Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: Reflecting on Jeff Fisher

Episode Date: June 26, 2018

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Welcome in to another edition of Locked on Titans. I'm Jimmy Morris, joined as always by Terry Lambert. Terry, how are you today? Doing pretty well. What's up, man? Not too much. Today we're going to get into the life and times of Jeff Fisher. So it's kind of an interesting episode, and I think you'll probably be like us. We've been talking a little bit through this over the last, really, couple weeks, and then today before we jump on the show. It's just Jeff Fisher is such a hard person to figure out. And when you, I don't know, we'll go through it. We'll look at his record and the teams that he had with the Titans

and kind of see if we can draw a conclusion on whether or not Jeff Fisher ever was a good coach. But we'll get to that in just a minute. Before we do that, I want to remind you that we write from ucitymiracles.com. You can check us out there. Follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmorrismcm. Terry is at tlambertfb.

You can follow the podcast, iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify. Just search Locked on Titans, and you can find us there. Subscribe to that. That helps us out, and it helps you out because you will get the newest episodes as soon as they are available. All right. Before we get into Jeff Fisher, we're going to talk about our newest sponsor we've been talking a little bit about that's blue chew uh you know we've talked about it a little bit for the last couple weeks um you know if you if you need a if you need a testimonial uh hit up trevor on twitter at titans trev 55 uh from what i

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sponsoring the podcast. And again, hit up Trevor on Twitter at TitansTrev55 asking about his experience with the product. I'm sure he'll have a lot of great things to say to you and to us about it, so check that out. Alright, Jeff Fisher. So, when we were talking about this, we looked at it kind of in

three eras, if you will, of Jeff Fisher's time with the Oilers slash Titans organization. He was the head coach for parts of 17 years, took over in 94, and coached the last six games. And then from 95 through the 2010 season, he was the head coach of this franchise, from the Houston Oilers to the Tennessee Oilers to the Tennessee Titans. The first era, I guess, that we'll kind of talk about, and this is the one that we probably have the least information on

because Terry was not even born yet, and I wasn't really a fan of the team when they were in Houston. But he had two full seasons as the head coach in Houston, 7-9 in 1995, 8-8 in 1996. Then they moved to Tennessee in 1997. If you remember, they played that first season in Memphis as the Tennessee Oilers. We're 8-8 in that season.

Then they played 98 as the Tennessee Oilers at Vanderbilt. We're 8-8 in that season as well. You know, again, that's kind of the Jeff Fisher special, right, the 8-8, everybody makes all those jokes and stuff but that that's what they were now that's a tough tough time to be the head coach of a team uh when you're going through the transition going through the move all that kind of stuff the uncertainty for you know the first years in Houston and then the transition not having a home and all that stuff um you know through the two years when they were the Tennessee Oilers playing at the two different spots.

So I think that Fisher got not even just a pass for those years, but a lot of the credit, a lot of the stuff that went into people talking about how good of a coach he was was based on the fact that he was able to take a team that had all that outside stuff going on and still put a good product on the field, a product that went 8-8. So, I mean, really, I think if we kind of trace this back to Jeff Fisher, like what is it that for so long made him such a hot commodity in the NFL coaching circles, I think honestly a big part of it was just the fact that they were able to go 500 through those

transition years. Now, is that fair or not? I don't know. We hear NFL coaches talk a lot about outside distractions and all that stuff, and you can't imagine all of what was going on when all that was going on. So, obviously, he had a tough job there. But, I don't know, I feel like he probably gets more credit for being a good coach through those years than he should have. Now, that leads us right into 99 when they became the titans they opened the delphia coliseum they finally had their home all that all that stuff obviously they were 13 and 3 that year ended up going to the super bowl were 13 and 3 the next year lost them in the divisional round at home

to the ravens but they were the best team in the league that year. I mean, I think if you go back and watch those games, look at the numbers and all that stuff, that Ravens team obviously ended up winning the Super Bowl. That Ravens team's defense was really good. Their offense was not very good. The Titans had at least a better offense, and their defense was arguably as good as that Ravens defense. So, you know, when you get into that era,

that starts kind of, I guess, the second phase of this, the Steve McNair years, which basically runs from 99 until they drafted Vince Young. Now, you know, McNair was up and down, injuries and that kind of stuff that happened there. But, you know, Fisher led those teams. Obviously, they were known for their defense, but they had that, you know, lunch pail mentality, you know, carrying that. Eddie George got a bunch of carries and all that kind of stuff. So they were a smash-mouth team and, you know, an era that was big in smash-mouth. But one thing that I think Jeff Fisher doesn't get enough credit for is hiring Mike Heimerdinger when he did after, you know,

Fisher fired Les Steckle after the Super Bowl run because he could tell the offense was stagnant, needed somebody else to come in and coach McNair. They brought in Heimerdinger and, you know, he opened the offense up a little bit and really took advantage of the whole Aaron McNair thing, letting him do both, you know, throwing the ball and run the ball. Because, I mean, a lot of times teams would have that, quote, dare McNair, you know, that joke where they would stack up the box and try to make McNair beat them throwing the ball.

