The Standard is Still High | Press Conference

The Standard is Still High | Press Conference

help him try to, you know, do a little extra to maybe get a win for him, but at the end of the day, it’s our job to go in there with a mindset that we won’t let it happen. You know, I know our relationship off the field, but I could give two I mean, it’s not cur, but I could care less about the relationship when it come down to Sunday. Um, you know, my job is to go out there and play football and help the Tennessee Titan get a win. What’s expect, you know, when when a coaching change comes in midseason like this, how much expect given that there’s only a few days instead of like an offse training camp. I mean, everything pretty much still the same for us. I mean, we still got Dinar as our defense coordinator. The standards is still high. Um, you know, I mean, he changed a couple things so far, especially when dealing with practice and things of that nature. But, you know, the standard is still what it is. We need to go out there and win a football game. And, you know, I think that’s that’s the message. That’s what we need to be focused on is winning the football game and not so much of the coaching change right now. Um, we all have a job to do and none of us have done that good enough. That’s the reason why we in the position we in right now to the coaching change from the top to the bottom. And I think when we can stop focus on everything else outside of here and outside of not doing our job, then we can focus on winning football games. You’ve been through this kind of stuff before. Some guys haven’t. What do you tell some of the young guys you were maybe shell shocked to lose a head coach in the middle of the season? Um, stay the course. Um, you know, this still, especially now, you know, this my first time dealing with this, especially in the early season, but you know, we have to focus on winning a football game, control, we control, like I said, we still got to go out there and tackle. We still got to go out there and stop giving up um, you know, big plays by, you know, penalties and things of that nature. If we could take care of them type of things, you know, none of that be, you know, we wouldn’t be here today. So I think at the end of the day when everyone can just do their job and focus on doing their job, you know, we’ll be just fine. What was different? What was different about McCoy on the practice field today in terms of the way he runs things? I mean, I wasn’t out there. You know, I had a um rest day. So, I’m sure I see the tape and I’m sure the tempo and things of that nature, the things that he talked about this morning um that just different type of urgency that may may need to get picked up, you know, I’ll see that on the tape this evening. Um, but like I said, his message and everything is very clear and not not that it haven’t been clear, but you know, just his message been um that he preached this morning about practice and things of that nature. Um, like I said, I I wasn’t out there today, but I see it. Did you feel like change was necessary at this point? Maybe not as drastic as a coaching change, but did you feel like something had to change? I mean, I just try to focus on my job at the end of the day. Like, I mean, sure, everybody got kind of what they want at the end of the day. My job is to continue to come here and do my part. Uh, continue to help lead this team and continue to go out there on Sundays and get my best foot forward. Sweat’s working his way back. You excited to possibly have him back soon? Excited to he’ll have him back. You know, he’s a guy that, you know, when he’s on the field, his presence is felt. He make um my life a little easier. um being able to have him out there, but don’t not taking away from guys like Shai who them guys been filling in and doing their part. You know, we hell of a job last week of being able to stop the run and last last couple of weeks. So, I think at the end of the day when you add that horsepower back in the middle, you know, it make everyone else job a little easier. Um so, yes, I am excited to have him back. What make Drake May what makes him playing so well, I guess, so far this year? He they doing everything to match off of him? Um they’re coming out trying to establish the run game which um being with Raven for the my first five years I know that’s him that’s his style you know they going to come in same thing against us we can expect them to run duo maybe 30 times a game you know double teams across the board that’s his MA so I think at the end of the day when you able to run the ball effectively when you’re able to run the ball then play action pass off them type of things that that’s what make quarterback you know look good. So, I think to be able to shut that down this week, we got to be able to stop the run. And as his as he always say, assault the middle of the pocket. Um, especially against the play action passes. You know, it’s our job to come in every week and find a way to win. And we got the right players, you know, we got the right coaches that prepare us to win is going out there and just doing the small things and and finding a way to win. How much do you guys need to, especially, you know, veteran guys, leaders like yourself, kind