Speaker 1: This is the OTP presented by Farm Bureau Health Plans.
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Speaker 1: history in Tennessee and to get a quote that is
Speaker 1: FBHP dot com. Welcome to the OTP. I'm Amy Wells,
Speaker 1: this is Mike Keith, and we are standing outside of
Speaker 1: the team auditorium here at Ascension Saint Thomas Sports Park
Speaker 1: for a very special reason. Mike Keith, you have been
Speaker 1: given a little job.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I have Chick Egse, our director of player Engagement
Speaker 2: for the Tennessee Titans, and one of the really important
Speaker 2: guys in the organization that maybe people on the outside
Speaker 2: don't know very well, has invited me to address the
Speaker 2: rookie class about the history of our entire franchise. And
Speaker 2: we have a deep, rich history. Obviously, it goes back
Speaker 2: six and a half decades. We're very proud of that history.
Speaker 2: It was incredibly important to Bud Adams, it's incredibly important
Speaker 2: to our new ownership team led by Amy Adams, Trunk
Speaker 2: and Kenneth and Barkley Adams, and so I've got an
Speaker 2: opportunity to pass some of that history along, and I'm
Speaker 2: pretty excited about it.
Speaker 3: Mike, do you know how to do this?
Speaker 1: I know you know the Titans history, but this is
Speaker 1: I mean, this isn't an audience here.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, it's all the draft picks and the undrafted.
Speaker 3: It's an important audience.
Speaker 2: I've never done it, so I'm nervous. I've prepared and
Speaker 2: we'll see if that kind of holds up. We'll see
Speaker 2: if I fall apart. I hope not, but I'm interested
Speaker 2: to do it because and the reason I'm so pleased
Speaker 2: that Chick has asked is that our history is important.
Speaker 2: And just like these guys come from colleges and take
Speaker 2: pride in the history and tradition of their colleges, we
Speaker 2: take a lot of pride in who we are, where
Speaker 2: we came from, what we're about, and there are a
Speaker 2: lot of important bits and pieces outside of just wins
Speaker 2: and losses that I think it will benefit the guys
Speaker 2: to completely understand, for example, our history with Jacksonville. Why
Speaker 2: the Jacksonville game is a big thing for us, and
Speaker 2: it really stems back to the fact that we beat
Speaker 2: them three times in nineteen ninety nine, the only three
Speaker 2: losses of the season. We kept them from going to
Speaker 2: the super Bowl, and for that reason, they really like
Speaker 2: to beat us. So hopefully I can help add a
Speaker 2: little bit of context to things like that example and
Speaker 2: can sort of add something.
Speaker 1: You know, this really is a great idea that Chick had,
Speaker 1: because when you come into a new team, you're looking
Speaker 1: for a reason to you know, grab on beyond just
Speaker 1: you know, our job.
Speaker 3: There's so much more. There's so much.
Speaker 1: Of the pageantry and the excitement and the rivalries that
Speaker 1: you get in college, but you've got to learn about
Speaker 1: in the NFL too, because there's a lot of good
Speaker 1: stuff here.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of good stuff, and it's important on
Speaker 2: a day to day basis because while this is a job,
Speaker 2: this game and the passion and emotion of it, and
Speaker 2: as you're walking through the building doing your job, all
Speaker 2: of those things combined in to make it a bigger
Speaker 2: deal to understand the why and the specialness why this
Speaker 2: one of the thirty two franchises in the NFL is
Speaker 2: so special. So I'm going to try to pass that
Speaker 2: along and hopefully not be boring the thing that you
Speaker 2: always fear is somebody falling asleep.
Speaker 3: Well, Mike, you are not boring.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you, all right, I gotta go if you
Speaker 2: don't want to get whacked by the door. All right,
Speaker 2: out here we go. I want to tell you that
Speaker 2: first and foremost can grcts on being part of the
Speaker 2: sixty fifth team in our franchise's history. It's a long
Speaker 2: time and it certainly spans well back beyond the Titans.
