John Fassel - Head Coach, titans Event: Press Conference | Date: 2026-09-17 | Full transcript (primary source).
John Fassel, Head Coach of the Titans, addressed the media during a press conference on September 17, 2026, following a game that featured several uncharacteristic mistakes in special teams play. The discussion focused on the team's performance, including issues with kickoffs and ball security during returns.
Transcript
Fassel: Pointed a little bit with the way your head's played. Sunday's seemed a little uncharacteristic on some of the plays. Kick off out of bounds, fumble on the kickoff, return, all sorts of things.
Fassel: Yeah, I mean, I would say that's fair for sure. Kick off out of bounds, we're trying to be aggressive with a dirty ball kick. And he actually hit it good, but when it hits the ground and it's hooking that way and it rolls that way, it just keeps going out of bounds. So we wanted to be aggressive, but we don't want the ball obviously to go out of bounds.
Fassel: And then, I think you mentioned the fumble. Yeah, Chim's been so good with the ball security. And we talked to our guys about it on Monday is Chim's responsible for the ball and the blockers are responsible for Chim. And we had a real nice cutback kick return going. And then we had a blocker on the backside kind of got away from one of our blockers, which is the one that turned Chim, made Chim spin back into a tackler who was being blocked. So it wasn't bad ball security. It was a block to clean up on the backside that kind of spooked Chim into a spin, which makes a runner vulnerable to losing the ball. Spinning, bracing, going to the ground, stiff farming, those are all mechanics of runners we talk about when the ball is vulnerable. So early season mistake for sure.
Fassel: Then obviously, keeping the ball out of the end zone is a big thing for us on punt and that's just something we got to keep working on with our punter and our gunners and the ball was going the same direction every time. And there's a little bit of a win that way and it pushed Tommy's punts probably three or four yards further than he wanted, which didn't give us much of a margin for air to down those balls.
Fassel: So yeah, for sure things to clean up in week one and some things that you practice in training camp, but you don't get a practice as much. You don't get your returner ever tackled in practice or in preseason games, which was something I didn't want to do is expose Chim to getting tackled in the preseason games, not knowing who the blockers were like we've talked about. So, but then you get that side of it where you're getting tackled for the first time. So yes, things to clean up, which is always a good part for a coach is to go in on Monday and say these are the things we got to tighten up. And we did that.
Fassel: Why be aggressive with the 30 ball kick right out of the gate instead of bang it through the end zone and start in a conventional safe fashion instead of taking any risk?
Fassel: Yeah, I think I got a good answer for you. Kickoff out of bounds is at the 40 you hit a touch back it's 35. She's talking about a five yard difference. So we're trying to create a drive start this the 20 yard line by hitting a dirty ball kick. We could just have a good hit one down and play that they catch the two yard line and the average drive starters like the 31 yard line. So that's the reason why we're aggressive, which is a very fair question. But for a five yard difference between touch back or ball out of bounds, we wanted to be aggressive to try to push the drive start into that 20 to 25 yard line like we've gotten out of our dirty ball kicks.
Fassel: What have those conversations been like with Chin this past week after a tough day knowing how much success he had last year?
Fassel: Yeah, I think gosh, I don't want to just say it's one game. But I mean, he only had two returns, one kickoff return in the game, where he fumbled it and he actually ran it, he ran it great. And we had 10 blockers on 10 of their cover guys. And I would say we did a pretty good job on nine of them. The one that we didn't is the one who spun Chin back towards the tackler. So Chin's got to hang onto the ball. The other one, he feel that it was a bad punt, and he feel that off a high hop. And just try to protect more yardage that the ball might have rolled if he didn't catch it, so to be honest with you, we're not stat chasers. I could've easily told Chin to back away from us so he doesn't get a one-punt return for zero or minus yardage. But we don't want that ball to bounce and have them continue to gain yardage on a bouncing ball. So statistics are not something I've ever chased or that we chase. And so I think it's a minus five yard punt return, which we talked to Chin about maybe just catching in and just going down and eating it for no yardage, which saves five, ten yards on a bounce. So to say Chin had a bad game I think would be a little bit unfair. But some things we need to work on for sure. And I don't wanna compare what Chin did last year to what happens in the first game cuz situations dictate success a little bit. And there wasn't a lot of opportunities for that in this game.
