When it comes to food dishes that are hard to screw up, mac-and-cheese ranks right near the top.
The more you try to jazz it up, the worse it tastes.
So, keep it simple and make it good.
Strange as it sounds — though perhaps appropriate on Thanksgiving week — Titans coach Mike Vrabel used that theme to help straighten out his defense prior to Sunday’s 17-10 win over the Carolina Panthers at Nissan Stadium.
On Friday, Vrabel gathered his team, in the midst of a three-game losing streak, to watch a video.
“You don’t know what he’s about to show,” Titans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair said. “Vrabel is like this mixture of lightheartedness, but [can also be] like super serious.”
Vrabel opted for the former, showing a pretty funny video of a woman giving her daughter a hard time about screwing up the mac-and-cheese on Thanksgiving — by trying to do too much with it.
“Don’t experiment on damn Thanksgiving,” the woman says. “You experiment by your own damn self.”
How did that relate to the Titans’ defense, which had surrendered more than 325 yards in each of its previous five games?
“The whole point of showing it was don’t start making up your own themes this late in the season,” Titans defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons said. “Go back to the basic themes and go back to your technique fundamentals. Don’t start making up new things just because we might have been losing the last couple weeks. Go back to the base themes and everything will take care of itself.”
It turned out to be a recipe for success, though it didn’t hurt that the Panthers were on the menu, a team that entered the game 30th in total offense, 29th in scoring offense and 29th in sacks allowed.
The Titans nevertheless were as impressive as we’ve seen them on defense in a while, holding Carolina to one touchdown, 10 points and 258 net yards. Tennessee totaled nine tackles for loss, sacked the elusive Bryce Young four times and created a turnover that led to the game-winning touchdown.
What was the key ingredient of the performance?
“Simplicity,” Titans edge rusher Arden Key said. “Keeping it simple on defense. Just the calls and everything. It was simple. As you saw, once everything is simple, we get to play fast.”
Key simply overwhelmed Carolina left tackle Ikem Ekwonu late in the second quarter, shooting past him and delivering a hit on Young that caused a fumble — recovered by Simmons at the 15-yard line. Two plays later, Derrick Henry rumbled in for a 10-yard touchdown that put the Titans up 14-3.
It was just the fifth fumble recovered by the Titans’ defense this season, its first in five weeks.
“It was a play action,” Key said of the play. “I saw that actually on film, the play action — the tackle in a passing stance, everyone else in a run stance. I just believed in my keys [I’d seen] throughout the week and just went.”
The Titans (4-7) did surrender a touchdown drive on Carolina’s initial second-half possession, but came through with a series of big plays to stymie the Panthers as they sought a tying score.
Tennessee didn’t allow the Panthers’ closer than the Titans’ 49-yard line on their final four possessions.
On the last two series alone, there was a Roger McCreary tackle-for-loss that put Carolina in a third-and-14 hole; a third-down pressure by Key that forced an incompletion; a sack by defensive lineman Denico Autry (one of his two on the day) that left the Panthers facing third-and-15; and a final tackle by safety Amani Hooker that thwarted the Panthers’ final attempt.
In other words, yes, plenty of Titans defenders joined the mix.
“I think when you get this late in the season, guys start thinking a lot, especially on that losing streak,” Simmons said. “But then you get reminded, just go back to the base theme. Go back to what got us here. Go back to what helped us win games.
“Vrabes did a hell of a job of showing us that [with the video]. At this point in the season, no reason to start making up things. So at the end of the day, that’s what that was about. Just play hard, play aggressive, come out with a win.”
So simple, so good.