Speaker 2: You go back to our birth as the Houston Oilers.
Speaker 2: And it really started for us in winter of nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty nine when the man who had become our owner,
Speaker 2: Bud Adams, took a meeting with Lamar Hunt, the man
Speaker 2: who would become the owner of the Kansas City Chiefs
Speaker 2: and the AFC Championship Trophy is now named for him.
Speaker 2: At this point, there were two very young men and
Speaker 2: mister Hunt had an idea to start a football league
Speaker 2: to compete with the NFL. The NFL was not the
Speaker 2: big deal in the day. College football was a much
Speaker 2: bigger deal than pro football at that moment, so there
Speaker 2: was a feeling that another league, particular clearly of cities
Speaker 2: that didn't have NFL teams, would have a chance to
Speaker 2: make a dent. Mister Adams took the meeting and he
Speaker 2: said I'm in, and those two men moved it forward
Speaker 2: and eventually started the American Football League later that year.
Speaker 2: The original American Football League teams the Boston Patriots, the
Speaker 2: Buffalo Bills, the Dallas Texans who became the Kansas City Chiefs,
Speaker 2: the Denver Broncos obviously, the Houston Oilers who became the
Speaker 2: Tennessee Titans, the Los Angeles Chargers, the Oakland Raiders, and
Speaker 2: the New York Titans. And the New York Titans became
Speaker 2: the New York Jets, and in the late nineteen nineties
Speaker 2: they actually gave us the name Titans when we moved
Speaker 2: to Tennessee. So they're in a strange way part of
Speaker 2: our history. But the most important thing that happened in
Speaker 2: the early stage of the development of the American Football
Speaker 2: League was largely done by Bud Adams, our founder, because
Speaker 2: the biggest football star in the country at that moment
Speaker 2: in time in nineteen fifty nine was a running back
Speaker 2: from LSU by the name of Billy Cannon. Billy Cannon
Speaker 2: led LSU to the nineteen fifty eight National Championship. He
Speaker 2: was the nineteen fifty nine Heisman Trophy winner, and the
Speaker 2: NFL illegally signed him to a contract. In November of
Speaker 2: his senior year, the Los Angeles Rams put him under
Speaker 2: contract at that point. The contract was then going to
Speaker 2: be dated January twod nineteen sixty, after Billy Cannon had
Speaker 2: played in the Sugar Bowl. Well, mister Adams, who was
Speaker 2: pro football's original outlaw, said that doesn't work. So he
Speaker 2: offered Billy Cannon and his family more money to sign
Speaker 2: with the Houston Oilers. And what he did is he
Speaker 2: had a man by the name of Adrian Burke under
Speaker 2: the goal post on January first, nineteen sixty at the
Speaker 2: Sugar Bowl, and they signed Billy Cannon to a contract
Speaker 2: with our organization the minute he stopped playing college football.
Speaker 2: It went to court and the Houston Oilers won. Billy
Speaker 2: Cannon started off as a Houston Oiler. That struck the
Speaker 2: blow for the AFL because suddenly they were going to
Speaker 2: take on the NFL head to head. We had great
Speaker 2: success in the early years of the AFL, the first
Speaker 2: two AFL championships won by the Houston Oilers. The Oilers
Speaker 2: also played in the title game in the third year
Speaker 2: of the league. There was a lot of back and
Speaker 2: forth between the NFL and the AFL over players. It
Speaker 2: escalated to the point that it was way too expensive
Speaker 2: for both of them, and so after nineteen sixty six,
Speaker 2: a merger was put together and so the AFL teams
Speaker 2: would become part of the NFL and it would expand.
Speaker 2: For the four years during the time between the agreement
Speaker 2: and the merger, the AFL champion would play the NFL
Speaker 2: champion in what we now know as the Super Bowl.
