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The Tennessee Titans have watched teams stack the line all season trying to stop Jamal Lewis. Now the NFL's top-ranked defense against the run gets its turn.
The Titans held opponents to a league-best 80.9 yards rushing per game, and allowed only Edgerrin James to gain more than 100 yards this season. But Tennessee hasn't had to face Lewis, the NFL's Offensive Player of the Year.
And the Titans
think highly of Lewis.
``He's probably the closest thing that anyone has seen to probably Jim Brown,''
Titans linebacker Keith Bulluck. ``That's a big compliment, but it is what it
is.''
Tennessee coach Jeff Fisher said the Titans can't expect to completely shut down Lewis, who finished with 2,066 yards and was just short of Eric Dickerson's rushing record. The Titans can only hope to slow Lewis.
``All year, teams have put all their energy into stopping Jamal and haven't stopped him. That makes you nervous, but that's going to be the focal point,'' Fisher said.
The Titans have been challenged this season by some of the NFL's best running backs, and only James got the best of them as he ran for 120 yards in a 33-7 Colts victory in September.
Stephen Davis gained just 20 yards. Deuce McAllister had just 23, and Ricky Williams gained a mere 37 yards on 13 attempts.
The Titans' best run defense this season has been their offense. Tennessee has had plenty of early leads this year, forcing opponents to abandon the run and go to the air in an attempt to catch up.
Tennessee faced only 342 rushing attempts, the fewest in the NFL. Denver had the second-fewest attempts at 379, but ranked seventh against the run. Minnesota, with 387 rushing attempts, was the only other defense that faced fewer than 400 rushes this season.
That is exactly what the Titans hope to do against the Baltimore Ravens on Saturday -- get a lead, then force Anthony Wright to throw.
``We're going to see if he can come back in a playoff game,'' Titans linebacker Peter Sirmon said.
Lewis is the one who came closest to snapping the Titans' NFL-best streak of 29 straight home games without allowing a 100-yard rusher when he had 99 yards in Nashville on Nov. 12, 2000. In that game, the Ravens ended Tennessee's 12-game home winning streak.
Lewis said Wednesday that he is looking forward to facing the league's best rushing defense.
``Something's going to have to give, somebody's going to have to give, and hopefully it's not us,'' Lewis said.
Titans defensive end Jevon Kearse said stopping Lewis starts on the line, where the Ravens' big linemen build a wall for their running back.
``This enables Jamal to find a hole and slip through it until he comes one-on-one with a defensive back. We don't want our secondary to have to tackle him and put them on an island in those situations,'' Kearse said.
If Lewis gets past the Titans' line, he will run into Bulluck, the first-time Pro Bowler who led Tennessee with 177 tackles, and Sirmon, who ranked second with 141. Linebacker Brad Kassell is also involved in plenty of running plays.
``The bottom line is you just have to tackle him,'' Bulluck said. ``Obviously, if it was that easy then he probably wouldn't have run for 2,000 yards this season. But that's really what you have to do. You have to man up and tackle him.''
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