HEAD COACH BRIAN CALLAHAN
Only injury to report of is Luke Gifford was voted for a concussion, did not return. So, we'll see what that looks like. Probably going to end up in the protocol this week. Other that, I think it comes down to two really critical areas for us, and one of them was third down defense. I think they were they were like seven-of-eight in the first half. Joe Burrow did Joe Burrow things, and we didn't do a good enough job of getting him down, but they converted way too many third downs. I think over the game they were, I don't know, nine-of-12 or something like that last time I saw the stats. So, need to be better there for sure. And then obviously, you can't win with six turnovers. That's a good football team, you can't turn the ball over six times. We gave up 24 points off the turnovers. That's a game that we played well enough to start—I mean, I thought we had enough early in that game to make it a dogfight, and we ended up giving them too many opportunities against a good offense like that, they capitalized on. And it wasn't good enough. Disappointed. Turnovers—I mean, they called penalties on both sides today. There was a bunch of penalties on both sides, a kind of sloppy game in that regard and disappointing in that regard, too. So, we're gonna keep working, keep trying to get what we can get fixed and come back and get ready to fight again. But disappointed in the outcome and how this game played out. But ultimately if you can't stop them on third down and you turn the ball over six times, it's going to be tough to win.
How do you handle the situation with Will Levis going forward?
Today wasn't his day. He had a couple of bad picks, put us in some tough spots. So, I made the decision to sit him down and try to give us a little bit of a spark. And I think we had a series there, it was like three turnovers in like seven plays or something. Again, not all his—the fumbles weren't his fault, but one of them was. And those are things that you have to do sometimes for a quarterback when they're struggling a bit and he was struggling today. So, we'll see moving forward. We got to watch the tape and see what we can correct and how we can do it better. But it definitely wasn't his day today.
The fans got up out of their seat, standing ovation once Will Levis came out of the game. What do you make of that to loudly hear from Titans fans how they feel?
I don't know. I don't worry about those things. I try to focus on how we can improve and get better. Fans react to what they react to, and don't have much control over it. And if that's the way—they feel that way, they feel that way. There's nothing that I'm going to do to try to explain one good or bad. And so, we just try to keep focused on what we can get better and what we can do to hopefully have it so they can cheer on a whole bunch of other things other than that. So that's kind of where I stand.
The first turnover on the day, what was that play call? Was that supposed to be where he was supposed to pull it and run with it? It was the fumble.
Yeah, we were like third-and-12. We were on the fringe of field goal—we're trying to get five yards because it was third-and-12 and I didn't want to go any further backwards and so try to—went back and forth between kind of a quick throw or one of those quarterback runs, and they played it well. Trey Henderson ran it down from the backside. But yeah, it was a designed quarterback run to try to get us somewhere into a field goal range without dropping back at that point in third-and-12. So, decision we made to do it and then we just got to hang on to the ball. Play didn't get executed the way we want it to on the backside and we just got to hang on to it.
Do you still consider Will Levis your starting quarterback or is that open to evaluation and debate?
Look, I think we'll get through today, I'm not going to make any definitive statements one or the other. We just have to make sure we can correct what we saw on tape and where we had a tough day for him. And again, sometimes these things happen where you have a rough day, and you got to get sat down. So, I'm not going to make any statements about it. And we got to see where we can get better and how it worked in the game and where we can improve.
You've talked in the past about not wanting to be reactionary with benchings. What made this specific situation something where you felt like it needed to happen?
Just needed some momentum. We needed something to spark us a bit. We had three turnovers in a really tight amount of time and that gave them some points and they had another one we got a little bit lucky on it that the ball didn't go back the other way for six points again. So just felt like we needed something. And again, not everything is on the quarterback, but he's the one that's going to take the most heat when those decisions happen, and so felt like we just needed something to spark us out of that part. We played really well early, and the turnovers in succession there really put us in a tough spot in a game where I thought it was going to be tight at halftime and ended up not being that way because we gave them opportunities that they shouldn't have had. And again, sometimes those things happen. I've been a part of those before where just a bad half, a bad series, that just kind of spiraled on him and you need to take a seat for a little bit and let somebody else do it.
After a string of maybe five pretty solid games in a row, was there anything in particular or do you just chalk it up to just a bad day? Or was there anything in particular that wasn't going well for him today?
It's just when things start to spiral. The ball, he throws a high ball to Nick Westbrook(-Ikhine) and it gets popped up, and those are interception balls, when the ball gets popped in the air. He has that one, and then we fumble it, and then we throw the ball right to the cut safety on a play that we had a chance to score a touchdown on with the ball going down the field. It was built for that exact thing for the safety to cut and the ball to go behind it, and he just didn't feel the cut and ended up throwing it right to him. And at that point, it just felt like it was time for a shakeup at that point just to help us get out of that hole.
