Transcript: Tennessee Titans Head Coach Mike Vrabel

Tennessee Titans Head Coach Mike Vrabel

Conference Call -- December 12, 2018
Q: We were just talking to Eli Manning, asking him about the first time facing an opposing head coach that’s actually hit him in a game. What kind of memories do you have watching Eli on film trying to break him down to prepare to play this week?
A: I just think, one, a great competitor, a Super-Bowl winning quarterback, an accurate quarterback, and I think that’s always unique. We have two players on our team that I was teammates of in Kansas City. Ryan Succop was a young kicker and Kendrick Lewis was a young safety, so it’s kind of how it goes, then to be able to play and coach against Eli and some of the other guys still in the league, just got a lot of respect for those guys.

Q: Do you take anything from those? Is there any benefit to having been on the field with this guy?
A: No, I don’t think so. That’s so far removed. Much like this Giants team this year, they have improved throughout the course of the season. This is a much improved football team, I give Pat (Shurmur) and his staff a lot of credit, give the players a lot of credit. They’re playing a lot of good football as of late, I understand they won four of five, averaging 30 points a game over that span. But if you look at that team in, I guess it would have been 2007, that Giants team improved throughout the course of the year, even so much that when we played them at the end of the year, a very tight game. Then they continued to improve throughout the playoffs, and they played better in the Super Bowl and that’s why they won. That’s always a message I try to deliver to our players that you have to continue to find ways to progress and improve throughout the course of the season if you want to try to get to the postseason.

Q: All players get older, but is Eli still as dangerous as he was when you played against him or even three, four, five years ago as a coordinator? Can he still beat you the same ways or has his game changed?
A: He’s as clean as you would need him to be. The ball is coming out quick, he does a good job with the quick game, they’ve got an ability to get it out of his hand and he’s accurate. They still boot with him, I think that was the thing that was probably most surprising as I watch the tape is that they’re still able to move the pocket and get him on the edge, create a different launch point for him throughout the game.

Q: What are you telling your team about the playoffs?
A: We haven’t talked much. We try to eliminate all the scenarios. The only scenario that we try to focus on is our preparation right now as we head into a road game against the Giants. Really, that’s the scenario. You could talk about scenarios all day, there’s scenarios where the Dolphins give up two punt blocks and score on a 70-yard hook-and-ladder, a scenario where a player jumps offside on a third-and-one in a four-minute situation, a situation where a team executes a 50-yard hook-and-ladder and then the kicker slips. Those are all the scenarios that are crazy that happen in this league every week, so the one we’re going to try to focus on is our preparation versus the Giants.

Q: Is preparing for a Giants team with Odell Beckham Jr. and without him very different?
A: Somebody mentioned that. He’s a talented player that’s got very good skill. I think that him and (Sterling) Shepard are obviously two very highly-targeted players, one with 126 targets and another with 80-something. They’ve got a lot of weapons, (Evan) Engram is back healthy, and obviously the running back is a dynamic player with 91 targets in the pass game and 204 carries. I think there’s a lot of guys to be conscious of, but certainly Odell is high on that list. Very quick, explosive, he’s athletic, got great hands, really good play strength, so it will be a heck of a challenge.

Q: What do you see in Saquon (Barkley)? What’s made him so much more effective on the ground the last few weeks?
A: He’s got a natural skillset that’s very gifted, very talented, but it appears to me that he loves football, he’s a great teammate, everything you’d ask for of a talented player. But then he’s got very good patience, great balance, body control, good vision, good hands catching the ball out of the backfield. This will be our biggest challenge of the year without a doubt trying to do our best against him.