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| Mike Munchak and the Titans will look to bounce back at home Sunday vs. Baltimore. |
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Mike Munchak is facing an early season test as the Titans' new coach.
He's preaching calm and not panic, saying the team must get back to work coming off a 16-14 opening loss at Jacksonville. His message is simple: One week does not make a season.
The coach said Monday the Titans just have to get back to work after the Jaguars dominated both time of possession and total yards. Nonetheless, the Titans had the ball in the final minute with a chance to kick a winning field goal.
"They had yards and they had time, but they only had 16 points. You know what? You hold a team to 16 points on the road at their place, that's pretty good football,'' Munchak said. "As much as it wasn't pretty, it was still effective football. And if we're doing what we should do on offense, we have a good chance to win that thing.''
The challenge only stiffens as the Titans and Munchak must clean up mistakes on offense, eliminate penalties and shore up the run defense by Sunday when they host the Baltimore Ravens in their home opener. Munchak said the Ravens are similar to Jacksonville - they have a physical defense and a determination to run the ball.
One of the Titans' priorities is to address the mistakes on offense. The problems were plentiful for new offensive coordinator Chris Palmer. Part of the problem was quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, who missed open receivers. Chris Johnson, whose holdout ended about 10 days before the opener, was ineffective.
The balanced offense Munchak wants never materialized: The Titans ran the ball only 13 times while throwing 34 passes.
Tennessee held the ball only 20 minutes, 22 seconds, an ugly start for a team that ranked last in the NFL in time of possession in 2010. Hasselbeck threw for 263 yards, but the veteran quarterback signed to mentor rookie Jake Locker overthrew several receivers and was victimized by some drops. The Titans rushed for only 43 yards.
Left tackle Michael Roos said players seemed to take turns making mistakes.
"If you stretch them over five plays, then you have five bad plays,'' Roos said. "I think that mixed with the fact that we in anyway couldn't get any rhythm going, then you start pressing and try to make something happen. It's usually not a good way to play.''
Johnson had just nine rushes for 24 yards, though he did reel off a 9-yard run in the fourth quarter when the offense finally showed signs of life. Munchak said they had hoped to get Johnson 15-18 carries, though he isn't willing to blame the three-time Pro Bowler's contract holdout for the loss when so much else went wrong.
The Titans also hurt themselves with the kind of mistakes they didn't make in the preseason, racking up seven penalties for 60 yards. Their best scoring chance of the first half came when Marc Mariani returned a punt to the Jaguars' 34 - but the play was negated by an illegal block above the waist. A holding call followed a play later, and the Titans went three-and-out.
When the Titans couldn't stop the run last year they finished the season 6-10. Getting bigger and stronger on defense didn't help much in Week 1, they still gave up 163 yards rushing to Jacksonville.
But Munchak isn't ready to change his approach yet.
"You don't throw everything away after one game because certain things didn't work out the way you hoped, so I think you just get back to work on Wednesday and know this is a good football team that won a big game in their division, and we have quite a history with these guys,'' Munchak said. "So I don't think it'll be hard to get the team real excited about what they're facing.''
NOTES: Munchak said S Chris Hope (shoulder), DE William Hayes (shoulder) and WR Damian Williams (hamstring) were having MRIs to determine the extent of their injuries, but the coach didn't anticipate any of the three missing significant time.
