How good does it feel to finally break the home and lose this week? I know you're trying to win every week.
It feels good. That's a good football team, even without their best player (Patrick) Mahomes and they tried to keep it close for a little bit, but what a feeling. It's a feeling to come in the locker room and celebrate with the guys and to feel that joy, to feel it lift, especially being at home. and then to see the resiliency that guys keep fighting. That's what I keep talking about. When you talk about the future of this football team, when you talk about what we are made of. We could have easily said the season was over with. You see how guys come in each and every day with the right mindset that no matter what the record is, we're going to continue to play for each other and play hard. Today showed that in all three phases. Shout out to the offense, they did their part. Everyone just did their job, and we keep talking about complementing football, and we finally got one at home. So, it felt good.
When you went in on the eligible play, was there contact with the official? Did it seem like he acknowledged it?
From my understanding, when I'm looking at him — I mean, I'm a defensive player. You see, I wear a big arm brace, red sleeve, looking right at you, and I'm throwing my arm up and rubbing my chest. He said he didn't acknowledge it. I guess he was reporting (Oli) Udoh first. I guess I should have actually went into his face and did it again I guess. But his explanation he was like, 'I got a lot to handle during that play.' But as I'm running on the field, I'm looking, I'm making eye contact with him, doing this. I don't know. I hate it for TP (Tony Pollard), knocked a touchdown that off the board. Hopefully they don't ban me from offense now, if I get another opportunity, I'll make sure that I go all the way to the referee. I did the same thing I did last week, as I'm running on the field, I'm doing this. And maybe he just took his eyes off me in the last minute as I coming on the field, but lesson learned.
How much does a defensive lineman lick his chops when a team has the near it's own goal line for chance for a safety and when is the last time you got one of those?
Been a while. I think that was my first safety I ever caused in my career, honestly. You know, from high school to college. When they got backed up, in my mind I'm like, 'Go make a play.' That's kind of my mindset every snap, honestly. But when you get in a moment like that, they get a false start, the crowd noise and the momentum is kind of going our way. That next play, I'm like, 'It's time to go make a play.' I switched up my technique a little bit to where I know I'm about to get a double team, which it was supposed to be a double team. And I swimmed him pretty good, and I whiffed them, and my eyes got big. I was just praying not to miss the tackle. So, it was a hell of a play on my behalf. And so that is my first one in my career, that one felt good.
We've talked about the need for these young guys to experience winning. Now that they've got this one, experience it at home, what do you think the value is to young guys, especially Cam Ward and some of the young guys on offense? What does it mean to them to feel it?
I think it means a lot to them. I think as a team, when you walk into that building, those young guys — sometimes you could, I mean when you've been on the team, when you been in the league for a minute, you know how sometimes young guys think. You kind of feel it at times where like these guys — they're going through adversity, this is one of the things where they're going into a shell. I would say starting with Cam (Ward), Cam hasn't changed. Us as a team, we know how close we've been. We know how vital it is for us to do the little things better. And I think that's when we come in and watch tape and we get the correction from the coaches, we see that and our young guys see that. This rookie class is pretty good, and they come out there, and they've been coming to work with the right mindset. And like I said, it starts with Cam. He was pissed off when we came in when we got the victory last time, and I was messing with him in the locker room. I was like, don't be the Grinch today. So, he was he was happy today and shout out to the young guys and this is just showing what we could be in the future. And those guys, they're going to play a big part of it.
It's 9-6 at halftime and the offense goes 90 yards to open the second half, putting them down two scores. How much did that change the game for you guys on your side?
It's changed the game a lot, especially when you've got a team that was still trying to establish the run game, and now it puts us in pass-rush mode. That's something that we've been harping on. That's what we've talking about. Dennard (Wilson) on the sideline, he over there telling us, even in the locker room at halftime, 'Let's get them to third-and-long.' And like I said, that's what you call complementary football. When your offense can go out there, 90 yards, that is big time football and that's something we dream for on defense. Especially when you can just pin your ears back and rush, as you saw at the end of the game. When you get two sacks back-to-back like that, that's big time. So, like I said, that's complementary football. That's something we've been preaching. It's something we have really been harping on, playing for each other and playing off each other.
You talk about feeding off of each other. I know you mentioned Cam being "a Grinch" after the last win. But that competitive attitude, how do you guys feed off of that knowing that he's kind of the captain on the other side of the ball and you being the captain and the competitor yourself on the defensive side?
Well, I mean, it wasn't a bad thing. I had a conversation with Cam, we all talked to Cam. But of course, when it happened, I told him it's hard to win in this league. But to understand and to know every time we come into the meeting room, there's always things to grow off of. And that's what Cam felt coming off the field, so I understood where he was coming from. One thing I told him, it's hard to win in this league no matter who it is against. I'm sure he wanted everything to be cleaner, but you got to enjoy every one of them. Especially the way this season is going for us, that's kind of my message to him. But I understood where he was coming from. It's not always going to be clean, but just like today, I got told him the most passing yards in Titans history for a rookie. I kind of threw that in and joked with him, but that's big time. That's the expectation that he had for himself, and that's the reason why — that's why I keep telling these people — that's the reason why I don't want to go nowhere. I see the competitive nature, I see the growth as a rookie of Cam. I can see where he could take this franchise. So, I'm looking forward to continuing to end the season the right way and we'll see how next year goes for us.
Gardner Minshew goes out. He was kind of struggling with the way you all were getting to him early. Had you prepped much on this Chris Oladokun?
Yeah, I'm not going to lie to you. I didn't even know they had him on the roster. Like all I knew was (Gardner) Minshew. I didn't know nothing about a backup quarterback. I didn't know who their backup quarterback was. I knew Minshew, I knew what type of player he was because I had faced him. So, yeah, when I saw him come in the game, I went to the sideline. I saw Minshew get up slow, but I didn't know he ended up leaving the game until I got to the sideline and I was like, 'What happened?' But he was running around a little bit. I don't know who the guy is, no offense to him, but I didn't watch any film on him. We didn't prep for him at all, so.
How much did you guys talk, did the coaching staff talk to you guys about how long it had been since a home win here?
I mean, we mentioned in before the game. When we talked about earlier this week, right after that last game, we talked about coming back home. We've been talking about it all week at practice. We didn't put, I guess, an exact number on how long it's been. But man, like I said, it's just it was like desperate. We were desperate to win at home and guys played that way today. I'm proud of this team, getting our first win at home this year. So we got one more, hopefully, we can finish it off the right way.