Speaker 2: That's how the Super Bowl got started. The AFL won two,
Speaker 2: the NFL won two, and then in nineteen seventy it
Speaker 2: was all put together, and so the AFL helped to
Speaker 2: form the AFC as we now know it. Those AFL teams,
Speaker 2: and of course there's the NFC on the other side,
Speaker 2: and now the NFC and the AFC champions play for
Speaker 2: the Super Bowl. So that's a little bit of the backstory.
Speaker 2: After the merger happened, the Oilers had some success until
Speaker 2: they drafted a running back from Texas who had won
Speaker 2: the Heisman Trophy by the name of Earl Campbell, and
Speaker 2: for the next two seasons, for seventy eight and seventy nine,
Speaker 2: the Houston Oilers played in the AFC Championship game, had
Speaker 2: great success and there was a wave among the fan
Speaker 2: base that became known as Love You Blue, and it
Speaker 2: was one of the glory times of the Oilers. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: didn't last very long. The team sank back to despair
Speaker 2: and mister Adams decided to do something really bold. In
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty four, he went out and spent boukoos of
Speaker 2: money at the time forty years ago to sign a
Speaker 2: quarterback from Canada who had played at the University of Washington,
Speaker 2: but who had to go to Canada after his college career,
Speaker 2: and he had been so successful with the edmundton Escobos
Speaker 2: that at that point he was a big, big commodity.
Speaker 2: Mister Adams landed him his name, Warren Moon, a quarterback.
Speaker 2: The significance was not just that they paid a lot
Speaker 2: of money and that they went out and got the
Speaker 2: guy from Canada. The significance was it was the first
Speaker 2: time in NFL history that an owner had gone out
Speaker 2: and had signed a black quarterback to be the face
Speaker 2: of the franchise. He said, you are a guy, You're
Speaker 2: gonna lead us, and it was a historic move. It's
Speaker 2: won to this day that Warren Moon still talks about
Speaker 2: anytime he's asked about it. What it meant to the
Speaker 2: entire league. It was also a very good move. Eventually,
Speaker 2: after a couple of years of transition, the team went
Speaker 2: to the playoffs seven straight years, and Warren Moon was
Speaker 2: a pro bowler for virtually every one of them. It
Speaker 2: turned out to be one of the greats of his era.
Speaker 2: Nineteen ninety four, thirty years ago, something changed, though the
Speaker 2: salary cap came into be. The original salary cap in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four was thirty five million dollars. There were
Speaker 2: players last next year in this league whose salary cap
Speaker 2: cost was higher than that, but in those days, thirty
Speaker 2: five million dollars was where it started. The Oilers were
Speaker 2: not in position to keep the team together, so they
Speaker 2: had to break it all up and do another reset.
Speaker 2: In the midst of the reset in nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 2: the organization did something else historic. With the third pick
Speaker 2: in the nineteen ninety five draft, the Houston Oilers selected
Speaker 2: Steve McNair, quarterback all corn State. They decided that Steve
Speaker 2: McNair would be our future going forward, and a lot
Speaker 2: of people were surprised that they would take a quarterback
Speaker 2: from all corn at say you're going to be the guy.
Speaker 2: The other significant thing that happened during that period of
Speaker 2: time is Houston would not build mister Adams a new stadium.
Speaker 2: We had always been renters. With the advent of the
Speaker 2: salary cap, the big issue for us was you needed
Speaker 2: a different business model where you controlled things in your
Speaker 2: own stadium because as we knew, the salary cap was
Speaker 2: only going to go up. And so mister Adams asked
Speaker 2: Houston to build the new stadium. They wouldn't build it.
Speaker 2: He realized from a business standpoint, he had no options.