of rally the troops together and say, “Hey, we got to we got to get behind Mike. We got to win some games.” Yeah. Yeah, it’s definitely going to come down to, you know, us leaders getting guys rallied up. Um, you know, can’t have people separated into groups. We have to stick together. Um, and just, you know, just be the leaders and help Mike out as well. What was what was Mike’s message to you guys, I guess, before you hit practice the other day? Um, you know, play hard, play tough, and and play together. Um, I mean, it’s very simple. Obviously, you know, we want to score more points and or excuse me, score more points and play better on defense. But at the end of the day, you know, that’s where you got to start of is just going out there, studying your film, being physical, and then playing together and and what come what will come from that is complimentary football. Obviously, a crazy week with coming back in here. Um, what’s it going to be like, you think, going up against him as after playing for him? Yeah. For as long as it’s going to be exciting. Um, I’m pretty sure, you know, once, you know, one of me, Jeff, or some of us make a play on the sideline, he’s going to have, you know, some words for us, but it’s going to be exciting. Um, you know, he he’s a guy that’s all about ball. Um, so it’s going to be a good good competition. He he’s going to make sure they’re ready. What are your thoughts on Drake May? Seems like a second year quarterback starting to come into his own a little bit. Yeah, he’s building. Um, he’s building on a solid rookie year. He had last year, starting to to learn more, a little quick quicker decisions, but um, he’s doing a great job. when something like this happens with a coaching change, is it is it kind of a wakeup call for the for the players? Like, how do you guys approach it, I guess? Um, I mean, you know, whenever you’re one and five, it should be a wakeup call to begin with. Um, you know, they they moved on from the coach, so now if we continue to lose, they’re going to start moving on from the players. So, it’s our job to make sure we keep our job and we find a way to win. You guys talked so much about how struggles are because of the players. A lot of the time you guys can make the change. You guys can be different. Is it hurtful? Was it painful when a coach gets fired when you guys kind of thought it was about players stepping up a lot of the time? Um, yeah. I mean, when you build a relationship with a guy all off season, especially a guy like Cali, you know, you if we were winning, he would have got fired. So, that definitely, you know, sucks. It’s out of control, out of his control as far as he can’t go out here and make passes and catch passes and, you know, make tackles. So, um, we definitely take it personal and we have to we have to ramp it up. I know you can’t put a percentage on something like this. How much of it felt like it was coaching that needed to change? And how much of it do you guys feel like you guys can fix? Appreciating the post. I mean, I feel like we could fix all of it. I mean, from the beginning of the year, there’s everything’s been fixable. There’s nothing. It’s not like we’re we don’t have the talent. So, um, we got the talent and we have the guys that care about ball and that’s what it takes. Ami, blocking out the noise is kind of easier said than done. What’s kind of the key to that? Um, just sticking to each sticking together. You know what I mean? It’s going to it’s easy to listen to the noise and then, you know, guys start separating small groups. So, we want to make sure we stick together and um no matter what’s going on that we got each other’s back. Oh, treatment and conditioning. I don’t want to do that no more. How about how about uh you know, prepping, studying things up to be ready to go when I feel great, man. Like I I mean, I’ve been in this um how can I say this? Yeah, I’ve been in this system. Thank you. I’ve been in this system for second year. So, pretty easy to me. When you say taking it day by day, um you had quite a number of days to, you know, watch your teammates go out there and I had what, three weeks, four weeks? Four weeks. Yeah. What was that like for you mentally? Frustrating. Just upsetting. And how do you kind of deal with that? I got a mother that I talk to. Respectful. That’s what we talk about, you know. I got a mother that talk to me, you know, keep me straight. when when it’s an ankle injury to Andre, how tough is the conditioning aspect of things to stay in good condition when you’re dealing with an ankle and you can’t move around too much? I mean, I feel like it’s ups and downs. I mean, you still get on a bike and stuff like that. So, you still move your legs, move your upper body around, so it’s not too bad. Were you supposed to come back for the Colts game and Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How tough was that? You were close then and then Well, like I told when I got hurt again, it was just frustrating and you know, got a mother I talked to. So, So, you think that was you thought that was the week? Yeah. Yeah. Just some little setback level of excitement when you see the way that Jeff is playing right now. Oh, hell yeah. I got a lot of one-on- ones waiting on me. What’s he told