George says it's time for Titans to make it personal

Franchise's all-time leading rusher says Sunday's game with Colts an opportunity to 'take the torch'

Eddie George says it’s personal. Or, at least, it ought to be.

The Tennessee Titans’ all-time leading rusher made the media rounds Thursday in advance of Sunday’s game against the Indianapolis Colts, when the team will retire his No. 27 along with quarterback Steve McNair’s No. 9.

In addition to looking back on his career and the life and legacy of McNair, George made perfectly clear what it could mean to the future of the AFC South if the Titans can beat the Colts on Sunday. The way he sees it, the importance of this contest cannot be overstated given the potential impact it can have not just on this season but going forward as well.

He said it in multiple interviews and told the current Titans the same thing when he addressed the team following the day’s practice session.

“This game, it’s early in the season but it’s the most important game,” George said during an appearance on The Wake Up Zone (WGFX-FM 104.5). “Not just because it’s the next game but who it’s against [and] the history involved. There’s games where you say, ‘OK, it’s business.’ But then there’s games where you say it’s personal.

“This game is personal and it needs to be approached that way.”

The AFC South was created in 2002 when the NFL expanded to 32 teams and realigned. Since then the Colts have won the division nine times and finished second another six. They have made the playoffs 13 out of 17 years.

The Titans were the first team to win the AFC South but since then they have finished first just once (2008). They have reached the postseason five times.

Head-to-head, Indianapolis has won 26 of the 34 games in which the franchises have met as division rivals, including the 2018 regular season finale in which the winner was guaranteed a playoff spot.

“To me, this weekend is a game that’s big,” George said. “Bigger than the playoffs or the Super Bowl because this is where you can change the narrative. There’s a paradigm shift. You can do all this in one weekend and take the torch, so to speak, from the Indianapolis Colts and take control of the [AFC] South, from a mental perspective. So this is big in terms of a momentum shift, of really a power shift – so to speak – for the Titans and moving forward toward their goal in going from good to great.

“Those early games, especially against a team you struggled against, those are defining games. Those are defining moments.”

He noted that a Week 3 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars altered things dramatically for the 1999 Titans, who had gone 8-8 in each of the previous three seasons. Much of that contest was played in a heavy rain, but Tennessee rallied from a 10-point fourth quarter deficit behind backup quarterback Neil O’Donnell and won 20-19 to improve to 3-0. That team finished 13-3 and advanced to Super Bowl XXXIV with its third victory over Jacksonville, 33-14 in the AFC Championship.

The similarities he sees between then and now go beyond the opportunity to stay unbeaten with an early victory over a division rival.

“This team is dangerous,” he said. “They’re dangerous. And I say that because they remind me a lot of us and the teams that I played on here, in terms of the culture, the mindset. They play with bad intentions, defensively, letting you know you’ve been hit and ‘this is how we’re going to play today for 60 minutes plus.’ … They’re battle tested. They have experience.”

Now they just have to make it personal.