TITANSCENTRAL TALK ZONE

TE Winslow sidelined for Sunday's game....

nine — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:47:04 GMT

Per PFT....

The Cleveland Browns have announced that tight end Kellen Winslow will miss Sundays game at Tennessee with a high ankle sprain. Hell wear a walking boot for up to a week.

http://www.profootballtalk.com/2008/12/01/winslow-out-for-sunday-anderson-out-for-the-year/

Forum: TITANS TALK ZONE

Eli Manning

KB53 — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:24:12 GMT

Eli has grown up boys and girls

Hes got that ice in his veins and is killing teams

No doubt he is the MVP

People thought he just got hot last year.....yeaaaaa

Forum: TITANS TALK ZONE

Interesting stat...

Yoshimitsu — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:12:56 GMT

I was browsing the Week 13 Judgements and saw this blurb:

According to STATS, Inc., he's one of only three tackles who hasn't allowed a complete sack this season. The other two are Tennessee's Michael Roos and Denver right tackle Ryan Harris.

Considering the rough start Roos had coming into this season, I believe he has definitely been playing better.

Forum: TITANS TALK ZONE

Obama's national security cabinet

Vyco10 — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:05:00 GMT

I guess I spoke too soon of having a Clinton/Bush-free White House.

Thoughts on the picks?

Forum: Politics/Religion

hahahha....the media and the Jets....

2ToneTerror — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:19:03 GMT

such a microcosm of the low standard of sports writing today....
-bad analysis, personal bias, bandwagon jumping....

at least they are seeing their errors a week later:

"I was an idiot for believing in the Jets.''

-- Cris Collinsworth, on NBC's Football Night in America show last night.

Peter King on MMQB (power rankings):

2. Tennessee (11-1). It's like the debacle against the Jets never happened.

8. N.Y. Jets (8-4). Would any sane person say the AFC West is better than the East? Well, look at the Jets versus the West: 1-3, with a minus-35 point differential. When you get manhandled by the Broncos in your own house, you slip five spots in The Fine Fifteen.

---------

peter, you couldn't have looked up that AFC west stat last week and tempered your enthusiasm at that time?

Forum: TITANS TALK ZONE

2008 Titans vs. 2000 Ravens

CanadianTitansFan — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:16:43 GMT

It's become fashionable to compare this Titans team Ravens championship teams. The parallels are obvious....teams built on cornerstone dominant defenses, with journeymen vet qb's who lean on their running games...

Yet this Titans defense doesn't feel nearly as dominant to me as the Ravens 2000 D which we all saw alot of...

Heck...I'm not even sure if I feel this D is that much more dominant than some of the competiton right now...(the Steelers, of course, come to mind).

So I thought I'd check how we are trending against that other dominant defense.

2000 Ravens

The 3 things that really jump off their stat page is their run defense, their points against, turnovers forced, and the momentum they had leading into the playoffs.

They allowed an absolutely ridiculous 2.7 YPC against. Of course this was greatly helped by facing Ed George twice, we don't have that going for us, but I digress...

To put in perspective exactly how dominant that was...their were only 3 other teams that held opponents' ypc @ 3.5 or fewer..the next best being SD at 3.0 ypc.

I would guess 2.7 YPC is some kind of record or close to it.

On to points against...165 is just over 10 per game. That is less than half the league average for that year (20.7).

The '85 Bears gave up 198 points...the next best team in 2000 were the Titans who gave up 191...the next closest team is 226.

Giving up 165 points is almost as ludicrous as giving up 2.7 YPC in a season.

I think 165 is a record isn't it?

Turnovers:

The Ravens forced 49 turnovers in 2000...including an absolutely insane 26 fumbles. That led the league easily...next best was Denver at 44...only 2 other teams had 40+ turnovers (Miami, Tampa Bay)

Momentum and when you peak of course is key... the Ravens won 11 straight games en route to the Lombardi and the Titans won't be able to say that with the Jets loss. Moreover, the only game that was close was the week 11 win against the Titans in Tennessee (24-23)...

Get this..the only team besides the Titans that kept it within a one score deficit in that 11 game run was the Cards who lost 13-7...that is what you call dominant.

Other considerations:

- Second in yards allowed , 16 more per game than the Titans, 3967 yards for the year.

Titans 2008 projections:

So extrapolating the current Titan stats over 16 games, here is where we wash out as sa comparision:

Points:

- We rank second in points against (Steelers). We are on schedule to give up 233 points...68 points more than the Ravens did and 4.25 more per game.

