NASHVILLE – Pilot Jake "Primo" Impellizzeri has spent countless hours in the air, risking his life on a daily basis as a member of the Air Force Thunderbirds.
But he'd never experienced anything close to what transpired on Sunday in Glendale, Ariz., when he was hoisted into the air by NFL players in a raucous locker room.
"That," the 35-year-old Impellizzeri said on Monday, "was the coolest experience of my life. It was like something from a movie. It was wild."
While the Titans celebrated their improbable comeback win over the Cardinals – when they scored 19 unanswered points to win the game 22-21, getting their final points on a field goal at the horn – they also celebrated "Primo", who has served as an inspiration to the team over the past few months.
The team bonded with "Primo" after Titans coach Brian Callahan showed his team a series of clips from Netflix's documentary on the branch's premier aerial demonstration team, which focused on sacrifices, perseverance and finding a way to be successful.
And in the locker room after the game, they all celebrated, one night after "Primo" was a surprise guest at the team's hotel for a motivational speech during a meeting.
"We'd been watching Primo for months, so to see him and hear from him about the things we'd been talking about, it brought a bunch of joy to us," Titans linebacker Cody Barton said. "He delivered a great message, and he had some juice with it, too. It was awesome. And it was cool to celebrate with him."
It was the idea of Callahan, who watched the Netflix documentary on the Thunderbirds over the summer, in part because he's also been fascinated by fighter pilots.
As he watched it, he recognized team-building philosophies and examples of some of the things he talks about as a football coach, and the parallels the two discuss on a regular basis:
Blind trust.
Camaraderie.
The chase for perfect, while being precise.
So, Callahan introduced his team to the Thunderbirds, and he began clipping pieces of the documentary to show them to his team in meetings.
"The players really identified with one of the pilots, Primo," Callahan said. "They fell in love with him, if you will."
Much of the Netflix show, called Air Force Elite: Thunderbirds, focuses on "Primo," who flew the right wing as Thunderbird 3 in 2023, when the documentary was made, and his struggle to master the Thunderbirds' "high bomb burst" maneuver.
"Primo" was working hard, but he just kept missing the mark as the Thunderbirds went through the training before getting certified to fly in shows. "Primo" eventually worked through his struggles to get it right while highlighting the precision, trust, and personal sacrifices of the pilots as they train for their annual air show season.
"They talk about blind trust," Callahan said. "They don't fly by instruments, they fly by visual reference points, and his only reference point is the plane on his left, flying 18 inches apart at 800 miles per hour. And they're relying on the guy next to them to be precise, and if not, they die. You have to have camaraderie, and trust."
Leading up to Sunday's game against the Cardinals, Callahan discovered "Primo" happened to be in Phoenix.
So, he invited him to the team meeting on Saturday night and surprised the players while revisiting the discussion on the Thunderbirds. "Primo" delivered a speech that resulted in standing applause. He answered questions from players, and he spent time with them afterward.
The Titans gave "Primo" and fellow Thunderbirds pilot "Thunder" tickets and field passes to the game, and "Primo" gave Callahan a Thunderbirds coin, which he kept in his pocket during the game.
After the Titans won, the team slipped Impellizzeri into the locker room, and a wild scene erupted that included dancing, and lifting him up.
"Everyone was hugging him," Callahan said. "They were chanting his name."
"It was wild," Barton said. "He brought juice to the guys. It brought a spark to us."
"Primo" said he was glad to help any way he could. A Bengals fan while growing up in Cincinnati, he said he'll now be a Titans fan forever after seeing the rally from a 21-3 deficit to win, and from the connections he's made with the team.
"Just seeing the team come together and continue to fight through the entirety of the game, even though it wasn't going their way, was awesome," said "Primo," who flew with the Thunderbirds for three years and has been flying for the Air Force since 2014. "The way I see it, you have the very elite teams, like the Thunderbirds, and you have the very elite teams, like professional sports teams, like the Titans, and it was easy to address the team because there are so many parallels in what we did on the Thunderbirds, and what they do each and every day on the Titans.
"It was cool to see that come full circle from talking to them on Saturday and then going to the game on Sunday and continue to see them fight, and to see them come together as a young team and push through the adversity and finally get that win. To see that electricity in the locker room after the game, it was unbelievable."
Callahan hopes the win, the messaging, and the meeting will serve as a galvanizing moment for the team.
"We have to play better football than we did, but there is something that is not quantifiable about momentum, belief and confidence," Callahan said. "We've had such a hard time finishing games out in the fourth quarter, and to do it, to be it is always going to be about the validation of the work. These guys do it the right way. It's a good group of guys. They do things the right way, and you see how they walk around this building.
"To finally have something quantifiable for them to latch on to I think is a huge deal. I am not going to say it was all Primo, but maybe he gave us a little bit extra to go win a game in the fourth quarter. And I think the most important think is his message was fantastic."
Callahan had one last message for "Primo" before the team flew back to Nashville, and began preparations for Sunday's game vs the Raiders:
"I told him to meet us in Vegas."
