 Welcome back to the Mike Brayville Show. Brent Acres has been with the Tennessee Titans for over 20 years and has now risen to the post of director of team operations. One of the areas that Brent is in charge of, team travel. It takes a special talent to coordinate team travel, but Brent would tell you that team travel is less about him and more about his team of people. Amy Wells traveled with the Titans operations team on a recent road trip to give you an inside look at how these guys moved the Titans for road games. And Amy learned that it all starts in Brent Acres office. Any good team knows the importance of a good plan. For the Tennessee Titans, the game plan is the key to success both on the field and off. The vision of what coach wants done is really the most important thing. That means tending to every need, both big and small. We'll have a call with the bus company. We've got buses here, we've got buses in Nashville. They'll have to reposition everything because one, two stairs and they go on L2 and L4. Who's letting who engage? What kind of foods on the plane? Who's servicing that? Where that aircraft is coming from? Where that aircraft is right now? Room numbers and how many people and what we need in each space? Room kind of has to be on call, ready to go overnight oats, vegan pancakes. So it's every piece that's going to touch the team. We're working through the whole plan for the season. It's not just one game. It never stops. Madness never stops. For Chris Matusik and Max Curtis, the key is having a great team. Led by Brent Acres and anchored by Luke Morrow, this team of four operates like a well-oiled machine. If we didn't have good relationships, I think it would be extremely difficult. It has to be an apartment that works together. It's just making sure we communicate with each other. You get everyone on an email, you get random texts and just make sure you're sharing all that because there's always changes going on. Chris goes to the airport early, meets the bus company and gets all that stage while I'm here at the hotel to make sure that when the team gets here they will get off the bus, walk in, and they have their room key there. And sometimes it changes an hour before the team shows up. And so just kind of staying on top of that as much as possible. We're finalizing some of those details. As soon as I get that, I'll get it to you. For the Titans operations crew, the devil is in the details. So when faced with arranging the travel for an entire football team for an entire season, the planning starts early. Six months before the first game of the season, the ops team hits the road. So you'll go to a site visit. Brent does most of ours. He'll go out to the site, go to anywhere from two to ten hotels depending on what's going on, how frequent we've been in the city. Properties change, people change. So it's great to go in the city at that point in time when there's not a lot of pressure. Just to build a relationship. Those relationships are the secret to the ops crew playbook. Building a relationship with the people in this city is huge. Same way with them, same way with the police officers, people in the hotel. If we need something and we need help, that's the only people we know. And they're the, who got to make it work for us. The way our department works, it's everything does. I need to know I can walk into that middle room and if something goes on or the coach needs something, I can call Mike, hey, brother, I need this. And here it comes or the bus company. We got to make an extra stop or we got to go somewhere else. It's just those relationships. That's the only way you can do this job. The ultimate goal for this crew is simple. Limit distractions, respect the routine, don't mess with the superstitions. And our job right is to make sure that the things that the players, coaches, personnel, staff, ownership don't have to worry about. So they're able to do their job or the things that we try to minimize the mistakes. And that starts on the airplane. So I mean, there's pre-departure meals at the airplane. There's food on board the airplane for the team. You know, we're very superstitious kind of in what we do just to make sure we have the exact same thing at every single meal and every single time and every single city. Accommodating the needs of approximately 155 Titans players, coaches and support staff is a tall order. But this team of four is up for the challenge. You learn how to fix problems along the way. Chris has done it for 15, 20 years. Brent's done it for almost 25 now. I think it's just the willingness to do whatever it takes like wake up at 4 o'clock in the morning to meet a truck with equipment coming from Nashville to make sure that it gets the right place, whatever it takes to help the team to end up winning a football game. You get obsessed with it. It's just who you are, what you do. You know, it's just something that you get entwined with a bend with the team. You go back and tell your kids self that you work for the Tennessee Titans and he's fired up. The Titans operations team, those guys are fantastic. I mean, you don't even notice them because nothing goes wrong. I mean, it's just like they're all locked in. Brent, Chris, Maxie, Luke, anything that any player or coach or anyone on the trip or anybody here in our day to day, just work environment, need something. These guys are there. It's never, let me see, it's always, we'll make it work. And I appreciate them. I know the organization appreciates them. The team appreciates them.