Speaker 2: So he asked his chief lieutenants with the Oilers organization,
Speaker 2: find me candidates where we can move the franchise. There
Speaker 2: were several mister Adams settled on Nashville, and he did
Speaker 2: that for a very strange reason. Mister Adams, obviously a wild,
Speaker 2: wildly successful businessman, sat on several boards of companies. One
Speaker 2: of those boards was Couson Plastics, a toy company in Franklin.
Speaker 2: So mister Adams would come to Nashville periodically for different
Speaker 2: board meetings with Couson Plastics, and he liked Nashville. He
Speaker 2: saw things grow, He saw things happening. He liked the people,
Speaker 2: and so he told his team with the Oilers, I
Speaker 2: want to move to Nashville, Tennessee. There's no pro football
Speaker 2: in the Mid South. All we had here was the SEC,
Speaker 2: and of course the SEC, as we still know to
Speaker 2: this day, is king. And he wondered, why can't we
Speaker 2: make pro football as exciting in this region as the
Speaker 2: Southeastern Conference to football fans. He knew there would be
Speaker 2: no problem finding football fans here, but he had to
Speaker 2: get a stadium. So he picked up the phone and
Speaker 2: he called Nashville Mayor Phil Bredison and he said, Mayor Bretison,
Speaker 2: b Adams with the Houston Oilers, if you'll build me
Speaker 2: as stadium, I'll move my football team there. And Brettison
Speaker 2: hung up the phone. He thought it was a prank call.
Speaker 2: So a few minutes later they realized it wasn't a
Speaker 2: prank call, they called him back. Everyone had a good laugh,
Speaker 2: and in nineteen ninety six the process of moving the
Speaker 2: team here started. But Nashville had no stadium of its own,
Speaker 2: so in nineteen ninety seven we played in Memphis. We
Speaker 2: were supposed to play in Memphis for two years. That
Speaker 2: didn't work out great so in nineteen ninety eight they
Speaker 2: convinced Vanderbilt to let us play there while what we
Speaker 2: now know is Nissan Stadium, originally a Delphia Colisseum, was
Speaker 2: being built. Nineteen ninety nine was the year the franchise
Speaker 2: had gone eight and eight for three straight years. The
Speaker 2: coaches and everybody with the organization knew that mister Adams
Speaker 2: expected to go to the playoffs inside our building. This building,
Speaker 2: which had opened in August of ninety nine, August twenty fifth,
Speaker 2: to the exact, they called it playoffs or pink slips.
Speaker 2: Everybody was getting the acts if it didn't work. So
Speaker 2: we had three goals as an organization. Number one, make
Speaker 2: the playoffs, Number two sell out every game at what
Speaker 2: was then known as Adelphia Coliseum, and number three host
Speaker 2: a playoff game. And what happened. We went thirteen and three,
Speaker 2: but we didn't win our division. Our division at that
Speaker 2: time was the AFC Central. Jacksonville won the AFC Central
Speaker 2: that year. They were fourteen and two. We were thirteen
Speaker 2: and three. Jacksonville's only two losses to us we beat
Speaker 2: them down there in a driving rainstorm in September, and
Speaker 2: then we beat them up here on the day after Christmas.
Speaker 2: But they were the division champs, they had the best
Speaker 2: record in ball and so they would be the number
Speaker 2: one seed in the playoffs. We did get a home
Speaker 2: game though, We got to host the Buffalo Bills January eighth,
Speaker 2: two thousand, back and forth affair. Buffalo kicked a field
Speaker 2: goal with sixteen seconds to go. We're down sixteen to
Speaker 2: fifteen Titans at that point. On the sidelines, Jeff Fisher
Speaker 2: and his Special teams coach Alan Lowry said, we have
Speaker 2: to pull out something we practiced every Saturday called home
Speaker 2: Run Throwback. That was the name of the play home
Speaker 2: Run Throwback. But we have all kinds of problems, all
Speaker 2: kinds of problems. First of all, our return mayn Derek Mason,
Speaker 2: who went on to become a great receiver for us
Speaker 2: and for the Baltimore Ravens. Derek Mason has a concussion.
