Titans - 34, Dolphins - 3
COACH VRABEL: Continue to stop them. That's what concerns me.
Q. [Question about taking care of business].
COACH VRABEL: Winning takes care of everything. That's what I learned a long time ago. In athletics, winning takes care of everything.
Q. [Question off microphone].
COACH VRABEL: We love our fans. Again, I'm happy for our organization to be able to win a title. I'm happy for our fans. They've been great. And some of the defensive guys are even commenting, like, trying to make checks or communication. And it's getting loud.
And we practiced that. We practiced the defense having to do that at home games. So that's really refreshing.
Q. You mentioned the defense holding them to three points. I don't think they got in the red zone all day. What did you see from your defensive guys?
COACH VRABEL: We gave up some plays. I thought they swarmed. I thought there was a speed there. We anticipated what the weather was going to be like. And I thought that all the credit goes to the players, obviously, but the way that we managed the game, took advantage of their mistakes.
Q. The way you ran the ball and how cool was it to do on a day like today?
COACH VRABEL: It was tough sledding early. It was tough. That's a good run defense. They pressure a lot. I felt the plan was good, the finish was good. We hit some runs and we were able to bust a couple there at the end.
Q. With Ryan getting two touchdown passes against his former team, how was it leading up to this game? And did you give him a game ball after this?
COACH VRABEL: No, the game ball will go to the entire team. Ryan was great. Really, we didn't have a whole lot of conversation about, remember back three years ago when you played for the Dolphins. We focused on our preparation.
Q. Fourth downs obviously opened the doors early for you to get things going. No doubts there on any of those, I don't imagine.
COACH VRABEL: Just made a decision. What's wrong, Paul, you didn't like the answer? I'm sorry, like, no doubt. There can't be doubt. You live in doubt. We don't. We like to live in being decisive and giving our players a chance to go make plays. That's what sports and athletics and competition is about. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. But doubt, no doubt.
Q. (Indiscernible) don't want anybody to get hurt. How much do you hate to see MyCole get hurt and carted off?
COACH VRABEL: It's awful. We all know what we signed up for and what this game gives us and sometimes what it takes away from us. And Pruitt, obviously I have history with him at other places and here.
He had been playing well and playing physical and helping us in the run game and catching the ones that we threw to him. And so hopefully we'll be able to just see where he's at. And saw him at halftime but I haven't seen him since then.
Q. On the subject of health, the offensive line started and finished the game tonight without issues. How big is that for the consistency of the running backs?
COACH VRABEL: I think that's something that, you want to have all your guys out there. They're working together and Ben's the glue to that unit. And we feel confident where we are in getting guys that haven't been in there, maybe. Dillon played last week, played some today. Brew played and everybody's ready to jump in there.
Q. With getting the division locked up, playoff spot locked up, do you hope that maybe that gives you some kind of, what is it, some room with Derrick, just in terms of hoping he can get back for you guys knowing you guys are already (indiscernible)?
COACH VRABEL: I think the plan is always going to be where is he at. And each individual player, can they do their job effectively? Can they make it worse? And can they protect themselves out there?
You guys -- it's a violent game. We done want to put guys out there that can't go out there and protect themselves or they can make it worse.
Q. [Question about David Long].
COACH VRABEL: Good to see him back. We joked before the game. If he forgot how to put his shoulder pads on, Rashaan, make sure you help him, buckle him up. It's been a while. David is a passionate player. And it's fun to see him go out and make some plays for us and get the interception there.
Q. (Indiscernible) haven't won a division title since '60-'61, the first two years. What's it say about these guys they've been able to forge --
COACH VRABEL: I think when you do this, you want to do it and you want to create a family that has a common goal of winning and understand that every member of that family or this team is going to be different, is going to be from somewhere else. And it's our job to try to bring everybody together for a common goal of winning, and that's what we've always tried to do.
Q. You mentioned the fans. How important is it to win on Sunday and give yourself a chance to kind of let the playoffs come through Nashville?
COACH VRABEL: I think winning takes care of everything. And that's what we told them all the time. And that the mentality was that we were just getting started. And we'll have to prepare for a team that's been playing really well and that's already beaten us once this year.
Q. You mentioned the importance of peaking this late in the season. Do you feel you are peaking? And if so, in what ways?
COACH VRABEL: I think there's some consistency. I thought we've been able to run the football. We've been able to take care of the football these last couple of games.
You see how critical that is to be able to take care of the football. We got off to a much faster start. And I know there was moments there in the third quarter where we kind of stalled and they kind of moved the football.
But I thought we responded there in the fourth quarter with really great effort.
Q. (Inaudible) just getting started a few times now. But before you go there, how do you think you guys even got here considering all the different challenges that you faced all season?
COACH VRABEL: I think it's a resolve by the type of people that are in our building that we've tried to bring in. I've tried not to panic when things come up. We just deal with it. We explain to them, we show them history of guys that have gone in and taken advantage of opportunities, have gone on to have great careers.
I think that they have seen other players on our team go in when guys are down and we've had some guys that have helped us out that didn't have jobs. Buster Skrine was out of work. D'Onta Foreman was out of work.
And when you get that opportunity, you're not in a big hurry to give it up. And that's what some of those guys have done.
Q. The adversity, I think it's 88 guys you've played. That's a record. Seeing some of those guys in this moment, does that make it more special?
COACH VRABEL: Well, it's always going to be special. But I think that some of those guys that maybe a lot of people haven't heard of or maybe didn't expect to help us out at points throughout the season is very rewarding to know that we've helped those guys be in a position to go out on the field and execute. And have given them the confidence and the trust to go out there and do their job.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports