 Tennessee host Houston fires man is wide open, it's intercepted! What a pick, Bataro! Going deep right side, looking for AJ Brown, who's there! Watson in trouble, Watson, ZAC! Correa puts him on the ground, and it's okay! Welcome you to the Mike Grable show with the head coach, I'm Mike Keith, glad to have you with us. Two weeks to go in the regular season, the Titans still very much in the playoff hunt, we will talk about that later in this edition of the show. Tennessee coming off a loss to Houston by a final score of 24-21, and I want you to take how you work with your ball club to weigh the disappointing things in a defeat, but also a lot of good things in what was a hard fought game. How do you balance that out when you talk about it with the ball club? I mean, I think the same way that we try to do all the time is that, you know, if there's a good play, but things in that play that maybe we need fixed, you have to coach the action and not the result. Just as the same as, you know, if we execute things pretty well, but, you know, they may gain a few yards, like we're okay here, you know, they made a play, and that came up making sure that there's communication. If we're having communication issues on defense, and one side's playing one defense, and the other one's playing the other, that's an issue. That has to get corrected, or that's going to end up costing us. But, you know, I think that we try to point out that the positives, and then obviously we have to correct the things that are going to ultimately get us beat. All right, let's take a look at Mike Vravel's six-pack from Sunday's game against Houston, and we start at the end of Houston's opening drive. Kenny Vaccaro comes out of nowhere, looked like Duke Johnson was all alone, but as it turned out, he wasn't. Yeah, I think we just did a good job here disguising and kind of getting Deshaun to look one way and not really like what he saw, and then he came back, and, you know, Kenny's playing half the field over there, and he's able to adjust. We understand it's a long throw. Kenny showed some great range and really made a fantastic catch to come down and secure the football, survive the ground, and, you know, it was a big play there as they entered into the red zone in the first drive. Vaccaro's tenth career interception, his first of the season for the Titans. Titans take over on their own one, run it for a couple yards with Derrick Henry, and then decide to throw it deep and you hit it. Yep, and we have to continue to be able to do this. You know, work to play action. You know, AJ stacked him at the line of scrimmage, was able to run underneath it. Ryan gave him a great ball. You know, we talk about stacking the receiver, winning the red line, so that you have ways to operate and use the sideline, and again, you see him catching the football with his hands, quiz, and everybody's jacked up on the sideline. So, you know, you get good protection, clean in the middle of the pocket, allows the quarterback to step up and throw it downfield. Ends up being a 60-yard gain. The Titans, unfortunately, not able to capitalize. As a matter of fact, the Texans go on to take a 14-0 lead, and they lead by that count going into the locker room at halftime. Titans get the football to begin the second half and start with a 15-play 76-yard drive that takes over nine minutes off the clock. It comes down to a fourth downfield. It does, and these are tough plays. You get down there inside the one, and, you know, this is a good defense. It's a physical defense. And so, you know, we got him there in a misdirection, well-executed play there. You know, you see Roger, you know, he came out there, sealed the edge for Ryan, and was able to walk in there. And I think that's what Derek Henry does for you. You know, you see the run fake, and everybody runs over there to Derek, and, you know, sometimes Derek's going to have to do that. We trust him to find the end zone, but in that situation there, we're able to use him a little bit as a decoy. 14-7 the score at the end of three. The Titans get the football in the fourth quarter. They're facing a second down and three at their own 27. And the Titans run a toss play, but to a tight end. Yep, and you can see everybody well-executed play. I think Janu has a skill set there that allows him to run the football. He's a strong runner. He's physical, and he's fast. And again, that was just a play that we thought could help us. You know, you see, it looked like a natural back there, and runs through an arm tackle, another arm tackle, and then he's able to run by some guys and really just try to change momentum for us. Janu Smith's run 57 yards. He finishes the day with 117 total yards, and that run the longest for an NFL tight end since 1976, the longest rush. And who had it before that? I don't know. I don't know. We'll have to find out. The Titans do finish that drive. I should have known that. I never should have brought that up without