{"id":1032166,"date":"2026-10-20T00:06:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T00:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/1032166\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T00:06:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T00:06:17","slug":"afc-notes-chris-ballard-robert-saleh-colts-jaguars-titans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/1032166\/","title":{"rendered":"AFC Notes: Chris Ballard, Robert Saleh, Colts, Jaguars, Titans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Colts veteran DT DeForest Buckner<\/a> was upset at his locker\u00a0after the team\u2019s loss to the Titans and GM\u00a0Chris Ballard\u2018s firing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sick and tired of the same song and dance every year,\u201d Buckner said, via Pro Football Talk<\/a>. \u201cWe lost to the Tennessee Titans, who were 0-5, and now they\u2019re 1-5. I have confidence in everybody in this building. Every single person on the team needs to be critics of themselves and figure out what we need to do better.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Josina Anderson<\/a>, Ballard told owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon she should make the change for the organization\u2019s good and needs.\u00a0
\nAnderson says Ballard is grateful for his long tenure with the team and has come to peace with being fortunate enough to stay in the same role for so long.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jaguars HC Liam Coen kept it short when asked about\u00a0WR Brian Thomas<\/a>\u2018s lack of contribution,\u00a0as speculation continues that Jacksonville will move on from a player who showed\u00a0flashes of greatness during his rookie season.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust week to week. Week to week. Guys have to step up and make plays,\u201d Coen said, via Ryan O\u2019Halloran of the Florida Times-Union<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It took six weeks, but the Titans finally climbed out of the winless ranks, toppling division rival Colts to get the first win of HC Robert Saleh\u2018s tenure. After the game, Saleh said the week leading up to it was \u201cthe hardest week of practice\u201d he\u2019s seen since joining the team.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNot necessarily because of the work we put in, but because it\u2019s hard when you\u2019re 0\u20135 and you just got punched in the mouth by a division opponent after what you felt was progress. And you\u2019re the punching bag of the entire league. And that, to me, is where everyone can say, I\u2019m done,\u201d Saleh said via Sports Illustrated\u2019s Albert Breer<\/a>. \u201cAnd it was a hard week. There was a lot of truth told. There was a lot of discussions had, and the resilience of the group to stand up, wake up this morning and make the decision to go win a football game, make the plays and accept the challenges that were made, we got the right guys in this group. We got the right guys in this locker room. They\u2019re all made of the right stuff.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis organization is going to have its day in the sun. We\u2019re going to win a lot of football games here. And typically when you\u2019re trying to rebuild something, you\u2019re always going to run into one of these weeks. And I thought our guys passed the test with flying colors.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Colts veteran DT DeForest Buckner was upset at his locker\u00a0after the team\u2019s loss to the Titans and GM\u00a0Chris…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1032167,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2061],"tags":[19734,21476,5422,12158,7,1642,6,6043,526,394,2411,527],"class_list":["post-1032166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennessee-titans","tag-brian-thomas","tag-carlie-irsay-gordon","tag-chris-ballard","tag-deforest-buckner","tag-football","tag-liam-coen","tag-nfl","tag-robert-saleh","tag-tennessee","tag-tennessee-titans","tag-tennesseetitans","tag-titans"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117470323199412291","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1032166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1032166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1032166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1032167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1032166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1032166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1032166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}