The Tennessee Titans and Kansas City Chiefs will meet for the fifth time in five years when they do battle at Arrowhead Stadium on “Sunday Night Football” in Week 9.
The Titans won the last meeting between these two teams in 2021 when their defense dominated Kansas City upfront, leading to a convincing 27-3 win.
While Tennessee is a massive underdog in this game, partly thanks to the ugly nature of their 5-2 start, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes hasn’t forgotten about last year’s game and certainly isn’t taking the Titans lightly.
“Last year, we weren’t ready and they beat our [expletive],” Mahomes said. “This team is a lot better than [people] talk about them. People don’t talk about their D-line.”
With the way the Titans’ offense has played this season, this team is going to need another great effort from the defense to win this game.
Now, a look at what else the Chiefs are saying about the Titans for Week 9.
HC Andy Reid
On the Titans:
“I mean this is a good football team. Every minute that we can spend studying them and learning their scheme, mastering it and them mastering our schemes to play against them I think is important. Limiting distractions is important and working hard on the practice field is important. Getting back into the swing — we’ve had a week off here so getting back into the swing of playing the game. Like I said, they’re good offensively, they’re good defensively. That defensive front, you’re going to find that they’re one of the better ones in the National Football League. Their head coach (Mike Vrabel) is a defensive mastermind — he’s a sharp dude and presents you different pictures every week. He designs them for you and your team specifically on formations and tendencies that you might have. And then offensively, you start with 22 (Titans RB Derrick Henry) and he’s a good football player — a future Hall of Famer and just a heck of a player. Then special teams wise, I think they’re ranked in the top 10 in special teams so all in all it’s a good football team, but we look forward to that challenge — that’s why we do this. It’s an opportunity to go against a good team.”
On Malik Willis:
“Yeah, he’s an exciting player. Even though he’s young, he’s thrown a ton of balls in his time. We know about the ability to run, and he comes up last week and does a nice job. We’ll be ready for both of them in case that’s a situation, so we’ll get ourselves prepared for both.”
On Derrick Henry:
“Yeah there are going to be things that you’re going to do to try and stop him. I think the whole NFL has tried that somewhere. He’s a great player, and you’re not going to stop him on every play. You just want to get him — you want to get the numbers up where it’s reasonable of stops and so he’s a good one. I know our guys will be fired up for it and they’re going to work their tail off this week to play against him because he’s, like I said he’s a future Hall of Fame player. You get excited about that.”
QB Patrick Mahomes
On why the Titans give Chiefs problems:
“Yeah, they’re talented. People don’t talk about their D-line, but it’s one of the best defensive lines in football. They’re well coached. (Titans Head) Coach (Mike) Vrabel – I worked a little bit with him at the Pro Bowl and understand the coach that he is. So, they’re a well-coached football team. And they have a mentality that they’re going to come in and they’re going to win. A lot of times in this league if you don’t have the confidence going in, that’s where you kind of lose the game. But whenever you go against a team that’s as confident as you are that they’re going to win, you have a tough battle. And so, we have to accept that challenge and find a way to win against a really good football team.”
On the 2021 meeting with the Titans:
“Any time you watch that on film and you see how you played, it wasn’t just them beating us, but we played bad and they kind of just put it down on us at the end of the day. So, for us, we have to come in with a better mentality because we understand that they’re ready to go and they’re going to have confidence, so we have to make sure we have that confidence to back up our play as well.”
On Mike Vrabel:
“We don’t talk much football, but he’s a great man first off. I think that’s why his players play so hard because you can tell he really cares. He’s been through it. He played in the NFL, he’s won championships, so I think he’s going to get the best out of you as a player. I think I saw that during the Pro Bowl week as well. It’s something I understand why his teams play so hard because of the type of person that he is as well as coach.”
TE Travis Kelce
Travis Kelce and the Chiefs using last seasons 27-3 beatdown by the Titans as motivation for #SNF #ChiefsKingdom #Titans pic.twitter.com/jpQYal3ekh
— McKenzie Nelson (@McKenzieMNelson) November 4, 2022
DC Steve Spagnuolo
On Derrick Henry:
“Yeah well listen, he’s been on a roll – I mean, the whole team has. They lose the first two games and then they go five straight (winning). So, they’re geared up and heading – it looked to me that they got back to their Tennessee formula in the last couple of weeks which is play great defense, run the football, control the clock a little bit, win on third down and all of it, kind of, is generated by the guy you’re talking about, ‘King Henry’ they call him. Right? He’s the king of the run game and a big challenge for us because he’s a big (running) back. You can’t simulate that in practice, right? So, you just got to hope that your foundation of what you’ve done up to this point allows you to tackle him. (We) got to find a way to get him on the ground. Look, it’s – everybody does the exact same thing, it’s not a secret. Try to get more hats there. Commit eight or nine or whatever it is, take some chances in the run game and hope it doesn’t hurt you deep, but it’s focus number one.”
TEs coach Tom Melvin
On the 2021 meeting with Titans:
“Well, obviously you’re going to scrutinize what went on during the game – the good, the bad and what we expected, didn’t expect and do that as your offseason study. It was kind of like with the Bills. It’s a new year, a new team. They won last year, so again, as a competitor that always fits in, but it
can’t drive you. We have a whole new team, and the dynamics are different, so you can’t talk in there (like) ‘Hey, this is what they did last year’ where half the guys weren’t here. That can’t be their driving factor. The guys that were – obviously Patrick (Mahomes) goes with it and Travis has some thoughts on that one – but you kind of have to use the good, evaluate the bad and have a positive – hopefully a positive performance going forward.”
DE Carlos Dunlap
#Chiefs DE Carlos Dunlap on containing Derrick Henry: "He's a big back, you've got to tackle his legs. Can't run without his legs."
— Charles Goldman (@goldmctNFL) November 2, 2022
