Posted by ESPN.com’s Paul Kuharsky
What I think they are thinking in the headquarters of the four AFC South teams Monday afternoon:
Houston Texans
This feels pretty good, 5-3 at the halfway point. It would feel even better if we could go to Indianapolis Sunday and spring an upset on the Colts, who we’ve beaten just once in 14 chances. Doing so will be a lot more difficult without Owen Daniels, who’s reportedly out for the season after suffering a knee injury in Buffalo. But we beat the Bills when everything didn’t go right and we can have a playoff season without everything going right. We showed some depth with Ryan Moats stepping in for Steve Slaton when we decided we couldn’t risk any more fumbling. Our defense has been getting steadily better. We need to block out all the talk of how we’re a playoff contender and keep working like we’ve been working.
Indianapolis Colts
We’re not going to blow everybody out every week, and it’s not such a bad thing that we encountered a team that played us well. We went ahead and found a way to win and we’re even more confident now having done so. It’s funny that there are people who think it’s somehow less of a win because Joseph Addai, not Peyton Manning, threw the winning touchdown. A trick play is unlike us? It’s the same points, the same "W" and it showed some resourcefulness. San Francisco did well to help get us ready for the toughest four-game stretch of our season: Houston, New England, at Baltimore and at Houston.
Jacksonville Jaguars
No one said this retooling, as we’ve called it, was going to be easy. We have our good days, we have days like Sunday, when a previously winless team pushed us around pretty good. It’s just not acceptable to get the monster touchdown runs we got from Maurice Jones-Drew and allow Chris Johnson to simply cancel them out. As we rebuild this roster, depth is an issue. Reggie Nelson may qualify as our third-best corner right now, but the biggest thing that tells us, we need a deeper pool of corners. We feel we’ve got good depth on the offensive line. At 3-4 maybe it’s time to set a lineup and stick with it.
Tennessee Titans
Jeff Fisher said repeatedly during our 0-6 start that Kerry Collins wasn’t the reason we were losing. And Vince Young -- with 125 passing yards -- wasn’t necessarily the reason that we won. But the vibe sure was different for us and we tapped back into our formula -- solid defense, a big run game, quality pass protection. See how simple it can be? It’s hard to figure where all that went during the miserable start, but it feels good to get it back for a day. And it gives us something to lean on as we go forward. Even when we’ve been a good team, we don’t travel well West, so Sunday in San Francisco will be a challenge.
What I think they are thinking in the headquarters of the four AFC South teams Monday afternoon:
Houston Texans
This feels pretty good, 5-3 at the halfway point. It would feel even better if we could go to Indianapolis Sunday and spring an upset on the Colts, who we’ve beaten just once in 14 chances. Doing so will be a lot more difficult without Owen Daniels, who’s reportedly out for the season after suffering a knee injury in Buffalo. But we beat the Bills when everything didn’t go right and we can have a playoff season without everything going right. We showed some depth with Ryan Moats stepping in for Steve Slaton when we decided we couldn’t risk any more fumbling. Our defense has been getting steadily better. We need to block out all the talk of how we’re a playoff contender and keep working like we’ve been working.
Indianapolis Colts
We’re not going to blow everybody out every week, and it’s not such a bad thing that we encountered a team that played us well. We went ahead and found a way to win and we’re even more confident now having done so. It’s funny that there are people who think it’s somehow less of a win because Joseph Addai, not Peyton Manning, threw the winning touchdown. A trick play is unlike us? It’s the same points, the same "W" and it showed some resourcefulness. San Francisco did well to help get us ready for the toughest four-game stretch of our season: Houston, New England, at Baltimore and at Houston.
Jacksonville Jaguars
No one said this retooling, as we’ve called it, was going to be easy. We have our good days, we have days like Sunday, when a previously winless team pushed us around pretty good. It’s just not acceptable to get the monster touchdown runs we got from Maurice Jones-Drew and allow Chris Johnson to simply cancel them out. As we rebuild this roster, depth is an issue. Reggie Nelson may qualify as our third-best corner right now, but the biggest thing that tells us, we need a deeper pool of corners. We feel we’ve got good depth on the offensive line. At 3-4 maybe it’s time to set a lineup and stick with it.
Tennessee Titans
Jeff Fisher said repeatedly during our 0-6 start that Kerry Collins wasn’t the reason we were losing. And Vince Young -- with 125 passing yards -- wasn’t necessarily the reason that we won. But the vibe sure was different for us and we tapped back into our formula -- solid defense, a big run game, quality pass protection. See how simple it can be? It’s hard to figure where all that went during the miserable start, but it feels good to get it back for a day. And it gives us something to lean on as we go forward. Even when we’ve been a good team, we don’t travel well West, so Sunday in San Francisco will be a challenge.
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ABOUT THIS BLOG
Paul Kuharsky
Kuharsky joined ESPN.com in 2008 after 12 years covering the Oilers/Titans and the NFL for The (Nashville) Tennessean. The New Jersey native and Columbia graduate lives in Nashville with his wife and son.