Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - 10/3 Locked on Titans: Good news on Mariota!

Episode Date: October 3, 2017

The Titans got some much needed good news on Monday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Learn more about our healthy benefits at fepblue.org slash get more. You are Locked on Titans, your daily podcast on the Tennessee Titans. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome to another edition of Locked on Titans. I am your host, Jimmy Morris, joined by co-host Terry Lambert. Terry, how are you tonight? Doing good, Jimmy. What's going on? Not too much.

Tonight we are brought to you by XBET. XBET AG, which is a gambling website. A lot of really cool stuff on that site. And if you use the promo code XBET this week, you'll get a'll get 100 deposit bonus on your first deposit so check that out if you're so inclined um all right so obviously the big news of the titans uh this this week is going to be following marcus mariota's injury um got some pretty positive news on that front today um mike malarkey had his weekly Monday press conference, obviously. I didn't get to listen to all of it yet.

Terry did, so I'm going to let him hit us real quick with the Marietta news and any other injury news that we need to talk about. Yeah, Malarkey just said that the hamstring was strained after the MRI, but it's a day-to-day thing, and it's not a week-to-week thing.

That's good news. Obviously, no structural damage if there's a chance that he can play on Sunday. So he said that they'll have two separate game plans going forward and that the decision would likely be made on Sunday morning. So going to be kind of on pins and needles there. He did rule out, well, he kind of ruled out Corey Davis. He did leave a little bit of a window open. And same for Jonathan Ciprian,

as they still are recovering from those hamstring problems. He also said guard Quentin Spain is dealing with a turf toe issue. He expected him to miss some practice this week, but expected him to be good to go for Sunday. Okay, so, I mean, the Titans are really, they're not really all that unhealthy. I don't know if that's the right way to put it, but at this point in the season. But they do obviously have a couple of key injuries. Obviously, they haven't had Corey Davis for the majority of the year,

and now with Mariota going down. So you said, you know, they'll roll two game plans. I wonder how effective do you think Marcus is if he's on kind of one leg? That's not really a great way to put it because I would say that they have to have pretty good confidence in his health if they're going to put him out there. They're not going to put him back out there if they think the risk is really high for re-aggravation. But what do you think, how effective do you think he is if he's going to have to kind of come into the game with the mindset of he's not going to be able to run as much,

he probably won't have the designed runs in the game plan. What do you think that does to the offense overall? See, to me, I don't even want to mess with that. Malarkey said that the hamstring pretty much caused the second interception. He said he wasn't able to step into the throw, and that caused the inaccurate pass. And, you know, Marcus hadn't been great in the pocket this year, just to be blunt.

I don't know what's going on there, but it's not happening for him yet. He'll come out of it. It's just kind of he's slumping a little bit. So I'd rather them sit him down for a week if that's the case. If he could play but kind of on one leg and kind of tough it out, I'd rather see him sit. As bad as Matt Castle was, it's like Mike Malarkey said, there's a lot of football to be played.

So I think it says something that Marcus came out and was warming up and planned on playing in the second half, but the coaches kind of sat him down and kind of forced his hand there. So I think he's going to be okay, but I want him 100%, 99% instead of 90%. There's too much risk there. Yeah, and that's something that, like we said, the Titans have had quite a few hamstring injuries this year. And DeMarco Murray was slowed pretty much all training camp with his.

And then two weeks ago, it's just funny, after that Jaguars game where Murray didn't play in the second half derrick henry was so effective and it was all like at the time to change changing the guard they just sit murray down for a couple weeks blah blah let him get fully healthy and then he has the big run uh against the seahawks um you know and looked healthy on that run i mean he didn't do a whole lot outside of that run but you know the conversation we were having was should they should they shut him down for a couple weeks, let him be 100%? I think even more so with Mariota, and again, we're not trainers, we're not doctors, so we don't really know the full scale of this.