knowing. I apologize. Titans finished the drive with a touchdown. Great job by a group of guys to create a touchdown catch. Yep. Three-man rush. You can see that we're great in the pocket. Taylor steps down. Ryan stays in there. They're hoping that he leaves the pocket. Whitney triggers. And again, opens up that throwing lane. 59 triggers right there. AJ comes back for the football. Uses his hands. He's great, strong with a catch. And we had talked about that. Ryan rifles it in there. That thing was coming. And you see the strong hands right there to finish the catch. At that point, it's 14-14-13-35 to go. Houston scores the next 10 points to go up 24-14. Titans get the football back with about three and a half minutes to go. Tana Hill takes them right down the field. Well, it worked pretty quick. I think they're proud of our guys, how quickly we operated. And they lost the back. Deion was able to slip out of there and they lost them. Ryan is able to progress and finds them. And again, we scored with a little bit more than two minutes left on the clock. Unfortunately, we didn't have timeouts and we had to try for the onside kick. Titans fall 24-21, more highlights to show when we return, including the Bridgestone clutch performance play of the game. That's next as the Mike Brayble show continues. Bridgestone clutch performance play of the game came from the Titans defense. Several guys making it happen for a red zone take away. Absolutely. We had played this run well. They're flashing. They're moving guys across. They try to play action. And, you know, Jeffrey gets some push there in the middle, gets his hands up, pops out of there. You see Rashawn, Rashawn's back in the throwing lane. I think Rashawn's going to make a play on that football as well. But as it stood, Jeffrey gets his paw up in there and then Deion is able to go up and secure the catch. And again, huge, huge to be able to get two red zone turnovers. You know, we're going to need as many of those as we can get this week going forward to the Saints. All right. Let's take a look now at our Delta Dental, guess the Titan. As we get ready to head to break it. Hit three in a row. My least favorite part of the night here, Mike. Oh, it's in the eyes, huh? Can you guess this Titan? Is that a Titan's jersey? He's a Titans fan. How about that? That is a Titans jersey he's wearing. Well, he did not grow up around here. I'll tell you that. Probably a Javon Kirst jersey. That could be. Javon Kirst was kind of big at that time. I think I know. Wow. In the eyes. In the eyes, he says. Mike Vrable. We're back with his guess and also the gladiator of the game when the Mike Vrable show continues. It's in the eyes. Delta Dental, can you guess this Titan? We're told that's a Samarie Roll jersey that he's wearing who was also very popular at that time. Samarie Roll was one of the best defensive backs in the league. He was long. He was a very good player. He was long. He was hard to get open on. Good player, too. That's an easy one. That's an easy one. You think it's a hard one? I think it's a hard one. I think it's an easy one. I think that's LaShawn Sims. LaShawn Sims? Yeah. All right. Let's see. He grew up in Las Vegas. Logan Ryan. Samarie Roll. How about that? It is in the eyes. I see it now. Logan Ryan only has 110 tackles this year. Three and a half sacks and four interchanges. Fill in the stat sheet up. Fill in the stat sheet up. So, you know, we're going to need more of that here as we move forward to the Saints. So that would be critical. I love our Geico gladiator of the game this week. Amy Wells sitting down with Roger Saffold. And I really love this because you showed the the Tannehill boot leg for the touchdown. Saffold does a good job sort of sealing that off. He has played really well lately. Yeah, I think he's just so much more comfortable in a lot of things. He's a little comfortable being here. Comfortable with getting back there with Taylor. You know, I think as crazy as that sounds. You know, Taylor missed four weeks and, you know, I think he's just a lot more comfortable in what we're doing. Well, he's a good talker too. No doubt about it. He has a lot to say. Roger Saffold, a talented guy from Cleveland, Ohio, who played at Indiana and comes to the Titans after a career with the Rams. He is our Geico gladiator of the game. Roger, you've really been playing well these last couple of games. What is it about maybe this time of year or what is it about you that's really just clicking right now? I think it was a chance to step away from the game. Through the bye week, you know, really being able to pay attention to the past games and then be looking at myself, you know, being critical of myself and then kind of seeing how they want me to be used in protection, couple of the run games, and then it's just about playing free. You know, I think that I've been able to get to the point where I know this offense pretty well to where I can just let go, just