ESPN AFC South Blog

Posted by ESPN.com's Paul Kuharsky

An unexpected bye weekend doesn't seem to have done much for Ahman Green's ankle.

Green

On a conference call today, Gary Kubiak did not sound optimistic about Green's status for Sunday's game at Tennessee.

"He's day to day right now," Kubiak said. "He did not practice yesterday, I don't think he'll practice today. So I think there still could be some time with him. You never know with an ankle. Sometimes they turn around real quick. So we keep our fingers crossed.

"Is he important? Yeah, he's very important to the football team. But we're preparing right now to go with these young backs, to go with [Steve] Slaton, to go with [Chris] Taylor, [Darius] Walker. We were in that mode last week before the situation occurred. We'll approach it the same way this week."

The Titans have played very well against the run through two games, ranking as the league's best with a 60.5-yard average.

This will be just the second game for the Texans' cut-block heavy run scheme, which could prove cause for fireworks.

Asked about the concept in the preseason, Albert Haynesworth was wary.

"They always talk about us being dirty, maybe they need to look at that, trying to hurt people and stuff, he said. "If they aren't man enough to stay up, shoot, they shouldn't be in the league then. The coach either."

The Titans' other starting defensive tackle, Tony Brown, concurred:

"I dislike it. I feel like that's the offensive lineman's cheap way out of it. We're all out there trying to fight and compete. If you want to be a man about it, try to block someone one-on-one, don't cut him... We're not going to like it, but at the same time that's what they are being coached to do. So we know they are not trying to be personal about it. That's their scheme.

"It's up to us as a defensive line to keep them from doing us like that. What you want to do is make sure you get your hands on them as much as you can, because if you come off the ball and don't have any hands, they're going to go at your feet quicker than you imagine. One mistake from you, you know you're going to be down, and there goes the ball cut into your gap."

UPDATE, 3:17: Spoke with Haynesworth a little while ago, and he's hardly up in arms or worried about Houston's tactics:

"We've got some things that are going to work out for us. We're not really going to worry about that. We're going to get off the ball and knock them back before they can get into us. They don't chop every play, there are only certain plays. So we know what we are doing, we've got a scheme for it. We're going to get off the ball and knock them back before they can get onto us, that's the main thing. If we can knock them back, we'll be fine."