Run defense:

- 10 teams have the same or better YPC as we do (3.8)...that is over a full yard worse than the Ravens gave up in 2000. The Steelers are averaging 3.1 YPC against to lead the league.

Turnovers:

- We are on pace to have 33 turnover vs. the Ravens 49. 33% less. That works out to one less turnover per game. We are leading the league but there are other tewam right there includong the Bucs who have 1 less turnover.

Yards Against:

We are on pace to give up 4500 yards of offense this year. That;'s 281 per game. That is good...but hardly dominant. We currently are 5th in the league and we have given up over 500 more yards of offense than the Steelers have to date.

Conclusion: Lol! We don't even belong in this conversation. This is just embarassing. We are nowhere close to being as dominant on defense as they were. We are just a good defensive team right there with the Steelers and a few other teams.

Next up I will be comparing the Titans of today vs. The Bucs championship defense...another team we are often compared against. I'm hopeful we'll match up better there.

Forum: TITANS TALK ZONE

Browns Game

VY — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:44:15 GMT

First Quinn, now Anderson out for the season. I suppose this leaves Ken Dorsey Starting.......i see this game becoming much more easier with these QB's out. We usually do well against power backs. They have a stout D but i see this as a very managable game.

Forum: TITANS TALK ZONE

Bandwidth backbone usage

9_Nines — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:47:44 GMT

It seems many here work in information technology areas, so I wanted to check on something: Have you read any reports on bandwidth shortages if so, please post are summarize. I ask because many internet services providers are toying with the idea of no longer offering flat-rate packages based on throughput speeds with unlimited usage but instead sell internet service on metered basis. The reason given is high bandwidth usage is hitting constraints on their backbones. I am skeptical that bandwidth is hitting constraints (AT&T, Time Warner, Cox Cable etc. probably just want to charge more in unisons) but if it is usage is hitting capacity limits, I would like to search for companies that would benefit in building out more bandwidth (Cisco, JDS Uniphase etc.)

So anyone got opinions/research on whether bandwidth usage in backbones is hitting constraints?

Forum: Politics/Religion

why does Andew Perloff hate the Titans?

2ToneTerror — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:12:08 GMT

http://www.fannation.com/si_blogs/for_the_record/posts/27781-against-the-grain-week-13s-sunday-games?eref=fromSI

1. Since no one trusts the Titans yet, the Colts are about to become everyone's Super Bowl sleeper. Don't buy it. At some point, they're going to have to play outdoors in January. Even in a win against Cleveland, Peyton Manning reminded us once again that he can't play in bad weather.
---------

okay, nice analysis of the Colts....but what's with the Titan hatred?
this guy has taken pot shots at us all fricken year. What's his deal?

Forum: TITANS TALK ZONE

AFC Playoff Picture

scine09 — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:03:19 GMT

The Colts only need to win 11 games to make the playoffs based on the fact that they own a tie breaker over every contender in the AFC besides the Titans. so they're in.

We know Denver and Tennessee are going to be division champs. That leaves 3 slots left.

The Dolphins control their own destiny in the AFC East. If they win out they're division champs.

The jets also control their own destiny but the week 17 vs Miami might be for the division title and if they lose they may miss the playoffs at 11-5.

The Ravens also basically only have to go 11-5 to get in based on their tie breaker situation over the AFC East teams. seeing as they play at home vs washington and Jacksonville, a win vs Pittsburgh probably puts them in.

The Steelers have a very difficult schedule. they could easily go 1-3 which might leave them on the outside looking in.

NE has a favorable schedule but has to go out west for 2 weeks. I'll say they go 3-1.

In the end, I think the Patriots take the East at 10-6, Baltimore takes the North at 11-5, Titans take the South at 15-1, Broncos take the west at 9-7 and the wild cards go to Indy at 11-5 and Pittsburgh at 10-6.

Forum: TITANS TALK ZONE

Proof of media bias...

gatitan — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:58:21 GMT

Now if you look at the remaining games for the Titans, they have included Detroit in our remaining games which puts the record of our remaining opponents at 25-34 instead of 25-22 as it should be...

http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/8854520/NFL-playoff-picture:-If-season-ended-today?MSNHPHMA&From=MSNHP&FG=FOX_Pipe

Forum: TITANS TALK ZONE

Super Bowl Losers Curse still going strong

sect309fan — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:45:26 GMT

Now I have been predicting even before the preseason started that the Patriots will not make the playoffs. The Super Bowl loser has made the playoffs only once (Seattle) since the Titans made the playoffs after the 1999-2000 Super Bowl loss.

