We Have to Keep Fighting | Press Conference

We Have to Keep Fighting | Press Conference

Obviously disappointed in the in the result of that game. Um didn’t really do anything well enough over the course of the game. When you miss two field goals and and you’re in a potential 66 ball game, you know, we weren’t. It was 6 nothing and it was 12 nothing. Couldn’t get much momentum on offense. Couldn’t possess the ball. Put our defense in some tough spots down the stretch and then didn’t answer uh in those spots either. So all the way around not good enough. Got a chance to take an end zone shot before slide second field goal. you’re near midfield and third and 12 and you hand off to Chestnut. Are you going to win games playing that conservatively? Why not why not take some shots to the end zone in those situations? Yeah, we hadn’t we hadn’t really completed much down the field at that point. Um and it was it was a third and 12 and the pass rush is is ripping and we’re 30 some yards from the end zone. Those aren’t really high percentage uh style throws or plays. So, um that’s usually what the what the reasoning is. You get those. We didn’t we didn’t earn a right to take a shot to the end zone. is third and 12 and um so you try to be smart and not put the quarterback in harm’s way and uh and kick field goal. Not not a high percentage shot for the end zone at third and 12. How about a shot for a first down? Yeah, that is what it is. I mean those are those are the calls we make. So you feel that this is an accurate reflection the way that the team continues to come up short of you guys as a coaching staff? Uh I mean I think it’s a it’s a reflection of of all of us not doing anything well enough at this point. you know, that’s that’s players, that’s coaches, that’s everybody. I mean, we haven’t found a way to win a game in a while. And um I think that reflects on all of us. On a day where it wasn’t the sacks and it wasn’t the penalties getting offense, just what was the issue? Um hard to say. Hard to find a rhythm. Um you know, I thought we ran the ball okay in spots. Uh still ended up getting in some long yardage things that were hard for us to overcome. We couldn’t possess the ball. You know, that was the hard part. couldn’t really take control of the of the of the offensive rhythm. Um, you know, we miss missed some throws. I think Cam’s doing some good things and but he had some tough moments in this game. Um, that’s still a really good defense. You know, we we didn’t play well enough against them. Defense let him off the hook several times. There were three fourth and ones, two from your your from your their side of the field and then there was second and 32 and a 37 yard pass. Why were you not able to just to be able to get off the field. Yeah, you can’t you can’t give up those plays in those spots. Um that’s a that’s a you’re playing way behind the sticks. That should be advantage defense. Um and and you got to make those plays and you can’t give those up. You can’t give up a second and 23 for a first down. Um because you got them you got them backed up and you got them where you want them. Uh you earned you earned that spot and then to give that up was disappointing. So um you get them in spots like that and and give up big plays that’s that’s not going to win many football games for you. This team show you a lot of Yeah. Did this team show you fight today? Oh, yeah. They fought. I mean, this is I I don’t I don’t know what not playing well and not fighting are two different things. We didn’t play well enough. Um, but but I don’t think I’d question the way those guys wouldn’t play the game. I mean, they fought their tails off for the entirety of the game. So, uh, you guys can make whatever conjecture you want, but that I don’t see any effort issues in terms of how they’re playing the game. Uh, we’re not playing it well enough. That’s certainly part of it. Um, but, uh, they went out and played hard today. I don’t have any I don’t have any qualms about how they came out and played coming into this game. Jeffrey Simmons, he said the best players have to play better. You got a guy like Sneeze who calls out he gets himself going with the who when about Collins and you have that. What can you do to get that back on? Yeah, I mean those are the you know when when you when you talk you got to back it up. Didn’t do that today. That’s that’s the decision a guy makes and then he’s got to live with that too. You know that’s that’s on them that they want to talk then you got to back it up and didn’t do a good enough job of that today. um that happens, but I don’t know that that’s I mean that’s a that’s a personal thing for some guys. So, what’s frustration level like Brian and and with 14 games left or 13 games left, how do you keep that from over at the top? Uh I mean, like I I’ve said before, there there’s nobody that puts more more more pressure and eats more frustration than I do on where we’re at. Um I don’t need any help with that usually. Um I could I put enough of it on myself. So, uh, yeah, I don’t I don’t uh we just got to turn around, keep fighting. There’s there’s no, uh, nobody comes in to to save you. All we got is the guys that are in there, and we got to keep trying to find a way to get better and play better football. Didn’t get the results you wanted, but from an operation standpoint, how’d it go with calling? Yeah, operationally was was solid. I think those, you know, we didn’t have any real