And Heimerdinger came in and really opened up the offense and did a lot for McNair, for Fisher, really helped him update his offense and bring it into, you know, when nfl was transitioning to more of a passing league so that's kind of my long thing what do you remember about the mcnair years with jeff fisher well it's interesting when you talk about fisher because he did come into you know the two are tied together uh you don't really remember jeff fisher before mcnair so uh fisher had mcnair in for McNair. Fisher had McNair in his prime, won games with him. But it's always interesting for me to go back and look at and kind of wonder what is Jeff Fisher without Steve McNair.

I don't think he's much of anything. It seems like even back then your head coach is only as good as your quarterback. You look at today's world, obviously Bill Belichick and Tom Brady are the unique situation there. But look at Mike McCarthy. What is he without Aaron Rodgers? So I always wonder about that. How much did McNair mean to Jeff Fisher's career?

And I think he meant everything to Jeff Fisher's career. So I always wonder if the Titans had a little bit more of an innovative coach, whether or not they could get over that hump. And then you go back to the Muke City Miracle. What happens if you don't have that? What's our view of Jeff Fisher? That would be another postseason loss, another disappointing season to add to his record.

So looking back, I didn't really feel this way until we started talking about it. But, yeah, Jeff Fisher's career has just been a long, long list of disappointments. Yeah, it really has, like you said, the music of a miracle. And, listen, Fisher gets credit for that. You know, they were – he liked to take chances in special teams. for that um you know they were he he liked to take chances in special teams it's funny that his um you know the offenses weren't known for being you know real wide open and all the the trickeration stuff that you see sometimes today but they had a lot of stuff like that on special teams he wasn't afraid to do a fake punt um you know that kind of stuff obviously you need to see miracle you know

home run throwback was the name of that play. They practiced it, you know, a lot throughout the year. And, you know, a lot of guys talked about that. So he was willing to do some of that kind of stuff. But like you said, if that doesn't happen, you know, if you're coming off of, you know, a first-round playoff loss there and then you turn around and have another, you know, it wasn't the first round when they lost to the Ravens, but it was their first playoff game.

If you do that in back-to-back seasons, yeah, how much is that different? Does he get the long leash that he had here with the team without that Super Bowl run? Does he have the reputation that he did as an NFL head coach without that Super Bowl run? And those are just some interesting things that, you know, obviously we don't know the answer to, but I mean I think they're worth thinking about and discussing

uh one thing i did reach out to mike keith uh you know voice of the titans who we had on the podcast earlier and i asked him what his favorite jeff fisher memory was and he talked about how good jeff fisher was in their pre-game meetings uh they would have friday night meetings with jeff fisher go to the game plan and that kind of stuff. And obviously, you know, Fisher would tell them stuff that was going on with the team. And he said, you know, once they gained Jeff Fisher's confidence, he would give them a lot of stuff. Obviously not all stuff they used on broadcast,

but would help them in understanding what was going on with the Titans. But he told them that before so the Titans went to Buffalo in the 2000 regular season coming off of the Museum of Miracles, which obviously was against the Bills. And they went to Buffalo that year.

And back then, the NFL doesn't do this anymore, but back then, each team got a— either the offense or the defense was announced prior to the game. So if you were on the road, either your offense or defense, they announced prior to the game. So if you were on the road, either your offense or defense, they announced the players who run out of the tunnel like they always do at home for the home team now. Well, so Fisher told them in that meeting before that game in Buffalo that he was going to have the announcers up there announce the special teams unit.

That was the unit that he was going to have run out there. And he set it all up up wrote it all out and the last three guys that were announced and ran out of the tunnel were lorenzo neal frank wycheck and kevin dyson obviously the three guys that were involved in mute city miracle and mike keith said when fisher was telling them this on the friday night they didn't believe him because he was you know apparently pretty famous for his practical jokes and stuff like that that he liked to do. But Fisher finally said,

no, look, I'm serious. This is actually what we're going to do. And they did that. And Fisher told them that part of the reason was he knew that the crowd in Buffalo was going to be crazy.

They were, you know, the revenge and, you know, those people in Buffalo that don't understand math and physics and all that stuff and think that the Demetrius City Miracle was a forward pass.

