This week is the annual My Cleats My Cause game for NFL players. The NFL’s regulations on what players can wear in conjunction with their uniform is fairly strict, but this is one week of the season where players creativity and community involvement can shine. Players across the NFL will be wearing colorful, unique cleats to promote a wide variety of great causes.
The Tennessee Titans will have a record number of 20 players participating in My Cleats My Cause this year. 100% of the proceeds go the charitable causes that the players have chosen to support, so this is one of the excellent programs that the NFL runs each year. The Titans have players supporting a vast array of worthy causes including youth empowerment, childhood cancer research, hurricane relief and leveling the playing field among many others.
Some of the players will be using their cleats to raise money in addition to awareness. Rookie corner Adoree Jackson’s mother was the 12th Titan earlier this season and her struggle with breast cancer has affected Adoree deeply. Jackson will be auctioning off his custom cleats after the game to help raise even more money for treatment and research. Derrick Henry is another Titan who has been affected by cancer within his own family and #22 is wearing a very special pair of cleats this weekend. Henry’s cleats feature the names of his aunt, uncle and grandfather who passed away due to cancer. Henry stated that he wanted to make sure that his loved ones and everyone affected by that awful disease know that people are praying for them. Rookie Taywan Taylor is wearing cleats to promote ALS awareness, which is cause that hits home for the Tennessee Titans. Former Titan Tim Shaw has courageously battled the disease in the public eye and Taywan’s cleats honor Shaw and everyone fighting against ALS.
Jim Wyatt of Titans Online wrote an excellent description of all 20 Titans and the cleats they are wearing for My Cleats My Cause: https://www.titansonline.com/news/article-4/Twenty-Titans-Twenty-Cleats-%E2%80%94-and-Why–/4bbddcc2-d87f-4325-a69e-2db2aa5debe8
My Cleats My Cause is a wonderful idea and will certainly be an important part of Sunday, but there is still a game to be played at Nissan Stadium as well. The Titans win a week ago combined with Jaguars close loss allowed the Titans to regain the lead in the AFC South. The Texans blew the Titans out earlier this season in Houston, so Tennessee will be looking to even the season series this weekend while also exacting a little revenge. That Houston team was led by rookie sensation Deshaun Watson, but Watson suffered an unfortunate injury and is done for the year. Tom Savage has taken over for Bill O’Brien’s team and while solid, his play has been nothing like the extraordinary start to Watson’s career. Coming off eight sacks a week ago, Dick LeBeau’s defense will look to shut down the Texans running game behind Lamar Miller and harass savage for the duration of the game.
Savage started for the Texans on New Year’s Day the last time Houston played at Nissan Stadium. He fumbled for a scoop and score from Daquan Jones and the Titans won in Week 17, so Tennessee will look to repeat that winning formula up front on defense. The Titans struggled to gain any traction in the running game against the Colts until the fourth quarter, so Terry Robiskie will certainly be looking for his offensive line to muster a strong performance. Also, the Titans need Marcus Mariota to snap out of a funk and improve on his last two games where he has thrown only two touchdowns and six interceptions.
If the Titans are able to continue their season long trend of stopping the run on defense and they are able to establish the running game on offense they will likely have success. Winning on Sunday would put the Titans at 4-1 in the division and 8-4 on the season, which would be a great position heading into the final quarter of the regular season.
Tune to the Titans Radio Network and 104.5 the Zone all weekend long for the most complete Tennessee Titans coverage.
