TITANS HEAD COACH KEN WHISENHUNT PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT - October 23, 2015
(on the status of Marcus Mariota's injury)
We're going to list him as out on Sunday, and that's due to him not having practiced and not quite being there. He's close, but it's a combination of those two things. We decided that was the best way to go this week.
(on if Zach Mettenberger had a good week)*
Yeah, Zach (Mettenberger) has had a good week. It's obvious that he's more comfortable in the offense. Plus, you know what, he's healthier. Last year, he was still struggling with some of the things with his knee, but he had a good week of work.
(on if Marcus Mariota is out because he is not at 100 percent or because of lack of reps)
It's a combination really of everything. Like I said, he's close, but all of those things, you've got to weigh into it. That's the decision that we're going with.
(on how watching Sunday's game from the sideline will help Marcus Mariota aside from recovery)
He's frustrated because he wants to play, so I don't know. He's getting better, and I'm just talking about with the whole process of playing the position, so I don't know what difference it makes. We want to get him back on the field as soon as possible, it just won't be this week.
(on if the offensive line replacements affected the decision to sit Marcus Mariota)
No. That wasn't a thought. It was really all about what we've been saying all week. It was a combination of just those things and evaluating him.
(on the health of the team aside from Marcus Mariota)
Yeah we have one more day tomorrow, we want to test them out. We talked about that today, so we'll see with Griff (Michael Griffin). Perrish (Cox) is going to be out, but Griff we'll test. Harry (Douglas) is not going to play either, and he wants to. It's tough.
(on if the team will make a roster move at receiver with Harry Douglas out)
Well we've got more tight ends that we can fill in, so that's the thing. We'll look at the plan and we've gotten some of these young guys reps during the week, so we're prepared to go either direction. I think we want to sit down and go back through the plan and see where we are with that.
(on the challenges Atlanta will present to Tennessee)
Our defense faces a challenge. That's what this league is. We've played well on defense at times, we didn't start well in the last game, but in the third quarter we rebounded and played really well. We know we've got a real challenge with this offense and whoever's in there playing, we expect them to operate the defense.