issues, you know, calls getting in or issues on the play clock or anything like that. So, um, but but ultimately still wasn’t, you know, when you score zero points, it’s not good enough. Concerned at all about just the whole situation of the coaching staff and maybe their status after something like this. No, no. Again, I like I said before, I I show up and do my job and we do it as hard as we can. It’s everybody on our staff. Uh we work our tails off and and we try to do everything we can to put ourselves in position to win and we haven’t. Um and that’s just the that’s the reality of of our jobs in the league. So, um no, I don’t don’t think about it. What’s keeping you from changing that attitude or what is you as the results continue to come out the way they are? Uh, I’m not sure I understand. You said you haven’t changed the way you’re thinking about job status and that sort of stuff. What is keeping you there despite the losses? Uh, what keeps me there is the guys in the locker room and and the and the coaches and the coaching staff. You know, my job is to is to try to to lead and and leading is hard when this is hard right now. And but that’s my job and my job is to try to continue to fight and continue to help uh wherever I can help and to continue to keep pushing our guys to keep getting better. And there’s that’s the only thing you can do when you’re in a spot like this is just keep coming out, keep swinging. Um, and none of it’s been good enough and and we all know that and that’s that’s something that you just got to keep fighting through and and you got to find a way to break through at some point. Do you think this is a resilient and relentless football team? I know what you’re doing there, Paul. I know what you’re doing and I’m not going to answer that right now. Well, I mean, those are the themes that you’ve tried to 20 some games in. I’m just compose myself here before I say something I regret. Yes, I think this team is resilient. I think it is relentless. Uh we haven’t played good enough football and I think there’s two those are two very distinct different things. Uh we have to execute at a better level. We have to coach better. That’s really all I can say. Last one. What is it that makes you believe the team is resilient and will continue? I mean all all I know is what I see every day. And they show they they work. We work in practice. I did not anticipate a result like that coming up in a game. um the attitude, the energy, the things they do during the week. Like there’s nothing that would would point to that there’s any kind of lack of those things, you know, and we fought our tails off in the game. And again, we’re not playing well enough. Uh we’re not executing things at a high enough level to win. And uh it’s certainly not for lack of of intent and lack of effort and lack of folk. I mean, we’re trying to do all the things that that we need to do to win a football game. And everything during the week, the guys work. I mean, there’s no if ends or buts about it. I mean, we had one of our best Thursday practices of the week, so it’s hard to stomach that when you practice the way we practiced and you show up in a game and it looks like that. You think you played persons? Mhm. Anything in particular that went wrong for you? Getting stuck past the 50, um, interception, incompletion, penalties, not helping the defense out, just not good enough to win. Obviously a lot of family here. When things don’t go well like this, does that kind of ruin the whole homecoming aspect? No, it don’t ruin them for me. Um they see me a lot in the offseason, so you know, they just trying to come so come show their support and um really just trying to be there for me. Um but, you know, just trying to get the get the ball rolling. anything the Texans were doing in particular the defense? Not really. Um they did everything they showed on film. Um I said the only biggest switch that they had is they went more cover two on third down and third alone than we expected. Um but they they showed everything they did on film. It’s a good defensive good defensive line, good back end. You know, we just didn’t play good enough. On the pick, you you’ve uh I think you left your feet and you you went super sidearm on. Did you feel in the moment that that you both were necessary and is it part of maybe what threw you off? Um, no matter if I throw off platform or sidearm, I just got to be more accurate the football. I didn’t I wasn’t accurate enough. He was coming in. I threw it on his backside shoulder. I can’t do that. So, um, I know he’ll make that play for me next time, but I shouldn’t have to put him in that situation. Like you had some accuracy problems and I know you were under pressure a lot today, but did you feel like you were off target more than usual today? Um, not really. Some of them got to be throwaways in some sit on some situations. Um and then some of them was just me not putting the ball where we need to go. Sorry miss the first way, but what’s not going live right for this offense where you guys just can’t get on track? Um everything from interception to a penalty to an incompletion by me, a bad ball. Um and then once we pass the 50, we just not continuing the drive. Um, so I mean if we keeping the buck right now, we ass. So we owe and four. We have this point we got nothing to lose. We dropped a quarter of our games and we’ve yet to do anything. So we have to lock in. Um, especially myself on the