Titans: "Ballin"

6 - 0

Yes, its pretty amazing. The Tennessee Titans continued the old school style dominance of its opponents in 2008, steamrolling the hapless Chiefs 34-10. The scoreboard was much closer than the game was.

Here are some stats of two very good rushing performances from this past weekend. One is in college, one is in the NFL. Which one is the Titans, Team A or Team B?

(Team A had 332 yards rushing, 8.3 ypc. Team B had 327 yards rushing, good for 8.8 ypc)

The point is that these stats are indistinguishable, and you cant tell a difference between the two. Team A is the Titans, while Team B is Utah, who racked up these yards this past weekend against Colorado St. Amazing that the Titans were able to rack up ridiculous NCAA type stats against an NFL team.

Without a doubt, the Titans are a good team with Lendale White at Running Back. But once again, Chris Johnson is the spark, the difference maker, that gives the offense its teeth.

Ask any baseball hitter what pitch he can hit the easiest and he will tell you a fastball. Its straight and the velocity provides you with built in power off your bat. But ask any great hitter what the most effective pitch of most great pitchers is, and they will tell you fastball. How can the same pitch be the most effective and the easiest to hit? Hitting a fastball is about a timing and vision. If you know its coming, its just see and put bat head to the ball - all the power is generated for you. But when you get thrown a few slow pitches, your timing and eye level must change in order to hit. Being thrown a 75mph change up along with a 95 mph fastball is incredibly more difficult to hit than the same 95mph fastball being thrown over an over. Chris Johnson is the fastball, Lendale is the changeup. They compliment each other by forcing a defense to change its timing, vision, and physicality to defend the run.

Kudos to the Titans for drafting Chris Johnson - who many, including myself, did not want to draft. We figured we had a running back already. The Titans got a 2 for 1 in drafting Johnson, because they added a running back AND made our current running back more effective.

The Chiefs failed miserably at defending either White or Johnson, who both eclipsed 150 yards rushing. In fact, each had TD runs of over 60 yards, Lendale with an 80 yard run himself. A solid performance by in a typical Jeff Fisher way - run the ball, defend the run, pressure the QB. Passing yardage is a distant priority.

Next week, Monday night affair in Nashville against the Colts. I think that one could get ugly, but I'll make a prediction next week once I calm down.