ESPN MAGAZINE

You look at the man whose job it is to pass-block Jevon Kearse and you notice the fingers. Not Kearse's fingers, each of which is about the size of a nightstick, but the fingers of the man crouched in his stance, waiting to perform the unsavory task of keeping Kearse out of his backfield -- and by extension, keeping his quarterback out of the hospital. The fingers are moving with manic energy, twitching back and forth, as if all the pent-up tension and anxiety from the rest of the body were tunneling its way out through the fingertips. As if by some physiological quirk, moving the fingers rapidly and repeatedly could somehow jump-start the feet, which remain the only effective means of fighting against the pass-rushing prowess of the Titans' remarkable rookie.

To have any chance against Kearse, to even preserve the slightest hope of making it through the afternoon without shame, a tackle needs to have his body on full molecular alert. Take the Rams' Fred Miller, who's been seeing Kearse in his sleep since the Titans beat St. Louis on Oct. 31. Miller was called for six false starts in that game -- five of them when he lined up opposite Kearse. That's the kind of scare the 6'4", 265-pound defensive end -- the human equivalent of a sledgehammer powered by a V-12 engine -- can put on you . . . and not just on Halloween. Poor Miller revisits his personal nightmare Super Sunday.

By himself, Kearse has changed the way teams play Tennessee, which, in the process, moved the Titans into the NFL elite. His teammates tell him he's the difference between last year's 8-8 and this year's Roman numeral date. If you doubt his impact, there's always one place to look for proof. "You look at these tackles in their stances, and they're practically standing up," says Titans LB Barron Wortham. "Their necks are bowed back like a racehorse, and they're as far back off the line as they can get.

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