McNair Is Oiler Ticket to Victory

Jeff Fisher used one of the thousands of unsold tickets as a way to motivate his players Sunday.

It worked, big time.

Poor ticket sales meant that only a few thousand fans watched the Tennessee Oilers and the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday in the Liberty Bowl. So Fisher showed off one of the unsold tickets before the game.

“This ticket belongs to somebody who’s not going to make this game, and that’s too bad,” Fisher said of his pep talk. “Someone out there is going to be missing a good football game.”

His Oilers responded with their best performance since leaving Houston before their smallest crowd yet in Tennessee.

They sacked Cincinnati’s Jeff Blake six times and Steve McNair threw for three touchdowns as the Oilers defeated the Bengals, 30-7, breaking a losing streak at four games before a crowd of only 17,071.

“This team came back ready to work after a tough few weeks, and we came back and worked hard,” Fisher said.

The Oilers (2-4), who went in with the NFL’s worst pass defense, frustrated Blake. He threw for only 130 yards with one complete pass in the second half before being replaced by Boomer Esiason.

Coach Bruce Coslet wasn’t happy with the Bengals (1-5), who had only 55 yards rushing and 191 total yards compared to 391 for the Oilers.

“We can’t run. We can’t pass. We can’t stop the run. We can’t stop the pass. We can’t kick. Other than that . . . we’re just not a very good football team right now,” Coslet said.

McNair, meanwhile, had his best performance since taking over as the Oilers’ No. 1 quarterback. He threw for 171 yards and two touchdowns in the first half and finished 16 of 30 for 199 yards and three touchdowns, two to Willie Davis.