Drippin' Off the Meat Grinder

There are six teams in the NFL that are identically built: Baltimore, Buffalo, Chicago, Jacksonville, Tampa Bay and Tennessee. They’re made up of strength and patience. They make you want to quit. They sock you in the face over and over again. I call it grind-house football.

It’s an old philosophy built around field position. Field goals win games if the other team can’t cross the 50 yard line. Watching grind-house offenses can be slow and boring. Expect to see lots of hand offs and check downs, tight end catches and (gulp) double-reverses. Throws are to be kept to a minimum and fumbles are punishable by death. Punts are ok, missed field goals are not.

Playing grind-house defense is simple: Keep people in front of you and make tackles. The front four are good enough by themselves to not require fancy linebacker and safety blitzes. The secondary doesn’t get beat deep and linebackers don’t miss tackles.

Good special teams play is essential for a successful grind-house style. Dangerous return men can change the ol’ battle for field position in a hurry. Buffalo, thought to be the best special teams unit in the NFL, pulled off a classic, guy-acting-like-he’s-going-to-the-bench-when-he’s-really-not fake field goal for a touchdown last week, adding to a punt return touchdown earlier in the game for the Bills

Last week we were treated to a heaping spoonful of grind-house by the Ravens. This week we meet the Ravens older brother, the Titans. Tennessee outslugged the musclebound Jaguars 17-10 in Week 1 at Jacksonville. The defensive line is super aggressive, and is led by the Panzer tank, defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth. Big Al snacked on the Jags offensive line last week with two sacks, while the Titans racked up seven for the game. If Eric Ghaicuic is the cupcake he appears to be when I rewatch the games in slow motion on my DVR, than he is literally going to be mauled by a wild animal on Sunday. Poor guy.

If that wasn’t enough, linebacker Keith Bullock is the kind of guy you think of when you think about army tattoos. They both seem old fashioned tough. His tackles cause fumbles and his trash talking cause headlines. He and Ray Lewis are the same linebacker breed. Bullock requires some attention when game planning the Titans.

On the plus side, the Titan secondary is vulnerable. Lil’ Finnigan had no chance of covering Chad in last year’s game and watched him operate a CBS camera as a result.

Tennessee will hand off to the quick Chris Johnson and/or the bulldozer-type runner LenDale White, as many as 35 times in a close game. Johnson likes to run off tackle and the Titans’ wide outs look to be really good blockers to facilitate that. White is an up-the-middle runner who is difficult to tackle.

With Vince Young out with a knee problem and a severe contusion to his ego, the immobile Kerry Collins will look to throw quickly to avoid moving. He does have a strong arm, and if he has time, he will test the secondary deep. Their receivers are average at best, but the tight end Bo Scaife ended with 106 yards on six catches last week.

Considering they have a quarterback who moves like Han Solo in carbonite, I would assume we might want to blitz pretty heavily. No need to double team any of the receivers or play prevent zone on this offense. Linebackers, especially Rivers, need to stay at home and bring people down. I was disappointed with the angles our tacklers were taking on ball carriers. Bad angles end up with a group of defenders chasing down runners instead of one player stopping a play upon impact. The defensive line needs to win the surge at the line of scrimmage more regularly. For Peko and Thornton, it comes down to pushing the player in front them backwards. If they fail, opposing runners find yards and we give up another third-and-short.

The Titans pack a wallop. They want to slug it out into the tenth round and apply the knockout at the bell. They’re battle hardened, grind-house. Like a ten hour arm-wrestle. I expect them to be angry and intimidating. I expect the Bengals to be shaken and punked.

Titans 20, Bengals 9

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