Speaker 2: They had to hide his helmet in a trunk because
Speaker 2: he wanted to go back in the game. He can't go,
Speaker 2: Anthony Dorr said, is his backup. Anthony Dorsett has leg cramps,
Speaker 2: can't play. So we go out on the field to
Speaker 2: run home run throwback with sixteen seconds to go in
Speaker 2: this playoff game, and they pull out Kevin Dyson, a
Speaker 2: second year receiver from Utah, and they say, listen, you
Speaker 2: just need to go in and just you're basically the
Speaker 2: eleventh guy. That's it. You're just going in. As they
Speaker 2: go into the field, the guy who is supposed to
Speaker 2: catch the lateral pass, Isaac Byrd, tells Kevin Dyson, whatever
Speaker 2: you do, stay behind me just in case I have
Speaker 2: to throw a second lateral to you. So Steve Christie's
Speaker 2: the kicker for Buffalo. He kicks it up in the air.
Speaker 2: That's a huge problem. We had never practiced it with
Speaker 2: a kick up in the air. We'd always practiced it
Speaker 2: with a squibkick. Our fullback Lorenzo O'Neill, who was basically
Speaker 2: a guard with a low number camps out under it,
Speaker 2: were terrified. First of all, he basically has, as Frank
Speaker 2: Whitcheck would say, spoons for hands, and everybody thought he's
Speaker 2: either gonna drop it or he's gonna fair catch it.
Speaker 2: Why is he doing this? Well, when he went onto
Speaker 2: the field, he told Frank, if they kick it short,
Speaker 2: I'll get it and hand it back to you. And
Speaker 2: so that's what he did. He caught the kick off
Speaker 2: and turned and handed it back to Frank Whitecheck. Whitcheck
Speaker 2: was a tight end pro bowler, one of the best
Speaker 2: athletes on our football team period. He ran to his right,
Speaker 2: turned and threw the ball back down the twenty five
Speaker 2: yard line thirty yards. Now, he was wearing tight end
Speaker 2: pads and he made this incredibly act, curate throw. He
Speaker 2: thought he was going to be throwing it to Isaac Burr.
Speaker 2: The problem was when the ball went up in the air. Initially,
Speaker 2: Ike started forward and fell down. He took himself out
Speaker 2: of the play. So what should have happened is Frank
Speaker 2: Whitcheck's pass right down the twenty five yard line should
Speaker 2: have gone out of bounds. But remember what Ike told
Speaker 2: Kevin Dyson stayed behind me, just in case Kevin Dyson
Speaker 2: goes back, catches the ball, and Buffalo is totally out
Speaker 2: of position. They had been fooled by everything, and all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, Kevin Dyson heads down a path on
Speaker 2: the west sideline toward the north end zone and there's
Speaker 2: nobody there. Seventy five yard touchdown, the Music City Miracle,
Speaker 2: one of the most famous plays in NFL history. So
Speaker 2: it was neil to Whycheck Dyson should have never worked,
Speaker 2: but it worked because the other eight guys executed their
Speaker 2: spots perfectly. They executed the fake they threw off Buffalo,
Speaker 2: and then they formed the corridor up the sidelines and
Speaker 2: took Kevin Dyson home. Didn't get a penalty, and just
Speaker 2: make sure and do their jobs. It's important to know
Speaker 2: the other eight guys who were on the field for
Speaker 2: the Music City miracle number twenty, Rodney Thomas, number thirty five,
Speaker 2: Perry Phoenix number fifty, Terry Killings number fifty one, Greg
Speaker 2: Favors number fifty nine, Doug Coleman number eighty three, Isaac
Speaker 2: Byrd number eighty four, Larry Brown number eighty eight, Jackie Harris.
