Titans Stand On Patriots' Midfield Logo Before Playoff Game In Foxboro
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
FOXBORO (CBS) -- It happens every week that there's a football game in Foxboro. Maybe 10 or 15 minutes before the opening kickoff, the PA announcer tells the crowd that the visiting team is taking the field. That team exits the tunnel in the corner of the stadium, welcomed by a chorus of boos, and jogs across the field to the visiting sideline.
That was the scene Saturday night prior to the Patriots' playoff meeting with the Titans. But Mike Vrabel's team made a quick detour.
As the Titans took the field in Foxboro, most of them took a right turn and headed to midfield, where they held their pregame meeting while standing directly on top of the Patriots' logo.
It was not necessarily an overt act of aggression by the visiting team, but it was certainly a meeting that had a message. Vrabel had told his team this week that they can't "stare at the pinstripes," a line from the movie "Catch Me If You Can" that sought to explain why the Yankees always win.
Holding that pregame huddle on the midfield logo was likely just an internal reminder for the Titans to not be intimidated in a building where many teams have fallen flat in big games.
