Colts and Titans prepare for Thursday night showdown
By CALEB LYNN
ISL Contributor
The Indianapolis Colts are in Nashville on Thursday night for a big divisional battle against the Tennessee Titans, who are in first place in the AFC South.
Earlier this week, the Colts struggled to get anything going in the second half, going scoreless in those final two quarters against the Ravens. The Tennessee Titans, meanwhile, are coming off a week nine win against the Chicago Bears by the score of 24-17.
For the Colts- in this game and in general this season, it will be a priority to get pressure on the Titans and be able to jump on them early on the scoreboard. On Sunday, they committed two turnovers and this Titans team is not a team that turns the ball over themselves. The Titans lead the entire NFL in turnover differential, at +10.
Colts quarterback Phillip Rivers has drawn much criticism in his team’s losses this season, but he talked about how they need to make sure the turnovers don’t get out of hand.
“It’s certainly a week of getting your body feeling good enough on Thursday and mentally being tuned in to the plan because you won’t get all these live – it’s a lot of talking through things,” Colts quarterback Philip Rivers said. “This check, that check — you’re not going to get to work it live. It’s just all condensed, and our guys will handle it well.”
Frank Reich, head coach of the Indianapolis Colts also pointed out that this has a chance to be a massive game for both sides. In fact, this game has the opportunity for the Colts to tie the Titans for the AFC South lead.
“There is no doubt it’s a huge game,” Reich said. “We win it, we tie for the lead in our division at 6-3 and with a win over the team that we’re tied with if we can pull that off. We know it’s another good football team, a team that knows how to win games. That’s what we really need to do. We need to prove that we can win these kinds of games against tough teams. I know we have the talent and the players to do it.”
Defensively, the focus will be stopping the elite trio of running back Derrick Henry, quarterback Ryan Tannehill, and wide receiver A.J. Brown. When looking at how to stop the Titans attack however, middle linebacker Darius Leonard made it clear that it is about stopping the 6th ranked rushing offense of Tennessee.
“They should not rush over 100 yards no matter who it is. I didn’t think that we played well enough to stop the Baltimore Ravens’ run game. I think they had 110, and a lot of that came from quarterback runs. This week right here, like I said earlier with (Ryan) Tannehill, he does a lot of play-action…. We have to be on our keys. We have to be able to stop that if we want to get to that goal with less than 100 rushing yards. If you want to win this game, you have to stop the run.”
These teams will meet in two of the next three weeks. While a split is the most probable outcome, either team sweeping the season series will take the division this year.
