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First off let me just say what a great game & total team effort for 'interim' HC Dan Campbell's first career win; he definitely deserves a ton of credit for having his team prepared & fired up straight out the gates!
As far as the game, there were a lot of things that went down yesterday that enabled the Fins to finally play close to the level we pretty much all expected to see from them from week one (Playing with passion & fire; something that's been absent the whole season - Hell, what am i talking about, more like the whole time Queasy was HC here!!!, swarming gang-tackling D, D making plays & getting turnovers, great gameplan running the ball and refusing to abandon the run straightaway, overcoming mistakes & penalties, taking a couple shots downfield, Tannehill running with a bit more assertiveness, not sitting on the ball just before the half, the OLine opening up some big holes, Miller back to running the ball like he did when Moreno was his running mate, and most of all taking the field as a team that looked both prepared & emotional!!!)..
But in my opinion the most telling moment was when we were up 24-3, Tennessee finally found the end zone to cut the lead to 24-10 and we found ourselves only up two scores in a game that we had absolutely dominated from the opening bell..Our next possession we were backed up deep in our own territory and RT took a sack to push us even closer to our own end zone, Darr got off a lousy punt which we were also penalized on giving the Titans an extremely short field to work with (around our 30 yard line) The crowd was going crazy, the momentum had seriously swung &Tennessee was in prime position to cut the score to a single TD and possibly stick a dagger in us & deflating us of all of the momentum, confidence, energy & swagger we'd played with to that point..This is the exact point that a Philbin-coached team would've folded like a cheap tent, Tennessee would've gouged the Fins D for the TD, held us to a few more 3 & outs and cruised to a two TD victory while our whole team watched from the sidelines deflated & confused..We've all seen this scenario play out more times than we care to remember...BUT yesterday was different, our defense stepped up with a HUGE interception, we stopped the Titans & their fans who just seconds before could smell the blood in the water, dead in their tracks, our confidence never wavered & we didn't miss a beat as we cruised to an easy win!!!
I realize this is a single win and only counts for one, no matter how impressive we looked..but in the grand scheme of things it could count for so much more to a team that just a couple of weeks ago looked as bored, listless & lethargic as i've ever seen an NFL squad look..They always say an NFL team takes on the persona of their coach and with a fired up guy like DC at the helm i say bring it!!!
As far as the game, there were a lot of things that went down yesterday that enabled the Fins to finally play close to the level we pretty much all expected to see from them from week one (Playing with passion & fire; something that's been absent the whole season - Hell, what am i talking about, more like the whole time Queasy was HC here!!!, swarming gang-tackling D, D making plays & getting turnovers, great gameplan running the ball and refusing to abandon the run straightaway, overcoming mistakes & penalties, taking a couple shots downfield, Tannehill running with a bit more assertiveness, not sitting on the ball just before the half, the OLine opening up some big holes, Miller back to running the ball like he did when Moreno was his running mate, and most of all taking the field as a team that looked both prepared & emotional!!!)..
But in my opinion the most telling moment was when we were up 24-3, Tennessee finally found the end zone to cut the lead to 24-10 and we found ourselves only up two scores in a game that we had absolutely dominated from the opening bell..Our next possession we were backed up deep in our own territory and RT took a sack to push us even closer to our own end zone, Darr got off a lousy punt which we were also penalized on giving the Titans an extremely short field to work with (around our 30 yard line) The crowd was going crazy, the momentum had seriously swung &Tennessee was in prime position to cut the score to a single TD and possibly stick a dagger in us & deflating us of all of the momentum, confidence, energy & swagger we'd played with to that point..This is the exact point that a Philbin-coached team would've folded like a cheap tent, Tennessee would've gouged the Fins D for the TD, held us to a few more 3 & outs and cruised to a two TD victory while our whole team watched from the sidelines deflated & confused..We've all seen this scenario play out more times than we care to remember...BUT yesterday was different, our defense stepped up with a HUGE interception, we stopped the Titans & their fans who just seconds before could smell the blood in the water, dead in their tracks, our confidence never wavered & we didn't miss a beat as we cruised to an easy win!!!
I realize this is a single win and only counts for one, no matter how impressive we looked..but in the grand scheme of things it could count for so much more to a team that just a couple of weeks ago looked as bored, listless & lethargic as i've ever seen an NFL squad look..They always say an NFL team takes on the persona of their coach and with a fired up guy like DC at the helm i say bring it!!!
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