He knew those people were going to be crazy. And so when he did that, it got the crowd worked up before the game ever started and kind of got all that emotion out early, and then it kind of drained them as the game went on. The Titans ended up losing that game they shouldn't have, but they did. But that was who Jeff Fisher was. He did the same thing with the rams um when they played the redskins i can't remember years on this but you know the rams and the redskins

were the teams that were involved in the robert griffin the third trade and when the titan or when the rams played the redskins he sent the the guy all the guys that they had acquired through the picks that they got for the Robert Griffin trade. So the Rams had that pick. They traded to the Redskins, got a bunch of picks. All the players that came from that, he sent those guys out to midfield for the coin toss. Jeff Fisher, kind of the original troll, I guess, doing that kind of stuff. But that's kind of how he was, and we'll talk about another kind of situation with that

as we move into the Vince Young era. So we'll pick up there after these messages. Okay, so what happened at the end of McNair's tenure here is obviously famous. He ended up getting locked out of the facility, all that stuff. We know the salary cap purge and all that stuff that had to happen. So the Titans obviously at that point needed a quarterback um after the 2005 season and really if you remember back that far so 2004 they had basically tried to hold it all together for one more year all those guys that were veterans that came here with the team really they tried to hold them all together

make one more run at it everybody ended up getting hurt it didn't work out so you had the pac-man draft in 2005 but then the team was really bad in 2000 or you know the pack yeah so that was before the 2005 season the team was really bad in 2005 and so they ended up you know having a high pick again the third pick overall which was which obviously ended up being vince young now there's all kinds of stories about that norm chow was the offensive coordinator here at that time. He followed the first Heimerdinger era. Obviously, Norm Chow was Matt Leinart's coach at USC. If you don't remember back to the 2006 draft,

you had Matt Leinart, Vince Young, Jay Cutler were the three quarterbacks that were coming out. Until a couple years ago, you would still have people every now and then that would yell on some, like either Museum Miracles or Twitter or Facebook, Titans should have drafted Cutler. I mean, you still had that through a few years ago. But, you know, by all accounts, Fisher, Chow, wanted Matt Leiner. Makes sense, USC guy, all that kind of stuff.

Bud wanted Ben Chung coming off of that Rose Bowl game, being from Houston, all that kind of stuff but wanted Ben Chung coming off of that Rose Bowl game being from Houston all that kind of stuff so obviously you know when the owner what the owner wants the owner gets so the Titans drafted Ben Chung now Jeff Fisher for years has by a certain section of the fan base been hated because he hated Ben Chung he never gave Ben Chung a chance and all that stuff now personally I don't think that that's true i don't think he wanted vince young in the beginning but i think that once vince young got here i think that he did everything he could to help vince young because again like you know like terry said head coach quarterback you need those two things working together because those two guys are tied together the successes and failures are based on the quarterback on the field um and so the the you know the the norm chow offense didn't really

work with vince young they brought mike heimerdinger back um you know and they had some they had a couple of good years there now more based on the defense i mean you were vintage this rookie year they ended up eight and eight uh with with some luck heading into a week 17 game against the playoff i mean against the Patriots. They could have made the playoffs and ended up losing that game. It didn't work out for them to get in. But went 10-6. Vince's second year made the playoffs. 13-3.

Vince's third year. Now that was mainly a Kerry Collins year, but that's not for here. They had a couple more good teams once Vince Young got here, but it was really the relationship between Fisher and Young that kind of unraveled everything for Fisher here.

Looking back at 2005, if you're Bud Adams and you know there's going to be friction between your head coach and who you want to draft, who you want your quarterback to be, why do you not go in a different direction there? I've always wondered that. It was pretty clear that Vince Young was forced upon Jeff Fisher. And, you know, that's the worst thing you can do. If your owner steps in and says, hey, you're taking this guy,

coaches want another guy that they might not necessarily believe in. I just don't understand doing that. So that 2005 season seemed like a perfect exit point to me. And Fisher went on to do some good things after particularly the 2008 season, but, of course, not with Vince Young. That was with Kerry Collins. So that's always a point to me to where you've either got to put trust in your coaching staff. You know, Fisher had been here for, what, over 10 years at that point.

