Quote:
Originally Posted by FringeNC
I agree and mentioned it in the game thread. Vrabel had those guys ready to play. We had to earn that victory -- good execution on most 3rd down and the only 4th down attempt or the game could have gone differently. Titans played so much better that game on D than they did the first game.
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Yeah, in person all you really notice is energy. You can tell when an opponent comes out fired up but not really how they're executing. I could tell in the Week 17 game against LAC that the defense was playing their tails off, but couldn't really tell if they were playing well (apart from Derwin James). I never bothered to re-watch because ultimately I didn't care that much.
And on Sunday I could tell that the Titans weren't laying down, but I didn't see just how close they were coming to making plays on balls that would've been incomplete but/for amazing manipulation of the pocket and/or throwing lanes by Mahomes. He was just making subtle changes on throws left and right and sneaking them just a bit past defenders. Or on the rare occasion that the Titans would try a zone, Mahomes would just know exactly where to go with the ball and exactly when to go there. I only saw a single play where he lost Robinson(?) on the backside of a play that took awhile to develop before he just kinda gave up on it and fired one into the ground. Maybe it was Williams. But he had a gods-eye view of the field and was playing that defense like a fiddle.
I kinda feel like Vrabel is a bit of a mongoloid but I'll give him a lot of credit - those cats absolutely thought they were going to win that game and you can see it in their focus and their execution. They definitely didn't see that as 'house money' - they went out there with a job to do and ultimately I thought they made a pretty incredible effort.
Mahomes was just next-level great and the defense was playing with a ferocity we just haven't seen from them since the Schottenheimer days.