This is a pretty unusual stat, hence the "curse" in the title. You would think that if a team was good enough to reach the Super Bowl, then that team would be good enough to make the playoffs the next year. But that hasn't been the case for most of the decade.

The Patriots are in serious trouble now. They got destroyed by the Steelers, and they still have to play at Seattle, at Oakland, Arizona, and at Buffalo. Those cross country road trips are tough (see their San Diego loss), and Arizona is still a pretty good team.

I just see the Titans, Jets, Steelers, Ravens, Colts, Broncos, and maybe the Dolphins finishing ahead of them. And the curse would continue...

Forum: TITANS TALK ZONE

At least Don Banks admits it....

2ToneTerror — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:45:49 GMT

" Everything I said last week about the Jets having that Super Bowl-bound mojo building these days, forget it. What's that phrase that became so popular on Wall Street in recent years? Oh, yeah, it was irrational exuberance on my part. On Sunday in New Jersey, it was the Broncos, not the Jets, who looked like the team that's going places."
-----------

i posted last week that the Jets would lose at least 2 more games before the end of the season...and may not even make the playoffs.

Forum: TITANS TALK ZONE

The importance of affirmation

justmyopinion — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:35:33 GMT

This story is very interesting, if not surprising. It reminds me of the importance of believing in youryself, a lesson I (sadly) only began to learn over the past year, and also of the importance of making others feel good about themselves - it can make the world a better place.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A1132480

In 1968, Jane Elliott was just another American schoolteacher. She taught third and fourth grade (eight to nine-year-olds) children at a school in Riceville, Iowa, which was a very typical, all-white, small American town.

Jane had tried to introduce her students to the idea of racial equality......

Jane Elliott told her pupils a pseudo-scientific explanation of how eye colour defined people: blue eyes showed people who were cleverer, quicker, more likely to succeed.......

The brown eyes quickly became cowed and timid, even those that had previously dominated the class. But what really astounded Jane was the difference academically. Blue-eyed children improved their grades, and managed mathematical and reading tasks that had proved out of their grasp before. Brown-eyed high-flyers stumbled over simple questions.

A few days later, Jane Elliott told her class that she had the information about melanin the wrong way round, and swapped the colour superiorities over. The brown-eyed children tore off their now-hated ribbons, and the situations quickly reversed.....

She had not told her pupils to treat each other differently, only that they were different; and yet they developed the characteristic responses of discrimination.....

On the plus side, she had also proved that racism can be unlearnt as quickly as it can be learnt. She had also found an excellent way of demonstrating what it feels like to be the subject of discrimination........

In these training sessions, she usually puts the brown eyed attendees in the superior position. As these groups are more likely to be mixed race, this ensures that the people feeling the discrimination are more likely to be white, who are less likely to be used to it. She uses choice of language and tone, removal of basic rights (such as being allowed to speak without permission) and a constant shifting of rules to discomfort the blue-eyed participants. At the same time she uses positive language, praise and encouragement to the brown-eyed people. Even assertive, intelligent professionals have expressed their surprise at how quickly they start to mirror the trainer's behaviour, and how thoroughly they become affected by this technique, even at a two hour seminar. Jane Elliott then hammers home the point: people who are the subject of real discriminations cannot call a halt to the misery and frustration at the end of the afternoon.

Jane Elliott started her exercise to point out racial discrimination: now she uses it to highlight sexism, ageism and homophobia too.

The primary thing we can do on an individual level is to believe in ourselves and help those around us believe in themselves. No one is "normal" - everyone has been made fun of or discriminated against for something, and this has caused us to question our worth.

As a result, our tendency is to hide our self doubt by tearing others down. It provides a quick fix, but in the end only perpetuates the problem.

Maybe it doesn't sound "macho", but if you can, take time out of your day today to make somebody feel good about themselves - just one person. Find somebody who you know has an insecurity and help them fight against it by speaking truth to the power of the dominant narrative of "normativity" that tells them they are not good enough. They are good enough. And if we begin to believe it we will be a better people for it.

Forum: Politics/Religion

Bush Admin ignored warnings on housing crisis

OILERMAN — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:18:24 GMT

Bush backed off proposed crackdowns

Forum: Politics/Religion