But if there's a chance that he's going to go out there and re-aggravate it, like if it's a deal where he could sit for a week or two and be fully healthy healthy or there's an elevated risk, obviously it would make sense for them to sit him because you need the long term. And I do think, I talked a little bit about this yesterday, but I do think that they can go to Miami and win with Matt Castle. Now, you know, and they got the Colts a week after that, which we'll see if they have Andrew Luck or not. So, I mean, you know, that's obviously a much bigger game for this team than the one this week but I'm kind of with you I mean if he can't go out there and be Marcus Mariota then there's there's really there's really no

reason to have him out there let him sit down let him get fully healthy so that he can do the things that he's the most comfortable doing and then one thing and you and I were talking about this before we started the podcast um there's this there seems to be then one thing, and you and I were talking about this before we started the podcast, there seems to be this chatter, it's on Twitter or Facebook, but that Mario needs to stop running because he always gets hurt when he runs. And if you go back and look at all of his injuries, this is the first one that has happened when he was running. This wasn't even probably even a designed run, but this is the first injury that's happened when he was running. This wasn't even probably even a designed run, but this is the first injury that's happened when he's scrambled.

So we can kind of shut down that talk. I mean, that's who Marcus is. That's part of what makes him a really good quarterback, and that's part of why the reason that he's the guy that gets picked second overall is because he does add that dimension with his legs. And he does need to get better in the pocket this year. He struggled there quite mightily so far. But it's just funny to me, there's this narrative of he needs to stop running

because he gets hurt so much, because that has not been where his injuries have occurred. Yeah, it's just not Marcus. And why would you want to shelf that? You're so dangerous when you get Mariota involved in the run game. You get these RPOs, you get Mariota involved in the run game. You know, you get these RPOs, you get these read options, you can get Henry and Murray and Mariota all in the backfield and kind of run some triple option stuff. So it's not going away, and it shouldn't go away.

You know, the Titans have kind of struggled with consistency running the football this year, and I feel like they've gone to Mariota to kind of jump start it. You know, you line up in the gun with Murray and Henry beside you. That stresses the defense. That's three options to come right at you with the football, or you still got to worry about Mariota throwing the ball. So that's a huge chunk of this offense and it's not going away and it shouldn't

yeah so i mean that'll be obviously something to keep an eye on and hopefully we'll get an idea as the week goes on about you know how close he is to playing uh and it's something we talked about again before we jumped on you know looking at lines this week the titans lines off the board right now um i don't know if we'll get a point spread at any point before we have a pretty good idea of whether or not Marcus Mario is going to play. One of the

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Because, you know, we spend so much time talking about the offense. And, again, scrolling through stuff on Twitter and on Facebook, like I was saying earlier, you see so many people wanting Terry Robiskey fired. But it's Dick LeBeau that was the problem on Sunday. You know, the offense obviously never got going. But, I mean, I would make the argument that they weren't on the field enough to ever get in the rhythm to really do anything. So talk about kind of what you think the biggest point of emphasis needs to be for this defense this week. Well, I haven't watched the game again. i don't really want to i might not yeah uh but it just seemed to me that the titans were

stressed uh with with deshaun watson uh deshaun watson coming at you with lamar miller it just seems like they they didn't have an answer you know they, it seemed like the Texans were a step ahead. So, to me, they got flat out outcoached. You know, the Texans' offense was just ten steps ahead of the Titans' defense. So, all this stuff about the Titans' pass rush, yeah, but Watson made so many quick decisions. I just, I don't know, man. I just think they were sleepwalking out there.

So it's kind of hard to say. Obviously, you want to see the Titans rush the pass, or you want to see the coverage be better. But, man, I just think it was a burn-the-tape week. And I know that that's kind of a cop-out, but there's just not a lot you can take away from that. The Titans were just beaten in every aspect. Yeah, and you said that Malarkey made the comment today about seeing some things in-game

that they needed to adjust to and they weren't able to do. And, I mean, to me, some of those things were really obvious on Sunday. I mean, we talked yesterday about putting Logan Ryan on DeAndre Hopkins. I mean, just stuff like that. And you would have thought that they would have at least tried something different to mess up Deshaun Watson's rhythm. And he was just out there doing whatever he wanted to do all day. And it just seemed to me like it never came off of what their initial plan was. And, I mean, I get that, like, you don't want to be out there, you know, just every time something goes differently than how you thought it would,

completely, you know, turning around from what you came in to do. But, you know, after the first, you know, four drives go for points, I would think that you would kind of, okay, let's just draw something up real quick to try to slow down what it is that they're doing right now and see if we can do something differently. They didn't seem to do that on Sunday. I wonder if that's something that Malarkey's going to be stressing to that group this week. We need to be able to adjust better in-game.