you about getting back in there? Play your game. you gonna have a lot of one-on- ones. The way he’s playing, he playing amazing. So, I love the way he playing. Give me opportunity, get my one-on-one. So, pretty excited for that. What’s mood like in here after a coaching change and 11 games to go? Um, I mean, we just take that day by day. I mean, stay in FL for you. I mean, it’s my second year in this league, so for me, it’s kind of like, oh, like, you know, I didn’t think that would happen, but you know, like that my vet says it’s the NFL. So, how personally did you take the one and five record? I mean, I take it real personal. I mean, nobody like losing. I think, you know, nobody like losing, so it’s real personal to me. And hopefully, I just get back and do what I can do to get a win something. Oh, I mean, absolutely. Um, you know, you’re not trying to, you know, fault blame or, you know, you want to take accountability. You’re on the field, so you got to get the job done at the end of the day. But um you know just part of having a realization to it as well. You know those guys for them that was week six. You know for me it was my second half. You know I didn’t even finish really the second half of the Denver game. So um yeah I mean absolutely they’re they already found their rhythm. So I’m trying to catch up to everybody else. But um that’s a challenge for myself though. So not not pointing blame to nobody else. Uh I still got to get the job done whenever I’m on the field. How how much I know you kind of were accountable on Sunday. How much how much a game like that motivates you moving forward? Yeah. Uh 100%. I mean it was Max Crosby and you know you you I don’t want to say you look ahead in circle matchups like that but you know when schedule comes out and you know who you’re going to play you kind of get fired up to play guys like that. you know, uh you see it on TV and you know, you obviously think like what would you do different in a situation like that if you ever were playing a guy like him or how could you uh match his intensity or you know um um win that matchup and um seeing it front hand seeing what I have to do to you know reach that level you know obviously you see it in a guy like Jeff but uh you know with him playing more interiorly you don’t have a chance to really see um a guy his caliber out on the edge um too frequently so um yeah you want to take advantage of it whenever the chance you get kind of your reaction to uh not only Brian but Bill leaving. Yeah, it was a uh it was a shock for sure. Um you know, you have your Monday and Tuesday routine. So, um I was getting ready for my Monday routine and some guys from last year’s team, you know, we still talk and conversate. So, we have a group chat and I just remember that group chat was starting to blow up. So, I was a little confused. So, I called Peter and that’s when he uh broke it to me um about everything I had happen. And then obviously later on in the day, you know, trying to look at the um installs that are going in and then you get the next news about Bill um and his situation. So um yeah, a lot of different things h you hit you at once, especially for me, you know, I as far as I go in my career, I always um give credit to Bill for, you know, laying the foundation down for me my rookie year. Um a lot of guys in the NFL tell me, “Your success is going to be determined by your coach.” And having a guy like, and I’m not taking away from um Scott or um Jonesy, but having a guy like Bill who been around so much, has so many different avenues of success that he can point to and show you what success looks like. Um I definitely can credit that to, you know, why my career can go the way it goes. How do you think guys, how do you guys need to respond to this? Uh yeah, we talked about it just stand together. Um, you know, we spoke on it a lot, um, in training camp when we, you know, were on that 11-day trip to Tampa and Atlanta, just, you know, being together, you know, being a player team and holding one another accountable. Uh, like you guys saw last week with my my practice and, uh, in the game, you know, just holding each other accountable, not depending on the coach to do it for us, we got to do it for ourselves out there. Whether it’s intentional or not, JC, does the coaching change turn into a wakeup call? Also, is it all of a sudden bring some Um, I mean it it’ll always have a sense of urgency to to it, especially after every loss. But a change doesn’t like if if a change doesn’t light a fire under you, then I I don’t know what will. But I mean, we were um you know, a three- win team last year and now a one and five team. So, you know, I mean that that itself, whether you had a change or not, that should you know, nobody should like to lose. So, we all should hate losing just as much as um everybody else. So, uh, whether we change the coach or not, the the intent of what we want to do should never change.

Titans DT Jeffrey Simmons, S Amani Hooker, DT T’Vondre Sweat, and OL JC Latham address reporters on Wednesday at Ascension Saint Thomas Sports Park.

00:00 – 04:17 – DT Jeffrey Simmons
04:18 – 07:09 – S Amani Hooker
07:10 – 09:37 – DT T’Vondre Sweat
09:38 – 13:09 – OL JC Latham

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