It’s called macaroni and cheese. The ingredients are in the name. There’s macaroni. And there’s cheese. It’s not complicated. Don’t make it any harder than it needs to be.
The simple things in life are treasures for a reason. Whether it’s baking a tray of Thanksgiving macaroni and cheese or playing defense in the NFL, simplicity is key. That’s how the metaphor works, at least.
“(Mike) Vrabel showed us a video of this lady talking about a family member messing up the mac and cheese,” Tennessee Titans defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons said. “She was like, ‘Uncle Terry gave you the recipe. So why you switching it up?’ “
Instead of switching things up Sunday, the Titans followed the recipe. Simmons and the defense helped them snap a three-game losing streak with a 17-10 win over the Carolina Panthers, who averaged fewer than 4 yards per play, and the Titans (4-7) registered nine tackles for loss, six quarterback hits and four sacks.
Defensive end Arden Key, who registered a second-quarter strip sack that led to a Titans touchdown two plays later, said this success came from going back to basics.
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“Not to get too much into scheme, but it was a lot of the stuff that you’ve seen earlier in the year,” Key said. “Today we ran that simple, simple defensive stuff. And we played fast. We played with our hair on fire.”
As linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair explained it, the goal of making things simpler is to eliminate moments when players may hesitate. Players who think too much are too slow to the ball and less likely to pounce on opportunities to make game-changing plays like Key’s strip sack, or as safety Amani Hooker did on his game-clinching fourth-and-6 tackle to blow up a Panthers screen pass before it ever got going upfield.
That’s not to say there was no intricacy to the Titans’ game plan. It’s more accurate to say they knew the key to good macaroni and cheese is in the name.
“As the season’s going, you see what’s working and what’s not, what’s helping you and what’s not,” Al-Shaair said. “I think it just came down to self-evaluation from a coaching perspective and realizing, ‘Hey, we do good when we’re able to do these few things and these other things are too much or not so good.’ I think they just did a good job of adjusting as a coaching staff and helping us be in the best position to win the football game.”
Sunday marked the first time since Oct. 1 that the Titans allowed fewer than 300 yards of total offense and fewer than 20 points. They had surrendered 24 points per game and 5.6 yards per play in the six games since then, posting a 1-5 record. Even in the lone win against the Atlanta Falcons, the defense relented on 342 yards.
This was an unprecedented stretch for the Titans in the Vrabel era. They hadn’t allowed 20 or more points in more than five consecutive games since he was hired in 2018. Only the Baltimore Ravens, Buffalo Bills, Pittsburgh Steelers and Los Angeles Rams have active streaks that long. The Titans’ streak ended with last week’s 34-14 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Beating the Panthers Sunday represented a return to form. Of course, they’re the Panthers. The team that owns the worst record (1-10) in the NFL. It’s impossible to separate the success from that context. But as Al-Shaair puts it, the NFL is a weird league. All context gets stripped away once a game goes final and a new notch appears in the win or loss column.
It’s the team’s job to explore the context, to determine the things that worked, or might work if executed properly, or didn’t work and never will.
Do that, and the simplicity takes care of itself.
“Build up your strengths but also build up your weaknesses as well,” Al-Shaair said. “It’s so week-to-week in this league. It’s so challenging.”
Nick Suss is the Titans beat writer for The Tennessean. Contact Nick at[email protected]. Follow Nick on X, the platform formerly called Twitter, @nickusss.