Dick LeBeau's not dumb. He knows what he's doing. They brought blitzes. Texans picked it up, and the ball just came out. Like I said last night, there was a couple times where they got Watson in the backfield. They just couldn't finish the play, and Watson was able to throw the ball away and extend a couple of those drives and put more points on the board. So I didn't think the Titans finished plays well.

I thought the Texans picked up the blitzes well, and the receivers, Hopkins and Fuller, just flat out made plays, and they were better than the Titans DBs. Malarkey did sound a little frustrated, and that could have been a little bit. He was frustrated with himself too. I'm sure he wasn't throwing his coaches under the bus or anything like that. But it's nice to see him kind of step up and own it. He does a better job than the guy over in Knoxville, that's for sure. But anyways, they'll get it fixed, and the sky isn't falling.

And the good news is they face a Miami team that's looked absolutely pathetic for two weeks in a row now. Yeah, and so hopefully you know you're walking into a position of you know kind of getting the cure for what ails you at this point because like you said i mean this this miami group has looked lifeless for the last couple weeks and i mean you know the saints are a good team but the dogs didn't even show up and they got beat by the jets two weeks ago and the jets i mean they they're two and two they've won two games in a row now uh be jaguars this week but

not a team that you know most people expected to be lucky to win a game and nobody thought they went to so yeah it's going to be interesting and you know you know, I mean, we've, we've talked about that and we talked about the consistency thing last night, but it's a concern that I have at this point though, you would expect the Titans to come out on fire on Sunday because it's not, you're not coming off of a big win. You're not, you know,

there's not, there's not a situation where everybody's talking about how good you are and all that stuff. So that you had the opportunity to sleepwalk through a game. I mean, if they were ever going to be up for a game, you would expect it to be this one against the Dolphins. So hopefully that's what we see.

If we don't see something like that, then I think it's time for a little bit more concern. And again, it's hard because yesterday that loss was so bad. And all the points texas scored the most points in their franchise history and like you said the worst loss really since that patriots loss that you know i can't even think about without twitching but um you know now you that is still just one loss you you can write that off you can come back and if they win the next two then they're still in really pretty much the position that i expected them to be in now i would have you know thought the games would

break down a little bit differently but i mean i always kind of thought they'd be two and two coming out of this first month so you know it's not right now situation where you have to feel like the sky is falling but i do have some larger concerns about this team now that i didn't have this time last week yeah the schedule's lightening up uh that's the good news so uh if you go out and lay an egg you know it was kind of funny watching you tweet on on sunday about not panicking and finally you gave in i think in the second quarter but if the titans come out and lay an egg on Sunday, I think you can probably start to panic a little bit because this has kind of been a theme. The Titans just tend to play down to their opponent's talent level.

We saw it last year with the Bears. They also played up to the talent level with the Broncos and the Chiefs. So some sort of middle ground would be fantastic. This roller coaster ride we're on, it's exhausting. And I think it all starts up front on the offensive line, and it starts on the defensive line too, stopping the run, which the Titans weren't able to do. So Miami is just, it couldn't come at a better time, assuming they're going to play somewhat like they've played in the last two weeks. So Titans just need to go take care of business this weekend.

Yeah, and your point of the schedule lightening up, I saw something today. I wish I could find the tweet right now. But basically the Titans were one of the four teams listed that has a much easier schedule from here on out. So, like you were saying, I mean, the schedule does lighten up from here. So, hopefully, you know, with the Dolphins this week and then hopefully a Colts team next week without Andrew Luck, I still kind of feel like he's going to be back for that game.

But still, keep an eye on him, if he practices this week or not. We'll get a better idea. Because I think he needs to practice for a week before he actually – before he plays any games. I mean, I think two weeks of practice before he plays any games, is what I'm trying to say there. So keep an eye on that. But, yeah, so the schedule will lighten up a little bit.

So, again, 2-2, 1-1 the division, split your road games to open, not the end of the world. So we'll just kind of try to keep that in perspective as we go along. So kind of get set on the stage for the rest of the week. We'll try to get a Dolphins guy on later this week to preview that. And like Terry said, we'll move into kind of looking at some stuff that they have, preview Dolphins stuff next week. So anything else, Terry, on the way out?

That's all I got. All right, sounds good. So that is Locked on Titans for tonight, and we will talk to you all again tomorrow.