So, you know, we were talking before we came on, if a head coach has been here for more than 10 years, typically they have a lot of say in the personnel and free agents they sign and guys you draft. So it was very Bud Adams to see him come in and say, hey, you're taking Vince Young. I don't care what you say. So the whole marriage there was doomed from the start, and really that spelled the beginning of the end for Fisher here in Nashville. Yeah, it really did. And like you said, I mean, once, you know, there was a transition from Floyd Reese to Mike Reinfeldt as the GM. And, you know, basically, look,

Fisher had a couple different power struggles that he won. And I think really the first one was with Floyd Reese. I mean, if you believe the story, Floyd Reese wanted Alan Lowry, who was the Titans' such-team coach for a long time, wanted him fired. Jeff Fisher went to Bud Adams. I mean, again, this is all reported. None of this has ever been confirmed. But Fisher went to Bud Adams in Houston and was basically like,

you're not firing Alan Lowry. I'm not going to allow it to happen. Basically stood on the table for him. Fisher won that. Lowry got to stay. And then Floyd Reese ended up getting fired or moving on. And at that point, it was where Fisher really stepped in and took more control of the personnel side, which was never his forte.

And you can go back and just look at those drafts after Floyd Reese left and what they did. Obviously, Vince Young, notwithstanding, because that was a Bud Adams pick. But really from that draft, Lindell White in the second round, and then you look at some of the other picks throughout that era, they were Jeff Fisher guys because he liked the athlete, liked the guy, thought he could, you know, control him, coach him, and Pac-Man. You know, he was the one that wanted them to take Pac-Man, said he could control him. We saw how that worked out. You know, the reports that they were going to take Devin Hester instead of Lindell White,

but Fisher wanted Lindell White. He ended up winning that one, and they drafted Lindell White. Just all that kind of stuff. It would have been better off for the team if Jeff Fisher ever didn't get that control. I think that was probably as much, if not more of a weakness of his than coaching, was the personnel side of things and yeah i mean you know and then obviously it all unraveled uh you know back to the the the report that vince young wouldn't go back into that game um you know against the jaguars and that was what

set up for carrie collins that run that they made that year you know they started owing six the next season you know again by reports fisher didn't want Fisher didn't want to go back to Benchung at all, but Adams made him. They ended up going on a little bit of a run there in that year they started 0-6. It ended up being in the playoff hunt around Christmas, lost to the Chargers, and that kind of ended that next year. Then the next year, Benchung goes to pads in the stands, and all that kind of stuff goes down.

That was it. And I think that Jeff Fisher at that point knew that his time here was done. And what ended up being the end of Jeff Fisher's tenure here was basically after the 2010 season, he pushed Bud Adams to Jeff Fisher to let Jeff Fisher's son Brandon be on the staff. And Bud Adams had long had a no nepotism policy, wouldn't let you hire sons, brothers, any of that kind of stuff. Fisher knew that. He kind of tried to force Bud to do that anyway,

and that was what led to them parting ways. But again, I think you still had vince young here at that point you had mike heimerdinger um on the no hang on let me let's back up didn't fish jeff they moved on from vince young right help me here terry i i mean i think that they come on yeah i i think that they had it had basically been announced that they were going to move on from Vince Young. So, again, he won that power struggle. But then he does this force his way out, and there was a lot of stuff going on. Again, they didn't have a quarterback.

Kerry Collins was here, but he was done. He'd been done for a little bit of time. Mike Heimerdinger had cancer. Obviously, that ended up getting him, and it was pretty clear that he wasn't going to be able to coach that next year. Yeah, because in 2011, they had Hasselbeck and Locker. So they had basically already – they hadn't released Vince Young because it was the end of January when Fisher left,

but it had been announced that they were going to release Vince Young because they ended up drafting Locker that next year. So he won that power struggle as well, but I think he just realized that his time was up here. So anyway, all that to say, I mean, was Jeff Fisher ever a good NFL head coach? I think he's the definition of average, and I think his record tells you that. Again, my main point is what is he without Steve McNair? You know, the great coaches will kind of win with anybody,

and I don't think he does anything without that spectacular roster he had in 99 through really, what, 2003. That team, before they fell apart, was really good. To Fisher's credit, he won a lot of those games. But, again, how much of that was the roster? So I don't ever think of Fisher as some football guru. I think if you need a guy, like what the Rams did, if you need a guy to kind of get you out of a 4-12 spiraling season,

he's your guy. He can get you back to respectful. He can get you back to 7-9. But he's not going to give you much more than that. Really interesting looking back. I had a higher level of thinking of him coming into this and then you kind of dig in a little bit and remember

all the stuff that happened. Remember how the Vince Young thing which really wasn't his fault went down. It's just a lot of disappointment. So my answer to that question is no. Yeah, I think you're right. And just to clear up the timeline, it was announced in early January 2011

that the Titans would be moving on from Vince Young. It was the end of January when Fisher left, so he didn't win that. Yeah, I mean, like you said, I think in a different era, you brought up before we came on, you know, Marvin Lewis, I think, is the guy that's kind of comparable to Jeff Fisher right now, the guy that, you know, has good enough teams every year but doesn't ever seem to be able to really get over that hump and, you know, win in the playoffs or whatever it may be,

but still somehow keeps his job. I think the move helped Fisher. I think being in Nashville, you Nashville, a smaller media market, all that kind of stuff helped him. I think, obviously, the Super Bowl run, because, again, people don't remember that they weren't here in 99 how much this city loved that team, and not just having an NFL team. They loved the players on that team, and they loved Jeff Fisher because he was the coach of that team. But they love the players on that team, and they love Jeff Fisher because he was the coach of that team.

