ESPN NFL

Posted by ESPN.com’s Paul Kuharsky

What I think they are thinking in the headquarters of the four AFC South teams this afternoon…

Houston Texans

Our coach has said multiple times that we’ve got to be good enough to make a yard when it counts, yet we failed again. We had the chances we needed in Arizona and we couldn’t take advantage of them and we say that on far too many Mondays around here. We’re always close to breaking through, but never really do it. And at some point, no matter how much guys are trying to look in the mirror, they will look to the coach and his staff too and wonder, “Is this really working?” It’s part of their job this week to convince us, again, to stay the course, because the results of all this hard work will come and we’ll get on a roll and be in the mix, yada yada yada. But do we believe it anymore. Can we believe it anymore? Isn’t it getting harder and harder?

Indianapolis Colts

Peyton Manning has concentrated, when complimenting Pierre Garcon or Austin Collie, on including a joke about keeping them from getting a big head too early. We need to do that on a larger scale, but there really isn’t a big concern around here about us getting too happy with ourselves, because Bill Polian, Jim Caldwell and the staff and Manning and the other veteran leaders won’t allow it. Also assisting us keeping things in context: While we’ve been precise, efficient and deadly, we’ve not beaten a team that currently has a winning record. Our opponents are a combined 7-16 (.304). The teams we still play currently include five with winning records, and while they aren’t world-beaters, they are winning at a .444 clip. We’ll continue to improve, we’ll continue to get healthy people back and we’ll be a team no one looks forward to facing no matter how well they are faring.

Jacksonville Jaguars

One thing you learn in a rebuilding season is how your group of guys to reacts to a variety of situations. Here’s one you wish you didn’t get to see, but that you hope gets looked back on one day as a character builder. There are all sorts of problems we need to iron out from that disaster in Seattle, but first among them is the pass pressure on both sides. We have to generate more and allow less. And on the allowing less front it means continuing to tinker with the offensive line, trying to accelerate the growth of the kid tackles and getting our quarterback not to hold the ball so long. These guys need to see steady, so Jack Del Rio and his staff have to work hard this week to show them steady, to bring some life and energy to the office, to put a sound plan into place for St. Louis and to get to 3-3 Sunday against a team we are better than. We don’t want to do a lot of looking ahead, but with what we’ve got coming we could get to December at 6-5 or 7-4.

Tennessee Titans

Well, we had no excuse for 0-4. We can try to blame 0-5 on cornerback injuries and that will be handy if Tom Brady, Wes Welker and Randy Moss pick up apart in New England this week too, right? Of course it doesn’t get us off the hook for our failure to bring in a sufficient veteran defensive back or two who could play reasonably well for us if something happened to Vincent Fuller or Cortland Finnegan or Nick Harper, or God forbid, all three. So once again while we preach how we don’t put players in position to do thing they can’t, we’re going to ask raw rookies Jason McCourty and Ryan Mouton to face a Hall of Fame quarterback. OK, now for what we can spin positive in house. We can grumble about those two roughing the passer calls, those set up the Colts for that big score right before the half. We can say sitting Jevon Kearse showed a willingness to shake things up. We can expand an us-against-the-world mentality and talk about how no one believes in us. And some players will eat that up without asking, “Why is it anyone, including us, should believe in us?”