TITANS vs BROWNS
Sunday, Dec. 6, 2020
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Q. Ryan, as a leader of this team, when you come from two impressive wins like you have coming into this win and then you see it kind of drift away like it did in the first half, what is your job in terms of making sure in the future you can keep going when you win games and that you don't follow up a success with something disappointing like this?
RYAN TANNEHILL: We have to come out and start games with a sense of urgency. I think we did in practice. We practiced with some urgency this week. I didn't feel like there was a relaxation or anything in practice. But at the end of the day, on Sunday, when the ball is kicked off, we have to be ready to go and can't come out slow and put ourselves in a hole like that. So just a matter of approaching every Sunday in itself and coming out with a sense of urgency.
Q. Ryan, it would've been easy for you guys to pack it in at halftime and you put on a baseball cap for the second half of this one. How important, despite the loss, to come out and make it respectable there at the end?
RYAN TANNEHILL: This team is full of fighters. That's not characteristic of the way we play and the way we fight and believe in ourselves. We've been in some holes before, never like that, but being able to fight back, and really we had an opportunity there to cut it to a two-score game heading into the fourth quarter. We've been in that situation before and been able to come out with a win. So, you know, we still felt like if we took care of our opportunity and took advantage of it, then who knows what can happen. Defense gets a stop, turnover, and as long as we're scoring, chipping away at it, who knows what can happen. That's was our mindset going out there. Just battle one drive at a time and find a way to score each drive and see what happens from there.
Q. At what point today did you have to scrap the original game plan and start chucking it around? Seemed like most of what happened the second half was just drives where you had to pick it up and throw it every play.
RYAN TANNEHILL: Yeah, obviously we were down huge. I'm not sure exactly what the score was at that point. I think it was a 31-point lead or something like that, so not the situation you want to be in. At that point, you need to score and you need to score fast and every time you touch it, so obviously I had to make some adjustments there.
Q. One of the trademarks for the offense this year has been to limit turnovers. How surprising, unlikely, was it to see the ball on the ground so many times today, and how big an impact did that have on the game?
RYAN TANNEHILL: Yeah, definitely not the way we like to play. We pride ourselves on taking care of the football, and we didn't do that. We weren't clean enough today starting off with the fumble early. They were clicking on offense, they were rolling, and we really needed to get something going there and give them the short field. Didn't help. Compare that with, like I mentioned, going into the fourth quarter there, and an opportunity to go up -- or not go up, but to make it a two-score game there at the start of the fourth quarter and you're in that ballgame. We weren't able to finish that drive, ended up turning it over down there. Yeah, we've got to be cleaner. We've got to take care of the football. We like to feast on those situations when teams give us the ball, and today it was opposite.
Q. When you come out after halftime and MyCole Pruitt, not Derrick Henry, not AJ Brown, for example, scores two touchdowns in about five minutes there, the second on a good bounce. Does that add to the sense that, hey, something is possible here?
RYAN TANNEHILL: Yeah, we just needed to score. Doesn't really matter who scores. We needed to score. We were able to get those scores pretty quick and keep ourselves in the game a little bit, and then like I mentioned, just weren't able to capitalize on the next drive. But this team has a next-man-up mentality, and I think there is a belief in one another no matter what that we just have to play our game and make plays. MyCole did a great job stepping in for us and making some huge plays for us.
Q. Ryan, on the initial drive, the fourth and one, what was your sign and did you think that Derrick (Henry) had the first down on that play?
RYAN TANNEHILL: It was tough for me to see from my angle being behind the play. They got some quick penetration and Derrick did as best as he could, but from where I was standing behind the play it was tough to really see.
Q. 8-4, tied with the Colts, quarter of the season to go. How important is it to just forget this one now and make sure you're on track starting next Sunday?
RYAN TANNEHILL: It's going to be huge. Obviously we can't forget it without taking a real look at why this game went the way it did, evaluating that, making the corrections. Once we're able to do that, we'll put it to bed and get ready for the next one. We have to learn from this one, clean some things up. Obviously we didn't play well enough. Come out on Wednesday with a sense of urgency, carry that through until the kickoff on Sunday.
Q. Even going back to the end of the first half when you went into halftime with the fumble from A.J. Brown, after the couple weeks he's had and the performances, is there something you can tell him or kind of get him back into the game? Is it getting balls and targeting him more early in the second half? How do you approach that sort of adversity?
RYAN TANNEHILL: Yeah, just telling A.J. I believe in him. Obviously some plays I think he would like to have back. He's made huge plays for us the past two years and he's going to continue to make big plays for us. Obviously just have to couple things to clean up. We believe in A.J., and A.J. is going to continue to make plays for us.
Q. Ryan, last season you guys followed up the win in Indy by going to Oakland and winning pretty big. There was a sense you guys were building and improving to what ended up happening. Do you still get that sense this year as well in spite of what happened today, that this team is headed in that same trajectory?
RYAN TANNEHILL: Yeah, we have done some good things. Obviously what you've done doesn't really matter. How you perform each and every Sunday, you have to go out and earn it, earn the win. So we'll see. We'll see how this team responds. I believe in our guys, I believe in our leadership and our culture and the way which like to play. Now it's matter of putting it to the test and making it happen.
