Saffold Certain Titans Will be at Their Best

The Buffalo Bills' new left guard knows how good Ryan Tannehill, Derrick Henry, Kevin Byard and the rest can be when they face the best NFL teams.

Rodger Saffold couldn’t say he was surprised by the Tennessee Titans’ 21-20 loss to the New York Giants at Nissan Stadium on Sunday. Never mind that the home team was favored by four and a half points.

After all, in three seasons with the Titans (2019-21), the veteran guard experienced several of those surprising outcomes first-hand.

“I hate to say this: But when … they’re supposed to win, they usually have trouble,” Saffold said this week on One Bills Live. “It kind of goes the distance and doesn’t necessarily go in their way.

“But when they’re challenged with a really, really good team, they bring out their best ball.”

He makes an important point.

Saffold is now a member of the Buffalo Bills, a team that might be the NFL’s best based on Week 1 performances. Buffalo went on the road and dispatched the reigning Super Bowl champions, the Los Angeles Rams, 31-10 last Thursday in the first game of the 2022 season.

The combination of that and Tennessee’s dismal performance led oddsmakers to favor the Bills by more than a touchdown for this week’s matchup with the Titans, one of two Monday night games that will conclude the Week 2 schedule (6:15 p.m., ESPN, Fox).

Don’t try to tell Saffold it is a mismatch.

“I’m not expecting to see kind of the mishaps that happened last game,” he said. “I expect to see the best shot that they have to offer, and we need to nullify that and nullify it early.”

Saffold’s Titans’ tenure included a 2020 loss to Cincinnati, which dropped its next five and finished 4-11-1. A couple of weeks earlier they drilled Buffalo 42-16 in a matchup of unbeaten teams. That season included a pair of narrow victories over Houston, another four-win team.

Last season the Titans fell to 2-2 when they were upset by the New York Jets and two weeks later snapped the Bills’ four-game win streak. Tennessee also whipped the Rams 28-16 in early November and but capped the season with a three-point triumph over Houston, which once again finished with four victories.

There are other examples as well that make it difficult to argue with Saffold’s assessment.

“At the end of the day what matters is the guys in the locker room and the coaching staff who prepare us,” quarterback Ryan Tannehill said. “No matter what's going on outside or what people are saying about us, it doesn't really matter whether it's good or bad. We have to be able to believe in each other and have that synergy of believing each other and doing our job together in order to go out and play well.

“Sometimes for whatever reason, that ‘us against the world’ mentality increases that.”

Saffold is in Buffalo because the Titans released him this March to help create salary-cap space. The Bills signed him four days later, and he quickly settled in at left guard, the same position he played in Tennessee and – before that – for three-plus seasons with the Rams.

Don’t expect him to try to settle any scores this week, though. He simply plans to do his part to make the final score look like what so many envision it will be.

“You never want to go down the road that I kind of had to go to,” Saffold said. “There’s tough decisions for every team, so I never take any of that personally.

“… Because I have so much respect for the guys, because I know the identity of the team, because I know how these guys play, that’s all the motivation I need. I know that this is going to be a physical game. I know that there are going to be some big collisions. And I know that we’re going to have to be really efficient up and down the field.”