Fassel: What does Mike need to do differently or do they just make a good play when they forced him into Chin and which caused him to go into concussion protocol and I guess fortunate one to fumble. What does he need to do? Is this awareness maybe more anything else?
Fassel: No, you're talking about the one where he got dumped into the returner. Yeah, so that one we played him at 50 yards from the line of scrimmage, which is about the distance of their kicker or their punter. The punter hit a bad short miss hit kick. That brought him about 12 yards up to make the catch. And at the same time the corner is blocking the gunner with a time clock in his head as far as how much time he has to block that gunner before he shows up. And when that happens, Chin will run up and make a poison call while he's calling for a fair catch to alert the corner to pull off of the gunner and get out of the way so he doesn't get dumped. But it all happened in a matter of about one second. And as much as coaches like to say make the Peter call to alert the corner to pull off of the gunner, the corners hardly ever hear anything. They're so locked in to blocking the gunner that anything they see or they don't hear or see what we think they should see or hear cuz they're blocking. So the Jets guy, he gets up, pounds his chest like he did something. And it was a bad short punt that he knocked our corner into the returner. As we were trying to make a Peter call, but it all happens in brilliant flashes. And so it's hard to make a coaching point on that. Corner pull off of the gunner. Well, it's like coach, I mean, it happens so fast. And I can't hear him cuz I'm blocking the guy. So I've always said football happens and we made the right, Chin made a fair catch call. He ran up on a very short punt and the corner was doing a great job of blocking the gunner if you didn't, if Michael wasn't doing as good a job blocking the gunner, he wouldn't have been in position. But he was right where he should have been. And so it's just, you know, it's a bang bang and it happens.
Fassel: I'm sure you don't want any, but they're bound to happen. What's kind of an acceptable ratio of touch backs and what went wrong that the ratio was so high?
Fassel: Yeah, that's a great question. And I always felt like pin to touch back ratio, meaning you down a ball inside the really 10 compared to a touch back is five to one. You wanna have five pins for every one touch back. So I think we had three touch backs. So we need to get 15 straight pins to be in a ratio that I think is, you know, fair and what it should be, it's a very valid point. Pin to touch back ratio is what we talk about a lot.
Fassel: Did you show your guys the Tyler Owens rep from the Washington game? You know, talking about.
Fassel: Yeah, absolutely. We showed him that today. It's a great rep. Any thoughts on him? It's a great rep. It's a great rep. I mean, he's a big strong gunner. That's how it should be, you know, but not everybody's built like that. I mean, so it's like, yes, it's a highlight play and we watched it and it's a great play and it's a great all the action that got him there was incredible. But the tackle was superb. I mean, it's how you should tackle shoulder livers tackling and it was a great play.
Fassel: Not everybody can maybe make the image and you can feel a little different, but if you're able to get those types of plays in special teams, I mean, you've been in this a long time. How does that factor into what it can do for a team on one game, throughout the season in terms of momentum?
Fassel: Yes, it's a huge play and to that point, we talked to our special teams guys a lot about what we provide for a special teams play is important for that play. But what does it do when we're covering a kick and the defense is coming onto the field next? You know, what do we do when we're returning a kick and what it does for our offense running onto the field next as far as just a little bit of a blast of adrenaline or morale or momentum or whatever it might be. So we're aware of the action that's happening for us on special teams to execute the importance of that play. But also, when we're coming off the field at the end of a cover, to give some inspiration to the defense, whether it's that play or whether it's high five and tapping them on the behind or whatever it might be. So, yeah, I think week one, it felt like it was a little bit clunky as it were. There wasn't a lot of momentum or flow to that special teams game for us. And so I'm looking forward to us injecting some life into the defense when we cover punch and kick offs and injecting some life into the offense when we return punch and kick offs and I would expect us to do that at a higher level moving forward.
