Championship game has begun, and it has nothing to do with zone blitzes or stunts or the vertical passing game. This one is taking place between the shoulder pads, up in the beat-up helmets of the Jacksonville Jaguars and Tennessee Titans. This one's between the earholes. And the upstart Titans --- at least quite a few of them -- are pretty convinced that they're firmly entrenched in the Jags' heads now, after smacking them down twice already this season. "There's going to be some doubts up there. I think that's something in the back of their minds," Titans tight end Frank Wycheck said. "They know they can be beat." 'Course, as all the Titans are willing to point out, that can go the other way, too. It will make the Jaguars, already favored by a touchdown, a little more hacked off at the Titans. They have something to prove, after all.
The Jaguars are favored Sunday despite being manhandled, 41-14, in the last meeting of these two AFC Central rivals. They are favored despite the fact that their only two losses this season came to the Titans. They are favored, if you're looking for a few reasons, because they're playing at home in Alltel Stadium, because they've only lost two games and because they won their last one, in the divisional round against the Miami Dolphins, 62-7. And they are favored because few really believe in that 41-14 drubbing the Titans handed them on the day after Christmas anyway. Certainly, the Jaguars have spent much of the week downplaying the importance of that particular game. "They were playing for home-field advantage. They were playing for the division title," said Titans defensive end Kenny Holmes. "How can they even fix their mouths to say it didn't mean anything?" It's a respect thing, as these games often turn out to be, and the Titans have convinced themselves that they're not getting any. Or at least not as much as they feel they ought to be getting. "It's just like I've been saying all year," Holmes moaned. "We have to prove we belong."
The Titans could hardly have had two more disparate games than the two against the Jaguars, which were played three months apart. The first was a squeaker in a rainstorm in Jacksonville, the second a blowout in which Titans quarterback Steve McNair threw a career-high five touchdown passes. It might not be surprising that the Titans consider that second game more Titan-like. "I think we just had a really good gameplan that game," Wycheck said. "We ended up with a lot of third-and-shorts. And that's something you have to do. You don't want to get in a lot of third-and-longs against Jacksonville."
Said Holmes: "The second game, we were a lot more polished. The first game, we had a lot of mistakes." The fear card is out there, too. No way do the Titans want to make like the Dolphins. The Titans will be trying Sunday to do something only seven teams have done since the 1970 merger -- beat a team three times in a single season. Only two teams, the '82 Miami Dolphins and the '86 New York Giants, have done it in the conference championship. A clean sweep. Getting some respect. Winning the AFC title. Making it to the Super Bowl. It's all out there, for the Titans' grabbing. If they can grasp it.
"Both teams are good, and both teams know it," kicker Al Del Greco said. "[All the rest of that talk] is just something for everybody to write about. Once we kick off, it doesn't matter."
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