And so for the longest time, I mean, when I started Music City Miracles in 2006, you know, if we ever say anything bad about Jeff Fisher, I mean, there were people that would just kill us because everybody loved him. And, again, it was all dating back to really those two seasons at the beginning there. Like you said, most of that tied to the McNair magic more so than anything else and those really good defenses. You know, and they had some good coordinators here. Listen, Greg Williams was the coordinator when they first came here. And obviously everybody's view of Greg Williams has changed after Bounty Gate

and all that kind of stuff. But he was a really good defensive coordinator early then. He went on to be a head coach from here. After Greg Williams, they had Jim Schwartz, who was also a really good defensive coordinator, had a head coaching job, and last year was the defensive coordinator of the Eagles in one Super Bowl. So he had some good hires, had some good coordinators here. Mike Munchak was on that staff forever, was obviously a very good

offensive line coach. So he had a lot of good coaches, and a lot of guys worked for him in his time here. here but yeah it's just hard to really look at that and believe that a guy that has been a head coach an NFL head coach for 22 seasons at least parts of 22 seasons um you know with a career 512 winning percentage 173 and 165 is his all-time record I think second place for loss is all-time. And again, if you code for a long time, that's going to happen. But it just doesn't seem like in today's NFL, when you look at kind of that stretch between 2003 and 2007,

winning five, four, and eight in those three years, not many guys in this era would have been able to keep their jobs. That was the exact point I was going to make. Does Fisher last, you know, what, 10 years? Does he last past 2005 in today's NFL? I don't think so. I mean, if you have a down year, it doesn't matter what you've done, maybe outside of a couple of guys.

If you have a down year, the reports are going to start flying. You're going to get fired. Maybe it's just a different time period. Fisher was pretty fortunate to last as long as he did. He seems to yo-yo a lot, but had the benefit of the doubt. Again, if he doesn't make that Super Bowl, if he doesn't pull off the Music City Miracle, you just wonder how long he lasted. So, really interesting retrospective look at him.

You know, just the definition of average. It's just kind of crazy looking back at his career record, 173 and 165. That's just crazy. The 8 and 8 jokes, 7 and 9 jokes, they're warranted because that's who he is. Yes, 7, 8, nine, ten, eleven. Just count them. I mean, of his 22 seasons that he coached part of, in 11 of those seasons he had either seven or eight wins.

I mean, it's just nuts. So, yeah, it's just that there weren't too many really bad years. There weren't too many really good years. It's just all the definition of average. There weren't too many really bad years. There weren't too many really good years. That's just all the definition of average. So, anyway, I think that this city remembers him differently just kind of based on timing and circumstances and all that stuff.

And, again, I don't think he's as bad of a coach as he gets labeled for kind of at the end with the Rams there, but never, you know, an elite guy, you know, like he was portrayed as for a long time. There were a lot of years where he was one of the hottest names in the league while he was with the Titans. The record never really added up to having that type of hype. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed

that. Again, I know that it's been a few years. 2010 was his last season here, so it's been a while since he was here, but I think most people at least remember a part of that era with him. And so that was just kind of something interesting that we got into. Terry said before we started today, I think we said 39 days until the Hall of Fame game. So it's not as far away now.

That's starting to feel, you know, that's about five weeks. So we'll do a few more of these as we go along because, again, we're in this dead period now where the only news that we're going to have is either something bad happens, a player gets arrested or whatever, or hopefully at some point we'll get a Taylor LeJuan contract extension before training camp happens. So we'll hit some more of these as we go through in the next couple weeks. If you have ideas, guys, you'd like to hear about, hit us up. Again, you can do it either one of our Twitter,

at jmorsemcm, at tlambertfb, at LockedOnTitans. Hit us up there, or musicandmiracles.com. We usually do a post that goes along with these podcasts, and so if you have suggestions or whatever, you can hit us up there. So anyways, thanks for listening, and we'll have, like I said, a couple more of these this week. So for Terry, this is Jimmy saying thanks for listening to LockedOnTitans, and we'll talk to you again later.