offensive line from the defensive line, from the special teams to all three faces. We have to play together. We have not played together this year yet. Um, and that’s just something that, you know, we want to preach about it every day. Every day we got to do better and we’re doing that, but it has to show up on Sundays. cuz it hasn’t showed up yet, but it got to show up next week. Sounds like you beat yourself up some there, too. Do you do you have you challenge guys in the locker room? Challenge them during the week to kind of get better. Uh yeah. Um and we all challenge each other. I challenge those guys. They challenge me every day, especially in practice. But it look good in practice. It’s not looking good right now Sundays. We We got to make it look good in practice on Sunday. So no matter how many good weeks of practice we have, we have to have a good game on Sunday. And it’s four weeks straight we ain’t did it offensively. At some point we have to help the defense out. We are down 6-0 halftime. End up getting the ball back. We’re still we’re down 19-0. They give up a touchdown. So what? We’re still in the ball game and we’re not helping the defense out. So we we’re not doing enough offense. Is this the most frustrating period you can recall going through football? I would say no. Um, I had a lot of frustrations in my past, whether it was high school or to college. Um, but I just want to win. When’s the last time Tennessee won? I don’t know. I I I’m trying to win. We Everybody in this locker room, we want to win and we have to win. That That’s really what it comes down to. No matter how we got to do it at some point, like, we have to turn the tide and we have to start with the games. Is there something you could bring from whatever those more frustrating moments were to to this and apply it to to move forward for yourself personally? Really just continue to have urgency and that’s everybody especially myself um and as a whole the offense. I mean that that’s the biggest problem right now in my head. We’re not helping the defense out. And whether defense gives up a touchdown here or there, we’re still not doing enough to help those guys out. I mean they playing their ass off for us every Sunday and we not doing our our part. So, I mean, it all it all comes down to us locking in. Um, from myself having bad incompletions to not taking completions to not getting the ball out, from us having a penalty or if it’s a drop on the receiver, like everybody know everybody got their one job, everybody got to do their 111, we just got to go get it. Cam, when you go back and look at film of these losses so far through these first three games and then today and look at it, what what are you seeing that is not being done from an execution standpoint? M I would say honestly just not being consistent and that that falls into the execution standpoint and whether I have a bad ball, whether I need to throw it away. But also the biggest thing is every time we get in a long situation or get back on track situation, the drive always ends. NFL is hard to play on second long. It’s hard to play on third and long. So that that’s the biggest thing like we have to execute plays every play. It can’t just be whether we get a big run or a big pass or a spurt. Like we got to just be consistent. What is it about the coaching staff that’s maintaining your faith in um nothing about the coaching staff at the end of the day? They put together a good plan for us. We’re not executed as players. Um offensively like we just have to make the plays. Like at the end of the day, every pass concept is winnable versus man or zone no matter what they got to. I got to get through the progression. I got to put the ball in my receiver plan in my in the receiver hands and end day. They got to make plays, too. What gives you the confidence that the plan is good or that it will work when you haven’t seen? Say that again. What gives you the confidence that the plan is good or that the plan will work when you haven’t felt or seen the results yet? Because it’s there. Like I’m watching the film on the sideline. It’s there. It’s just whether it’s a bad play by me or bad play by by one of the 11 like it’s just not clicking when it needs to click. It has to click every drive and it’s not doing that yet. And so I mean the biggest thing is the urgency. Um I think up front those those guys they they were gritty today. Um in the run game in the pass game they went against a good defensive line up there. Um and I mean from an offense standpoint we just have to be consistent. It’s four games and we own 0 and4. Why? Because we’re inconsistent. Do you feel you need to kind of assert your leadership even more on this team given the circumstances and where you all are? Um, I don’t think that. Um, I’ve always I always assert it um when I think the time is necessary, but we’re not doing our job as a as a unit. We’re not doing our job. And at some point, it’s got to change. I hope it change next week. We going to try to change it next week, but that’s needs to be the message. We have to change it one play at a time. And if it doesn’t change, we just going to keep on getting these same results. We have to win games.

Titans HC Brian Callahan and QB Cam Ward address the reporters at NRG Stadium after Week 4 vs. the Houston Texans.

00:00 – 07:06 HC Brian Callahan
07:07 – 14:30 QB Cam Ward

Subscribe to the Titans YT Channel: https://bit.ly/2M1n3Kd

#Titans #TitanUp