Here's What Titans Coach Mike Vrabel Said During Monday's Press Conference

NASHVILLE — Tennessee Titans coach Mike Vrabel met with the media on Monday and discussed several things from Sunday's 27-24 overtime win over the Los Angeles Chargers and started looking ahead to next Sunday's matchup with the Cleveland Browns.

Here's the video and full transcript from his press conference.

QUESTION: How good does it feel to be coming off a win for a change, and at this point what areas do you want to focus on, five sacks, offense, you saw improvement obviously, 27 points was the most in a little bit. Was this a flash of what this offense can do this year?

MIKE VRABEL: "It beats losing. We did a nice job of staying efficient. We played these guys last year and had probably 13 or 14 what we would call getting back-on-track down and distances, second-and-9 plus, first-and-15. We had four of them yesterday, with the fourth one being the second-and-12 at the end of the game.

"Just going into the efficiency, and you can see when we are able to get into drives at second-and-5 having a false start and making it second-and-10 and then with a positive play, it's third-and-10 and it's tough from there. We had the sacks, but a lot of those were on third down and those longer yardages. One was on a screen and Ryan (Tannehill) knows he has to find a place to get rid of the football on the heels of the running back or the heels of the linemen with the running back somewhere near there. One, they had a pressure and we had to block whoever showed. The TEs (tight ends), the games, that's something that's going to have to continue to get improvement, our ability to work with the guy next to us on the offensive line and coverage in the secondary, that's something we'll continue to work on.

"But there were also some really good plays, some really good pockets that allowed us to throw the ball downfield, we were efficient in the run game. It was easy to point to those (sacks), and we don't want those and can't have those, obviously. We don't want the quarterback to get hit, and we don't bad things to happen when he does get hit.''

Q: The run-pass balance was pretty interesting and the Derrick (Henry), (Tyjae) Spears balance was pretty interesting.

VRABEL: "It's all about getting into plays and drives and being able to allow some of those personnel groups to complement each other. You go in with a package and you try to continue to expand on some of those things.

"I thought that there was a good flow. We were able to run the football, we worked some tempo. We hit a big play and we got on the ball. We got a lot of our stuff run, but I still think there can be a lot better execution and try to limit some of the mistakes.

Q: More specifically on Derrick and Tyjae, on the carries and snap counts and all that, that did play out ideally for you as far as how they both played?

VRABEL: "Just wanted them both to be productive. We know Derrick is going to have to get his touches and Tyjae can clearly help us as well. Whether it's too little or too much, I sat in here before when Derrick rushed for 2,000 yards and he was getting it too many times. You guys are chuckling, but you're the ones who asked the questions.

Q: With Spears, it seems like he was running through a lot of tackles ...

VRABEL: "We're going to block for him one day, I promise you, (laughter) and he's going to gain 30, 40, 50 yards. Every time you think he's going to get tackled, he bursts through for another 5, 6 yards. He's got good vision, good balance, good play strength.

"Well executed call there. Justin helped Timmy out there in overtime that first drive. He said, 'hey, I want this play. I think we've got them set up for it.' I heard Justin talking to Timmy, Timmy led off the drive and got a good seal block and got us across the 50 and eventually we kicked the field goal. They're both going to help us and we have to make sure we get both of them the ball.''

Q: When you give up 300 yards passing but they go 2-for-14 on third down. The. two things don't really ...

VRABEL: "We just have to be better on first and second down. We had the one over our head empty, we had a seam ball on Cover-3. When it's Cover-3 on two-by-two, we have to know to take away the seam, and it they hit us with something else, they hit us with something else. We have to make sure that's taken care of. We had another seam to a big long tight end and we had three missed tackles. We only had eight missed tackles, and three of them were on one play.

"It just continues to be defensively just a small handful of plays that if you could have back, it would be really cool. You get down there and they're going fast. You make a check and not everybody gets it, and it's an easy touchdown. Some of the keys that we talked about, you can see them play out right in front of your eyes. And when the players execute them, it goes well.

Q: "Ryan mentioned yesterday that Kearis (Jackson's) 10 yards on the punt return was a good addition to give you the field position you needed for field goal drive at the end. How's he done, and how important is it that he's been able to fill two roles for you doing both the kickoffs and the punts.

VRABEL: "That was a great example of complimentary football there in overtime. Three-and-out, fourth-and-10 which now allows us to go seven-man, a lighter box and double one of the gunners. All week we knew how important just simply catching these punts from Scott was going to be.