Speaker 2: Because you know, to this day, all of those players
Speaker 2: claimed that as their highest moment in the league. A
Speaker 2: couple of those guys work in administration in athletics, and
Speaker 2: it's in their box. He was part of the famous
Speaker 2: Music City miracle. It was unbelievable. Place erupted, and suddenly
Speaker 2: Nashville became a massive, overwhelming, incredible NFL town in one day.
Speaker 2: Next week we went to Indianapolis. They were a heavy
Speaker 2: favorite to beat us. Peyton Manning's first playoff game, we
Speaker 2: somehow won that game came home, ten thousand people were
Speaker 2: in the Nashville airport waiting for us. It was crazy.
Speaker 2: The next week we go to Jacksonville AFC championship game.
Speaker 2: They're great revenge. They had beaten Miami the week before
Speaker 2: in Dan Marino's last career game sixty two to seven.
Speaker 2: Damn is right, and boy, they were laying for us.
Speaker 2: And we walked in there and smacked him right in
Speaker 2: the mouth, beat him thirty three to fourteen on their
Speaker 2: field in front of their fans at what was to
Speaker 2: be their coronation moment. And we went to the super Bowl. Now,
Speaker 2: if you don't understand from what I just said, why
Speaker 2: Jacksonville has heat for us to this day. That's the reason.
Speaker 2: So we went to the super Bowl, Super Bowl thirty four.
Speaker 2: Kevin Dyson was tackled on the one yard line as
Speaker 2: time ran out. One of the greatest Super Bowls ever.
Speaker 2: Nashville was so enthralled by everything. They had a parade
Speaker 2: for us. After we lost the Super Bowl. More people
Speaker 2: went to our parade down Broadway, then went to the
Speaker 2: parade in Saint Louis for the Rams. It's crazy. The
Speaker 2: five year period we had, those first five years starting
Speaker 2: in ninety nine, sixty one wins, four playoff appearances, two
Speaker 2: AFC Championship games, that Super Bowl. One of the most
Speaker 2: significant things that happened during that period of time was
Speaker 2: Steve McNair. In two thousand and three, was named the
Speaker 2: MVP of the NFL, first black quarterback to ever be
Speaker 2: named the league's MVP. The most courageous player I've ever seen,
Speaker 2: the toughest player I've ever seen, my favorite player that
Speaker 2: I've ever seen. If I had to walk out these
Speaker 2: doors and put it all on the line to save
Speaker 2: my family, the one Titans player I would ask to
Speaker 2: go with me to this day is Steve McNair. You
Speaker 2: will never find anybody that was associated with organization who
Speaker 2: wouldn't say the same thing. Eddie George would say the
Speaker 2: same thing. Jovon Kurst would say the same thing. That's
Speaker 2: what he was to all of us, and when he
Speaker 2: won that MVP, that felt like we all wanted and
Speaker 2: Steve understood the significance. He understood what Warren Moon had
Speaker 2: meant to him, what Randall Cunningham had meant to him,
Speaker 2: and that what he meant to quarterbacks that would follow
Speaker 2: it was special and it made us all proud. We
Speaker 2: went through another little downturn because of the salary cap.
Speaker 2: Came back in two thousand and seven, went to the
Speaker 2: playoffs two thousand and eight, ten and oh to start
Speaker 2: the season, thirteen and three. Great year. Two thousand and nine.
Speaker 2: Chris Johnson rushes for two thousand yards CJ two K.
Speaker 2: It was phenomenal to watch. He set the NFL record
Speaker 2: for yards from scrimmage over twenty five hundred yards from scrimmage.
Speaker 2: That still stands. It was fun. It was fun, got rocky,
Speaker 2: as it sometimes does, had some starts and stops with coaches,
Speaker 2: had some starts and stops with quarterbacks, and we were
Speaker 2: out in the wilderness for seven years, I mean really
Speaker 2: out in the wilderness. But twenty sixteen we got things
Speaker 2: back on track and that started a run of six
Speaker 2: straight winning seasons. It was fun again. Twenty nineteen through
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one was really fun. Nineteen we go to
Speaker 2: the playoffs, first round. We draw the New England Patriots
Speaker 2: in Foxborough. Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, all those guys. Rumor
Speaker 2: is if and when they lose, Brady's gone, he wants out.
