AFC South: No rest for weary Titans

Football Betting Lines

10/13/2009 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The schedule-makers have done the Tennessee Titans no favors in helping them pull out of their surprisingly winless start to the 2009 season.

The injury gods have not been smiling upon Jeff Fisher's club either.

One week after being carved up by Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday night, the Tennessee Titans and their injury-ravaged secondary now gets to head to New England to face the AFC East co-leading Patriots and the likes of Tom Brady, Randy Moss, and Wes Welker.

Yikes.

Two veteran members of the Titans secondary - cornerback Nick Harper and safety Vincent Fuller - will be absent with the same injury, a broken forearm.

The club's best remaining corner, Cortland Finnegan, is a question mark after missing the last two weeks with a hamstring injury.

One of Tennessee's veteran pass rushers, Jevon Kearse, also might not play after surprisingly being made a healthy inactive last Sunday.

And no corresponding roster moves appear to be imminent, due in part to the fact that the team is hoping to get Harper and Fuller back on the field at some point in 2009.

"Not necessarily," said Fisher when asked whether the team was considering placing Harper and Fuller on season-ending injured reserve. "No, because we've got a bye coming. If Nick's [injury] ends up being four weeks, he ends up playing the last eight games. We'll be stretched a little bit thin for the next couple weeks which we have been, but our hope is that we'll get them both back."

The possible return of Finnegan would be a possible dose of good news, though how effective he'll be with a still-healing hamstring remains to be seen.

"I'm hopeful that Cortland will be back this week," said Fisher. "He'll be day- to-day."

In spite of the defensive problems on a team that now ranks dead last in NFL passing defense, one of the major storylines for the 0-5 Titans remains the quarterback position.

Kerry Collins (19-of-32, 264 yards, 1 INT) was benched late in Tennessee's 31-9 blowout at the hands of the Colts in favor of Vince Young, and with the season apparently going nowhere, the Titans may have an interest in determining whether the former first-round pick Young can give them a spark.

Though Collins remains the starter, Fisher left open the possibility of the ex- Longhorn getting a chance to see extended time at some point.

"I didn't say I was going to...I said there's a possibility," said Fisher of making the change. "I didn't say I was going to, and I didn't say when I was going to. Kerry's our starter, and Vince is our backup."

Young was 0-of-3 passing and had a six-yard run for a first-down against the Colts.

"He was alright," said Fisher of Young's performance. "He missed on the first pass, but it was good to see him use his legs and pick up a first down. He was having fun and enjoyed the opportunity to get in the game."

Clearly though, the head coach doesn't think a change at one position will be a cure-all for his struggling team.

"If the answer was obvious we would have fixed it," said Fisher. "All we can do is keep working. We've pulled through this before, a different team, but we've been through it several times. We just keep working. It's frustrating on Monday, on Tuesday it becomes a challenge and on Wednesday it's fun again and looking forward to having a chance to win the next game. That's kind of the world we live in."

COLTS: At this rate, the Indianapolis Colts might be wearing their "2009 AFC South Champions" apparel at the Thanksgiving dinner table.

The Colts' 31-9 dismissal of the defending division champion but currently winless Tennessee Titans in Nashville on Sunday night, coupled with Week 5 losses that dropped the Houston Texans and Jacksonville Jaguars to 2-3, placed Jim Caldwell's squad three games clear of its closest competitor in the division as it heads into the bye week.

And the manner in which Indianapolis has been winning, dominating its last three opponents after opening the season with close shaves against the Jaguars (14-12) and Dolphins (27-23), has placed the team on just about everyone's short list of AFC Super Bowl contenders.

"It's only five games for us but I think the one thing that we are pleased with is the fact that we've been able to get better every week," said Caldwell. "We have been able to improve. Our guys have worked extremely hard. I think they have concentrated on the process and not on the end result, and that's the thing that makes the difference in this team. We have got to keep it going...we are pleased with where we are."

Perhaps the least surprising element of the Colts' play has been the performance of Peyton Manning, who has enhanced his Hall of Fame resume' with five consecutive 300-yard outings to start the season. With a 300-yard day against the winless Rams following the team's Week 6 bye, Manning will tie Kurt Warner, Steve Young, and Rich Gannon for the most consecutive 300-yard games in NFL history.

And Manning has done it without Marvin Harrison, the most frequent target of his NFL career, who is currently out of football. Instead, a litany of young wideouts including Pierre Garcon and Austin Collie have helped their quarterback approach the record.

It was Collie, the fourth-round rookie out of BYU, who had the breakout day against the Titans, catching eight balls for 97 yards and two touchdowns while working out of the slot.