play as hard as I can and just let things just work out for themselves, not trying to be extra or do too much, and it's allowed us to play some good football. So having that time to do some self-scouting, what did you notice about the way you were playing? I think that I was still playing and kind of the way that I used to know how to play, past protections and those types of things, so now I'm starting to gel a lot better with Ben, starting to gel a lot better with Taylor, and just the terminology with the rest of the guys, we're starting to get on the same point in how we want to, you know, kind of block these certain fronts that we're going up against each week. I want to talk about the Titans' run game a little bit because it's really been getting some momentum. Five consecutive games with over 150 yards of rushing, what do you attribute that success to? You know, just constantly just working. I think the preparation has been outstanding. I think the people are really understanding the fundamentals and then going out and executing them has helped us out tremendously. But the good thing is that we always look at it after we see how many yards we've had and it's like, what yards did we leave out there on the field? And I think that staying hungry helps us to keep working over and over again. You had mentioned earlier, gelling with guys like Taylor and Ben and different guys on the offensive line. Honestly, for you coming into a completely new offensive line, how challenging is that? I actually didn't realize how challenging it would be because usually I was always on the same team and there were new parts being brought in. So it was different being brought into a new organization with a different offensive line. And honestly, it's extremely challenging because once again, the terminology is different. Even though some of the game plan might be the same, some of the verbiage might be the same, these guys play differently. So instead of trying to get everybody to conform to me, I had to learn how to conform to them and then use my strengths to be able to help them. Some have said that this season, the Titans offense has kind of been the tale of two offenses, the first half and the second half. Do you agree with that or have we just watched the evolution of you guys growing and becoming one unit? I think it's a little bit of both. We definitely, like the mentality changed, the way that we approached the games changed. We started settling into the five guys we were going to play with through the entire season and those things have been working out for us, but also it's been evolution. It's been understanding what they want from us and what I mean by they as the coaches and then being able to go out and execute. I think that constantly wanting to improve over and over again has led us to where we are today. You from the very beginning have been incredibly positive about this team and incredibly willing to buy in and trust the process. How do you maintain that even when the road gets a little bumpy from time to time? I think it's just because of my career, my history. I've been a part of a ton of teams where we've been right there at the cusp of being great. I've been on teams where it just nothing seems to be going right the entire season and I've always been the most positive guy. I'm so positive sometimes I know it's annoying. I know it's annoying. I know people want me to just walk around like this sucks and I'm just like, hey man, what's going on? How you doing? How are you feeling right now? Are you ready to go next week? I mean those types of things I think uplift people but at the same time I alienate people on Mondays. You taking that positivity into the next meet up with the Saints? Absolutely. Take the run game, take the protection because protection overall was good all day. Just take those into the Saints game and just constantly look at the small details and fundamentals that help us improve. As we celebrate the 10th anniversary of Chris Johnson's 2,000 yard season, here are three incredible facts from that incredible year. First, through five games, Chris Johnson had just 468 rushing yards. He put up over 100 yards in each of the last 11 games of the season. Remarkable. Second, Chris Johnson only carried 30 times once in the season finale at Seattle. He actually averaged 5.6 yards per rush in 2009. And finally, Johnson caught 50 passes for 503 yards. 