You ever been in a mosh pit? Like, a real-life, honest-to-goodness, throwing-sweaty-elbows mosh pit? If you never have, let me tell you, it can be a life-changing experience. It’s the closest thing I’ve ever experienced to having one of those dreams where you’re falling and trying desperately to catch yourself but you can’t, except for some reason you feel safe and protected and in a place where you belong.
That chaotic inner-peace, that transcendental brutality, that’s what I see when I watch a goal-line stand.
The Tennessean is ranking the Tennessee Titans‘ top 25 moments, 1-25. We start with No. 25.
Oct. 18, 2021.
Nissan Stadium.
The Titans are hosting the Buffalo Bills on “Monday Night Football.” This game is crazy. We’re talking four lead changes before halftime crazy. We’re talking a tight end completed a pass to a quarterback for a two-point conversion crazy. We’re talking Clete Blakeman was the referee for a primetime game crazy.
After going down seven points at the end of the third quarter, the Titans posted 10 unanswered in the fourth, going up on a 13-yard Derrick Henry touchdown run with 3:05 left to seize a 34-31 lead, the game’s seventh lead change. QB Josh Allen and the Bills get the ball back with a chance to tie, and they’re not playing for a tie.
Allen throws for 31 yards. Then 12 yards. Then 7 yards. Then 20 yards. Blink and the Bills are in the red zone.
Less than a minute to go. Rush for 4 yards. Incomplete pass. Rush for 5 yards. Blink and it’s 4th-and-1 from the Titans’ 3-yard line. I reiterate: The Bills are not playing for a tie.
Allen lines up in the shotgun, then creeps up under center. He takes the snap. Oh boy. Here comes that transcendental brutality.
Titans defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons doesn’t tackle Allen so much as he uses his tree-trunk legs to thrust his whole body through Bills lineman Dion Dawkins and meet Allen in the gap. Allen’s feet never find traction. Simmons ends up on top of Dawkins, who ends up on top of Allen. The Bills never even got close to converting.
That’s your ballgame.
Through the chaos and peace, the transcendence and brutality, the throwing-sweaty-elbows of it all, this goal-line stand stands as the peak of Jeffery Simmons’ tenure as the Titans’ enforcer. And arguably as the defining defensive line moment in Titans history.
Nick Suss is the Titans beat writer for The Tennessean. Contact Nick at nsuss@gannett.com. Follow Nick on X, the platform formerly called Twitter, @nicksuss.