The Tennessee Titans are going into their bye week with a 1-7 record after losing five one-score games this season. They just traded away one of the staples of their franchise, defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons. There has also been speculation that the Titans could trade running back Tony Pollard.
However, despite the trade speculation and poor start to the season, head coach Robert Saleh said he believes in this group and the locker room is full of players who want to prove themselves. Safety Amani Hooker also stepped up as a leader after the Simmons trade.
“I appreciate the guys in the locker room. They’re made of the right stuff and they feel it. They’re not responsible for all the pain of the organization over the last four and a half years.
It’s been short order,” Saleh said. “But, they also recognize that the vast majority of the guys in the locker room right now are going to be here when this thing turns and this is the starting point. It’s, ‘How do you grind? How do you put yourselves in these moments? How do you figure out how to win in these waning moments and how do you make the play and how do you have discipline, but make the play at the same time?’ There’s a lot of things. How do you play more efficiently? How do you play faster? How do you play championship football for 60 minutes? And I think it’s important to them. They’re buying into everything that’s being done around here. They’re working their absolute tails off and you just sit there in the locker room after these games, six one-score games now, and you just want so badly for them to taste victory and taste success because they’ve earned it. But, we got guys that are made of the right stuff. We got the right leaders. I thought Amani did a great job this week. Losing Jeff mid-week and him kind of stepping up to take that senior role. I thought he was outstanding this week. Like I said, we got a bunch of guys who are still trying to prove that they belong in this league and even some of our veterans are still trying to prove that and it’s fun to kind of watch them all work together.”
Tennessee has a difficult stretch to finish off their schedule after the bye week with two games against the Jacksonville Jaguars and a matchup with the Pittsburgh Steelers, who are currently 6-2 and leading the AFC North. However, the Titans also have winnable games against the Dallas Cowboys, who have a terrible defense, the injury-riddled Washington Commanders, the Indianapolis Colts, who are currently selling off their top pieces and the Houston Texans, who have started the season 2-5.
This article originally appeared on Titans Wire: Titans HC Robert Saleh on belief in locker room, Amani Hooker's leadership