Speaker 2: We walk in that place and Derrick Henry went crazy
Speaker 2: that night. Our defense did something incredibly special that night
Speaker 2: and we beat them, and that was Tom Brady's last
Speaker 2: game with the New England Patriots. The Tennessee Titans, your
Speaker 2: team did that. The next week, we go into Baltimore.
Speaker 2: They're the number one seed. Lamar Jackson's the MVP. We
Speaker 2: got no chance. We beat him, and out of nowhere,
Speaker 2: a nine to seven team goes to the AFC Championship
Speaker 2: game and we're ahead of the Kansas City Chiefs, and
Speaker 2: then well didn't work out the way we wanted. Twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: we come back, We win the AFC South for the
Speaker 2: first time in twelve years. Twenty twenty one, we win
Speaker 2: the AFC South again. We have the best record in football.
Speaker 2: It was a good, good run. And then there are resets,
Speaker 2: and we're coming off of another reset at this point.
Speaker 2: You know what stands out that may surprise you is
Speaker 2: it is possible that on your team, the twenty twenty
Speaker 2: four Tennessee Titans, we will only start three players who
Speaker 2: started for US two years ago in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: Think about that, out of twenty four spots, it's conceivable
Speaker 2: that only three of them will be manned by guys
Speaker 2: who were here two years ago. That's the NFL. There
Speaker 2: are always resets, but it opens up opportunities for people.
Speaker 2: And this has been an organization that consistently has seen
Speaker 2: opportunity go to people. Whether you're from a small school,
Speaker 2: whether you're from a big school, no matter what you
Speaker 2: look like, no matter, like I said, where you come from.
Speaker 2: We have a type and that type is people who
Speaker 2: want to win championships. Because what we want here is
Speaker 2: we want you to be taking that parade down Broadway
Speaker 2: when we hoist the Lombardi Trophy. That's why you're here,
Speaker 2: That's why people have come through these doors. That's why
Speaker 2: mister Adams and now Amy Adams Strunk says, we just
Speaker 2: want people who want to win championships. That's what we're after.
Speaker 2: We have some people on our wall who have their
Speaker 2: number retired. Warren Moon is number one, Steve mcmahor number nine,
Speaker 2: Eddie George number twenty seven, Earl Campbell, number thirty four,
Speaker 2: Jim Norton, who was a safety and a punter for
Speaker 2: the Oilers in the sixties, number forty three, Mike Munchak,
Speaker 2: one of the great guards of the eighties, and our
Speaker 2: head coach, our offensive line coach for a period of
Speaker 2: time number sixty three, Elvin Bethay, one of the great
Speaker 2: past rushers of the nineteen seventies, Number sixty five, and
Speaker 2: Bruce Matthews, a guy who incredibly played nineteen years in
Speaker 2: the offensive line in this league, number seventy four. So
Speaker 2: if you wanted one of those eight numbers and wondered
Speaker 2: why you didn't get it, that's why. But those guys
Speaker 2: were certainly standouts for us in certain ways who it
Speaker 2: can't be measured. As a matter of fact, five of
Speaker 2: them are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. We've
Speaker 2: essentially done everything in sixty five years, but win the championship,
Speaker 2: win the Super Bowl. That's why you're here. I can't
Speaker 2: wait to watch you get this opportunity. I can't wait
Speaker 2: to have a chance to tell your stories and your
Speaker 2: story as a group on the and on TV, through
Speaker 2: social media, through everything we do, all the things that
Speaker 2: I've talked about, Bud Adams, taking Billy Cannon from the NFL,
Speaker 2: Love You Blue, Earl Campbell, Warren Moon, Steve McNair, the Titans,