10 yards a catch is outstanding for a back. CJ's 2,509 total yards from Scrimmage set the NFL record. Because of that and his 16 touchdowns, one could make the case that Chris Johnson had the best season for a running back in the last 40 years. Here's what we know about the Titans and the playoffs. The Titans are very much in the AFC playoff picture and will head into the season finale at Houston with a shot to make the postseason. In other words, the Titans will be in it until the end. While we can't run through every scenario and there are several teams still technically alive, here are the basic things that you need to know now. Houston's game at Tampa Bay this Saturday is one for Titans fans to watch. If the Texans win, they're the AFC South Champions. If the Bucks win on Saturday and then the Titans beat the Saints on Sunday, both the Titans and Texans would be 9 and 6 and the December 29th rematch in Houston between the Titans and the Texans would be a winner take-off for the AFC South Championship. So Titans fans will be pulling hard for Tampa Bay on Saturday. The Titans path to a wild card largely involves Pittsburgh. The Steelers have the advantage right now for the final AFC playoff spot. But if Pittsburgh loses one of their final two road games against the Jets or the Ravens and the Titans beat the Texans in week 17, Tennessee goes to the postseason. So the real story for the Titans is they need to win their final two games. That starts with the team that has already won the NFC South, the Saints. Tennessee hosts New Orleans at Nissan Stadium this Sunday at noon. Tickets are still available at titansonline.com slash tickets. That's titansonline.com slash tickets. The crowd at last Sunday's game, amazing. Titans fans arrived early, were loud throughout the contest and provided energy all day long. That's what the Titans need from their fans again this Sunday against the Saints. So put your Christmas shopping on hold for a few hours. Bring your family, friends, neighbors, and whoever else. And plan to get loud at Nissan Stadium this Sunday. Titans and Saints noon kickoff. We hope to see everyone there. When we continue, Mike Vrabel gives us his keys to success against the Saints. Stay tuned. Time now for Mike Vrabel's keys to success. The opponent, the New Orleans Saints. They are already the NFC South champions. They are great in terms of turnover ratio, but so are you, Mike Vrabel. Yeah, we are. We need to be better. But this team is number one. They're number one in the league in turnover margin. They take care of the football. They don't throw many interceptions. They're strong with the football. And they don't turn it over, and the defense has gotten some turnover. So I think that's going to be critical for us is to be able to win the turnover battle. Make sure we take care of the football. Our defense has continued to find ways to get it from them, either tipping balls, intercepting it, disguising them. Breeze is a tough guy to fool into anything. Breeze just doesn't throw picks, does he? No, he's been great with the football. He's so accurate and he understands what you're doing. I mean, it's going to take a great effort to get the ball from him. All right, the second key for Coach Vrabel has to do with third downs. He says we've got to win the third down battle. Well, we do. There are top 10 offense and top 10 defense when it comes to those possession downs on third down. And we were trending in the right direction. We weren't good enough the other day. We were only 40%. We allowed the Texans to convert 50%. So I think this will be critical going into the Saints' game, is that we keep them and do everything we can to force them into third and long situations where we can try to get off the field, allow the rush to get there. And the same that goes for our offense. I mean, we would stay at our third and 10 or 11. The other day, we were fine. But when we did it, those are hard to convert. The Saints are normally thought of because of Drew Breeze as an offensive team and they're excellent on offense. But our third key has to do with complementary football because this Saints team, they're best in years on defense and they're outstanding on special teams as well. This is going to be a great test for us to see how we match up in all three phases. There were signs of us doing it the right way the other day. But then we're going to need to be able to play complementary in our punt team, in our return phase on special teams, create and field position. We didn't win the Hidden Yardage last week, which we had done for a number of weeks in a row that continue to add up to create field position in shorter fields and then our offense going in there to score. So it's going to be a great challenge to be able to play a complementary football game against a talented, well-coached football team. As you like to say, it's a details game. Well, it is. I mean, that's what it comes down to. I think it's one of the things that we did from the game the other day that the Texans made that we weren't able to make, whether it was a third nade or, you know, us not throwing an interception or us completing the play, us converting on third down there in our first drive and not forcing us to kick a field goal. So there's a lot of different things that go into each game. I want to remind everyone that the Titans and the Saints noon at Nissan Stadium. Hope to see you there for Mike Vrable. Mike Keith says thanks for watching. Have a great night, everybody. Thank you.