For him to have a chance to be your guy, and I don't know where you are in that point, but doesn't he have to be able to pull himself out of that? Don't guys in general have to be able to pull themselves out of it when they're going south?
Yeah, in general they do. I just think it went south really fast and there was a bunch—had a bunch of momentum change and shift and it was just a decision that I made that is to try to help spark us and maybe have him take a deep breath and take a seat. So, yeah, there's a time and a place to fight through it, and there's a time and a place to do what I had to do today. And that's ultimately my decision to make. And that's what I felt like gave us a chance to at least climb back in the game at that moment.
It seemed like at the beginning of the game, you guys were operating under center a lot which got you into a bit of a flow, and then you kind of changed and shift avenues and get more shotgun. Was there a reason for that? Was it the momentum shift in the game?
It was the game script a little bit. I mean, they jumped up on us. I was trying to be patient with trying to still run the ball a bit, and you just looked up and you just—there wasn't a lot of possessions left, and we had to start to throw it and start to move a little more tempo if we wanted a chance to get back in the game. We got plenty of things under center, in the gun, and when we're not—we got out of our rhythm that we wanted to stay in when they caught a lead there off some of the turnovers or so. The game got a little bit away from what we wanted to be for the majority of it and then had to move in more passing situations.
Was there any lingering issue with Will Levis' shoulder today?
Not that I was aware of. Everything this week was good. He gave the green light, trainers gave the green light, and he threw the ball well in practice. So, I go off that information the best I can and then try to make the best decision and he seemed like he was ready to roll.
If you do decide to continue with him for the rest of the year, what would be behind that decision? Why would you make that decision if you did?
Just like you said, he's still got to find a way to pull yourself out of it. He's had a couple of really pretty decent games in a row that was positive and then really two back-to-back games that I think we all agree he can he can play better in. And so, we're going to keep coaching and then when he's ready to roll again, we got to find a way to keep playing better football and keep improving because right now it's not good enough.
Do you feel that those positives wholeheartedly outweigh the negatives that have been put on film?
Yeah, I think there's definitely a lot of positives that I do like, and I am excited about. It's just there's too many negatives that don't give us a chance to win the game. And that's where we're at right now is we're trying to find ways to win games and we're not getting enough positive plays in a row from the quarterback position. And that to me is where—that's the hard part, is that these guys are fighting. Our team fights like crazy. They work hard, they practice hard, they do things the right way. And they fought in that game until the very bitter end of it, and that part I appreciate. So, you want to give those guys that are fighting too, to feel like they got a chance to go compete in the game and not have the ball turned over too often. So those are the things that I got to deal with and manage with our football team in general, and then management with Will (Levis) on top of it. So those are the things that I have to focus on.
You get the early 14-7 lead, do you like to feel like you're pretty good—
Thought we were in great shape. I thought that game was playing out exactly how I thought we were capable of playing it. They're a good football team, but I thought that we had a chance to go make it a competitive game, had a chance to win it. And the way it started was the way I thought it would go. I thought it was going to be back and forth the whole game and we were going to have to do a good job. And ultimately, against a team like that, you just can't turn it over. And that's where it got away from us. But I was confident our game plan, I was confident in how these guys played and came out ready to play and ultimately gave them too many chances and a team with a quarterback like that, you give them too many chances, they capitalize.
Three penalties on JC Latham, would you say he's still in his dip?
I thought he played well. I think, again, I have to watch all the details of it. But outside of the penalties, he protected pretty well. I thought we had a good pocket for most of the day. Trey's (Hendrickson) an elite rusher. I thought he held his own against them. But yeah, the penalties are tough, especially the one where we were third-and-three and we false start into a third-and-eight, that makes it a lot harder. Got to find a way to get those fixed and I'll be on top of that to try to get it fixed.
Your pass rush when Joe Burrow had a lot of time, obviously, its killer. What did you think of the rate at which you got back there?
Yeah, I mean, we had to get him on the ground. That was how the game was going to play out. We had to get him—when we had chances to get him down, get him down, and we didn't do a good enough job of it. He created a lot of their third down opportunities off of structure and off the script. And that's what he does, he does that to everybody he plays. And we didn't do a good enough job containing that part knowing that was going to be a key to the success of containing the offense was getting him on the ground. We had opportunities. We hit him, we affected him, but he made too many plays outside of the pocket and getting out of the pocket when we had chances to get him down and when we didn't finish it. So we didn't do a good enough job there.