"He has good speed," said Manning of Collie. "He can get down the middle and put some pressure on that safety...I am proud of the way he has worked. He has worked hard. He is attentive. He is into the game plan, [though] he is still going to make some mistakes."

Said Collie of working with Manning, "Every day, I go home to my wife and tell her different stories. I'm a little kid in a candy shop. It's been phenomenal this past month, working with the team and getting to know the guys. Sometimes I have to pinch myself and be like, wow I'm actually playing in the NFL and playing with guys like Peyton Manning, Reggie Wayne and Dallas Clark, some of the best in the game."

JAGUARS: As if their listless 41-0 loss at Seattle on Sunday wasn't bad enough, the Jacksonville Jaguars and head coach Jack Del Rio now find themselves once again answering questions about their collective character.

Blossoming wide receiver Mike Sims-Walker served a one-game team suspension on Sunday for violating an unspecified team rule during the Jags' stay in Seattle. Then, on Sunday, it came to light that pass rusher Quentin Groves had been involved in a car accident that had left multiple people injured, while trying to get to the team plane on Friday.

Groves' Cadillac Escalade apparently collided with another car while changing lanes, and the player reportedly got out of his car, and told the driver of the other vehicle that he was a Jaguar and had a plane to catch before driving away. Another driver who witnessed the crash followed Groves and summoned airport police, but Groves was given only a warning for improper lane change before police drove the player to his plane.

Both players apologized before the media on Monday.

"I made a mistake in judgment," said Sims-Walker, who declined to elaborate on the nature of his rule violation. "I apologize to everybody...the team, the owners, Jack [Del Rio], [general manager] Gene [Smith], the fans. I'm sorry. It'll never happen again. It was a bad mistake on my part."

Groves was next up in the line of mea culpas, saying, "I personally want to say I'm sorry to the Jacksonville community, especially Jaguar fans, coach Del Rio, [owner Wayne] Weaver, our whole family up here in the organization. I especially want to extend my condolences to the family that was involved in the accident. I'm sorry about what happened and it won't happen again."

Of Groves, Del Rio said, "Unless there's more discovered than what I've been made aware of at this point, then he'll be fined and that'll serve as punishment."

The head coach, who became further embattled among the Jaguars' notoriously fickle fan base following Sunday's blowout, did not see the team's two most recent incidents as being indicative of an epidemic of a bad behavior.

"I think you're talking about a traffic citation and a guy that used poor judgment. To have to be lumped in with past dealings would be unfair and inaccurate." Del Rio said.

Del Rio bristled at the notion that he didn't have a tight enough handle on his team.

"If you're accurate with your information and you're paying attention to what you see going on, I don't think that would be the kind of question you'd even raise now," said the seventh-year head coach.

TEXANS: Given the young and porous state of the Texans defense coming into the season, there was an understanding that Houston was going to need to score plenty of points to win football games.

Now, it appears that the pressure on the offense to produce will fall mainly to one mode of travel: the passing game.

Through five weeks, Gary Kubiak's disappointing team has done a poor job running the football, ranking 30th in NFL rushing offense (75.4 yards per game), 31st in yards per carry (3.0), and scoring just two touchdowns on the ground through five weeks.

That's a far cry from the effort the team thought it would see after Steve Slaton burst on the scene with a franchise-record 1,282 yards and scored 10 touchdowns last season.

But Slaton has been slow out of the gate, battling with fumbling problems and gaining just 231 yards on 72 carries (3.2 yards per game) with one touchdown through the first five weeks. Backup Chris Brown (23 carries, 61 yards), who failed to come up with a touchdown on a 4th-and-1 play in Sunday's 28-21 loss at the Arizona Cardinals, hasn't been much better.

Complicating matters for the team is an injured foot that could have right guard Mike Brisiel on the shelf for an extended period of time.

"The whole running game is a concern," said Kubiak on Monday. "Obviously, it starts with our guys up front, but it includes everybody. It includes backs, wide receivers. To be good in the running game, everybody's has got to be doing their part. Obviously, we've had some changes, losing [guard] Chester [Pitts]. Now, we could possibly be playing with another young player with Mike missing some time here. So, we've got some adjustments to make, but it was obviously a big strength for our football team last year, and there is no reason why it shouldn't be this year before it's all said and done. Those guys need to step to the plate and play better, and I think they will."

"I think the key to being a good football team is you've got to run the ball in this league," Kubiak continued. "You're going to have a hard time changing me on that, but I've also got to look at what's going on with my team right now and what's happening. We're throwing the ball very, very well and we're not running it very well. We're going to do what we have to do to win, but we're not going to give up on the run. We're going to stay committed to it in our preparation and our work and it needs to come around."