FOXBORO — Don’t think for a second that the Tennessee Titans think the Patriots were running up the score.

To paraphrase Jeff Fisher — their embattled head coach — what did you expect them to do? Stop playing?

“No, that was their plan going in,” Fisher said when asked if he thought Patriots were running up the score when Tom Brady was throwing the ball for five touchdown passes in the second quarter, racing out to a 45-0 halftime lead.

The Patriots came out with Brady in a shotgun, five-receiver set to open the third quarter. Nine plays, 65 yards and a nine-yard Randy Moss TD pass later, it was 52-0 and Brady’s day was over.

And Fisher’s nightmare couldn’t be scarier.

“Why are they going to change their plan?” Fisher asked rhetorically.

“Ah man, it felt like they were trying to raise their rank in the BCS,” veteran linebacker Keith Bullock lamented.

“But honestly and truthfully, I would expect in anything else,” Bullock said. “I definitely wouldn’t have expected anything else. It’s not their fault we weren’t matching up today. That’s sports.”

What was Brady exploiting?

“You’re directing that at the wrong person,” Bullock replied, without throwing his secondary entirely under the bus. “I really don’t know. There’s a lot of things I don’t know right now and I’m just being cool through this interview.”

“They played,” Fisher added. “We didn’t tackle well in the second half. I didn’t It’s hard to play with the same emotion you carry into a game when you’re down 45. I saw frustration but not a lack of effort.”

Asked about his team’s mood in the dressing room after the debacle, Fisher tried his best at dry humor.

“It was less than celebratory,” Fisher said.

While Fisher had to endure the worst day of his career from the sidelines, the veteran Bullock had no where to hide from Brady’s relentless barrage.

“Tom was out there doing his thing,” Bullock said. “It’s kind of hard to figure out right now.”

“I have been playing sports since I was eight, and never in any sport have I experienced anything like this,” Bullock said. “I guess the problem was we could not stop them. We kept giving them the ball on turnovers. It seemed like whatever they dialed up was working and a couple of times they had great calls for whatever we called.”

“It’s about as bad as it gets,” Tennessee quarterback Kerry Collins admitted of his team’s three lost fumbles and two picks.

7 Comments for “Titans on Patriots: Raising their BCS Rank”

1. Rob Says:
   October 18th, 2009 at 9:55 pm

   gotta love Jeff Fisher, class act head coach. There are many teams that probably would demand action again the Pats for the score, but the titans simply admit they were bad and MOVE ON! Sure it was fun seeing 59 points but honestly it sucks to see teams struggle like that, if i recall the Pats fielded teams just has bad in their history.

2. steve Says:
   October 18th, 2009 at 10:02 pm

   hey sometimes all teams in their history have or will go thru games like these

3. mike Says:
   October 18th, 2009 at 10:16 pm

   what are you talking about? it wasn’t even close to running up the score, brady basically didnt play the whole 2nd half… who cares if he did!!
   kicking field goals would be running up the score… running your offense and taking time off the clock is part of the game.

4. Bobby Bethea Says:
   October 18th, 2009 at 11:38 pm

   tough to watch, Jeff is a class act and will rebound from this. We had negative yards passing, it was unbelievable. The season is over, hopefully we get finnegan back and start round two of the Vince Young era and take it from there. The patriots just handed it to us. Jeff will fix this, great time for a bye week….

5. Bob Noel Says:
   October 19th, 2009 at 9:39 am

   I thought the whole team showed a lot of class from the coach’s to the players.

6. Mike Daly Says:
   October 21st, 2009 at 2:03 pm

   Man, it hurts watching the Titans struggle like this. It was great the Patriots got their offense going and laid down 59 points, but the Titans are one of those teams one has to respect - Tennessee, Carolina, Baltimore, those are teams that play physical, play hard, and play tough. Seeing the Titans failing like this is terrible.

7. jim Says:
   October 21st, 2009 at 4:01 pm

   If it were the Colts owner, he’d be demanding an investigation and a change with the rules committee.

Leave a Reply