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NFL

Titans can say they have gone extra step

ALAMEDA, Calif. -- Much is made (and said and written) about the experience the Raiders players have in big games, including the AFC Championship Game two years ago.

It's not as if the Titans are the new kids on the block.

Much of the team's core played in the AFC Championship Game the year before and, unlike the Raiders, it won, and on the road, at Jacksonville.

Raiders safety Anthony Dorsett was with Tennessee then, and he said the experience of getting to the Super Bowl definitely will benefit the Titans this week.

"Any time you've had guys who have gone all the way and have become champions and can share that with you, that's something you really can't feel just by talking about it, to have some guys who know how to win in games like this," Dorsett said.

"This game is going to be such a big game, but people have to understand the Titans have been here before. They've been in the championship game, and they've won the championship game, and that experience is going to help them out this week when they come out here. It's definitely going to play into their favor. And the year they won it, they won it in somebody else's stadium.

"When you have guys who've been able to accomplish some of the things these guys have been able to, and to be able to share some of that stuff, it's definitely going to help people out."

NO LONGER FORGOTTEN: Frank Wycheck doesn't track his stats. He simply catches passes.

But when Derrick Mason took over as Titans quarterback Steve McNair's favorite target, people noticed and started asking Wycheck what was wrong.

Coach Jeff Fisher kept promising the Titans hadn't forgotten about the 10-year veteran. Still, Wycheck couldn't help but wonder if he was too old for the NFL.

"I just wasn't getting a lot of opportunities, and sometimes you sit back and question yourself," the 31-year-old Wycheck said. "Am I doing things right? Am I too old? Can I do this anymore? And sometimes it plays with your confidence."

Wycheck answered the questions, and his doubts, by turning in the best day of his career in the Titans' 34-31 overtime victory over the Steelers on Saturday.

He caught 10 passes for 123 yards and a touchdown, helping the Titans reach Sunday's AFC Championship Game. Wycheck is 12 catches shy of becoming the fourth tight end with 500.

"He's been very patient this year and gone about his job," Fisher said.

OH, MRS. ADAMS: Raiders defensive tackle and ex-Raven Sam Adams said almost nothing matches the feeling he had after winning Super Bowl XXXV in Tampa.

"It's the be all and the end all," Adams said. "When you win a championship, I can't explain it. It's the closest thing to meeting your wife. ... You really cannot fathom what it means until you win that game."

IT'S BORING, BUT ... : The Raiders, perhaps more than any other team, prefer to do their own thing and keep it behind the locked gates of their training complex.

So how do they avoid the distractions of the postseason?

"We've taken what we call the 3-D approach: our demeanor, our detail, and we really want to have definition in everything we're doing," coach Bill Callahan said. "So the way we explain it to the team is the demeanor of how we carry ourselves, the poise that we're trying to carry; obviously, how we practice, the detail of practice; and, of course, the definition of everything we're doing. I think those three factors are key in playoff football. So we try to focus on those three and concentrate on those three areas as we've gone down the stretch here."

-- MARC TOPKIN, Times wires

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