“You see a different personality in the Jaguars team right now and you saw it starting to develop last year, and that’s a credit to Jack.” That’s something Fisher would have never said when Coughlin was in charge. So Fisher seems to understand some of the pitfalls of playing a young, emerging team like Jacksonville. His own Titans are on the other side of that slope, starting to see the attrition of their stars and a rebuilding of their core players. Del Rio is developing a team in his second year that has a swagger on defense along with a togetherness that’s necessary to play together every play of every game.

The Jaguars head coach has somewhat of a formula to make the whole thing come together. “I like smart tough guys. I think guys who are smart and tough excel in this league. You’d like to have athletic, fast, big, smart tough guys, but smart and tough tends to win out. It’s been proven to me over the years that guys that have those qualities tend to excel.” It’s been Tennessee though that has had the reputation as a physical team, with the Jaguars their favorite opponent to push around.

“They want to be physical and so do we,” Marcus Stroud said in Thursday’s locker room session. “We just have to keep beating on them ‘till we come out winners.” Willie Blade echoed that sentiment. “It’s a pride thing too. It’s man against man, and you don’t want to come out a loser.” But it will take physical play to get the job done on Sunday. “What we’re looking for is victories on Sunday. They have been a very physical team and they’ve been a very successful team and I think you have to acknowledge that. They have been a good solid football team under Coach Fisher that’s played a certain style of play that’s been very physical. They’re not going to get too far away from that.”

The Jaguars head coach isn’t dwelling on the past, saying he wasn’t a part of the Jaguars losing ways against Tennessee, instead focusing on the game at hand and not worrying about the historical perspective. While that’s a very logical approach, the Titans are a rival, and Del Rio should understand the importance of wins against Tennessee for Jaguars fans. A win on the road against the Titans would do wonders for local fans confidence and start to erase some of the bad memories that lingers from playing Tennessee.

“My focus remains on this football team executing, being a good football team,” Del Rio said. “I think there are a lot of peripheral things, perceptions and things like that, that really don’t have much to do with our day-to-day operations or the tasks that’s in front of us, our approach. We’re going to go out, we’re going to prepare to play a very good opponent on the road in the division and go up to meet that challenge, and that’s where our focus remains.”