"Unbelievable hang time, and you saw the sun. I told the team, you guys are more than welcome to apply for that job. So that was a huge part of the game plan. Kearis just catching the ball with guys coming right up in traffic right in front of him. This opportunity with not a great kick, getting those 10 yards that we didn't have to get offensively, that was huge.''

Q: What went into the decision to kick (the game-winning) field goal on third down?

VRABEL: "We were trying to wait out the rain, and then it started getting harder. Was it going to stop, or how long was it going to last. That's when we said, let's just kick it. They guys were all down there, had 11 guys on the line of scrimmage.

Q: You didn't throw outside the numbers a lot. Was that a plan?

VRABEL: "Throughout the game? I think you'd count the 70-yarder to Treylon (Burks) outside the numbers. He ran down the number and we threw it down the field. At the end of the game, we threw it outside the numbers to (DeAndre) Hopkins basically to win the game, so those are two examples where we did throw it out there and it worked out pretty well for us.''

Q: "Defensively, all three of your sacks came on third down. How big was that?''

VRABEL: "The key to playing the Chargers was simply to get the drive stopped, whether that was third down or fourth down. We did at least get it stopped two out of the five times in the red zone. Part of getting a drive stopped was on third and fourth down and in the red zone and the guys understood that. When they got down there, at least we were able to make them kick field goals on three of their opportunities.''

Q: "Their sacks all killed your drives. Is that a message to drive home?''

VRABEL: "Those are all on third down, the sack, whether we convert it or not, the sack is what everyone's going to look at. Whether we had guys open, whether we had guys coming free as a pass rusher. It's all about getting open quicker, snapping down in zone, quarterback knowing where he wants to go. The protection hlding up, It's easy just to say it's the protection. it has to be better on third down, whether you're expecting pressure of if you're protecting games.''

Q: "When did you know you were going to be without Peter (Skoronski, the rookie left guard), and what the timetable of coming back from that procedure. You didn't know about it until late. How much of a challenge did that put on the staff?''

VRABEL: "I would say sometime Saturday afternoon we became aware of that. It's on the players. The staff, you just want to make sure the next guy is ready. They practiced. (Xavier Newman) we started with him, and give a lot of credit to Dillon (Radunz) to be able to jump back in there after being out eight and a half months. That's an impressive feat, to play over 50 snaps like he did, and he played fairly well. The concern is about Peter and his health. We'll be fine.

Q: "Did he have an appendectomy?'

VRABEL: "He did have a procedure, and we'll keep you updated on when he'll be back out there.''

Q: "It seems like when Dillon came in, the offense and protection was better, you ran ball better, you scored points after that. Was that a coincidence? Did he make a huge difference up front?''

VRABEL: "He had some good blocks. I probably overlooked his first play in there. Talking to Hoss, he said he drove his guy 6 or 7 yards or whatever it was on his first play in there. I didn't have a chance to go back and look at it after meeting with the coaches, so I'll take his word for it as I go back to watch the tape. It wasn't without mistake, but there was probably more good plays than bad plays.

Q: "How do you evaluate your punting?''

VRABEL: "The 60-yarders with 4-5 (seconds) hangtime?''

Q: "They obviously got some returns out of that. There's some risk in that. Is that what you're looking for?''

VRABEL: "We'll see if we get them 60 outside the numbers with a little more hang. time. We're going to bang them, and we're going to cover them. We're going to get guys down there to find the football. A 44-yard net average against a really good returner. I'm not sure what you're working here.

Q: You have a risk of a return and there was a lot of space.

VRABEL: "We had risk in kicking off down there in New Orleans too and (Amani) Hooker made a play and caused a fumble. I don't know. Maybe we can move the ball a little bit. We'll have to cover more ground. It's a race to 50 yards. There's risk in everything you do, we just have to cover those kicks, especially when we just get single pressed.''

Q: How important is it for a quarterback to go back and have confidence like that?

VRABEL: "You're going to have to be able to throw the ball down field and create some X plays and not have to churn them out. We'll have to continue to throw them and trust our receivers to get separation and go make a play on the ball. Those were two huge plays. I don't think Treylon's made a bigger play for sure. We really needed a spark, and he made a big play.''

Q. Mike, I know it's just Monday, but are you hoping to have have (Kristian) Fulton and (Amani) Hooker back this week?

VRABEL: "We'll see where they are heading into Wednesday. We're hopeful at this point in time but it just being Monday, Amani has to pass through the (concussion) protocol and then we'll see where Kristian's at.''