Speaker 2: the Music City Miracle, CJ two K, doing what we
Speaker 2: did in the twenty nineteen playoffs, ending the Patriots run
Speaker 2: Derrick Henry, Big Jeff. That's all in your DNA, and
Speaker 2: it's important you know it. It's important you know why
Speaker 2: we wear the colors we wear is because mister Adams
Speaker 2: would not leave the history behind in Houston. When we
Speaker 2: moved to Nashville. Mister Adams told the commissioner he was
Speaker 2: not going to do what other franchises had done because
Speaker 2: he founded this organization, and so they retired the name Oilers,
Speaker 2: and all of our history came with us in order
Speaker 2: for us to become the Titans, So you're still part
Speaker 2: of that. You will meet the Oilers when we have
Speaker 2: homecoming week. You're obviously going to meet a lot of
Speaker 2: the Titans because of our owner, Amy Adams Strunk and
Speaker 2: what she does. Our guys come back. They love to
Speaker 2: come back, and you're going to be surprised the first
Speaker 2: time you see Javon Kirsch walk down the hall, when
Speaker 2: you see Eddie George float in here for lunch, when
Speaker 2: you have a chance to meet CJ. Two K and
Speaker 2: all of these cats because they like being here with
Speaker 2: our ownership group. You've arrived at the right time, though,
Speaker 2: because we're ready to elevate again and the stadium is
Speaker 2: such a big deal. I was here for the first
Speaker 2: one when we opened it in ninety nine. We won
Speaker 2: our first thirteen games in what's now known as Nissan Stadium.
Speaker 2: Our new stadium, with a roof two point one billion dollars,
Speaker 2: will host Super Bowls, it will host Final Fours, It'll
Speaker 2: host the College Football Playoff, It'll host WrestleMania, It'll host
Speaker 2: some of the biggest concerts in the world. But the
Speaker 2: best part about it is it's going to be the
Speaker 2: best home field advantage in the NFL because everything they
Speaker 2: have done to design it has been about world class
Speaker 2: right these events, because Nashville has become a world class
Speaker 2: city just like Bud Adams thought it would. But it's
Speaker 2: never lost. The thought is we've got to keep the
Speaker 2: noise in there to make it the home field advantage
Speaker 2: it can be. I'm appreciated this opportunity to talk to you.
Speaker 2: I'm so proud to be a part of this. Like
Speaker 2: I said, I'm thrilled that you're here and the journey
Speaker 2: starts now with all of this and you as part
Speaker 2: of the sixty fifteen in our franchise's history. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Remember that seat Geek is the official ticketing partner of
Speaker 1: the Tennessee Titans. Whether you're buying or selling tickets to
Speaker 1: a Titans game or any other live event in Nashville.
Speaker 3: Seat Geek is the place to do it.
Speaker 1: Seat Geek the new official ticketing partner of the Tennessee Titans.
Speaker 1: So Titans fans can fan. I think Mike is done.
Speaker 1: Maybe Mike, how'd it go?
Speaker 2: I mean, from my perspective, it was will nerve wracking.
Speaker 3: Any sleepers didn't see anybody.
Speaker 2: Of course, they all want a job, so it's true.
Speaker 3: They're engaged.
Speaker 2: They're engaged. It was just special to get to do that,
Speaker 2: having been with the organization for a minute, to have
Speaker 2: them call on you to address the players at any point,
Speaker 2: it was. It was very special. I'm very thankful for
Speaker 2: it and very thankful that the OT people are getting
Speaker 2: a chance to experience it too. After the fact, out Keith,
Speaker 2: thank you. So I'm gonna do what I always do,
Speaker 2: and that's say good night, fray Well, I'm Mike Keith,
Speaker 2: thank you for joining us for the o T Welcome
Speaker 2: to the
Speaker 3: Big show where the Leggin's going