Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - BONUS EPISODE – Locked On Today – The only 20 minutes you need to be prepared for the day in sports.

Episode Date: February 12, 2021

The latest from Atlanta where they are getting ready to host an NBA All-Star game that players don't want and fans are confused over. LeBron James sends the Lakers into overtime against the Thunder. The Suns ended the Milwaukee Bucks win streak. Karl-Anthony Towns returned for the first time since contracting COVID-19. A 5-team trade in the WNBA. Are the Jets the most interesting NFL team this offseason? Plus, Can the Vikings pull off what the Buccaneers did? It's the Q of the day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Locked on podcast network and radio.com present locked on today. The NBA and its players are on opposite sides of the all-star game. Are the jets the most interesting team in the NFL this off season? Plus can the Minnesota Vikings follow in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers footsteps? I'm Peter Bukowski, starting your day with the stories you need to know and biggest debates in sports. You're locked on today. Searching all major sports. Found. Let's start with the biggest story. We haven't heard much about the NBA All-Star Game lately, which is likely headed to Atlanta in less than a month.

What's going on with that? Maria Martin with our friends at 11 Alive Sports gives us an update. An NBA All-Star Game announcement seemed imminent, but as word circulated that the league was scrambling to put a game together. I think it's stupid. Player criticism arose. Reports stated that the league and the Players Association liked the idea of having the game, but the actual players, not so much. Still dealing with a pandemic. We're still dealing with everything that's been going on, and we're going to bring the whole league into

one city that's open. Obviously, you guys can see I'm not very happy about it. After LeBron's comments, no announcement, just murmurs of the league continuing to work out the details. The job for the union has been to try to make sure our players are healthy and safe. Chris Paul is the president of the NBA Players Association and advocated for an all-star game, and he's still working to make that happen. Different situations, you know, guys who've been playing a lot of games, who haven't really had much of breaks. You know, guys look at that break as an opportunity to see their families. Television rights are what makes it too appealing for the league to give up.

Last year's game saw a ratings increase of 8%, 7.3 million viewers. Ads sold out in record time in 2020, bringing in millions. We all know why we're playing it. You know, there's money on the line. Just putting money over health right now. There is no timeline for an announcement, but it's likely coming. It may not bring the same fanfare as a typical event, but for Trae Young, he says it would be an honor. It's a different opinion for me than a lot of other guys who are flying in. I understand both sides.

11 Alive has been on top of this from the start. They'll continue to update us. But for the latest, check them out at 11alivenews and 11alive.com. I, for one, don't understand how someone like Chris Paul can say, hey, we care about our guys' safety, our players. That's what we're worried about. And then say, well, we need to play this exhibition game that doesn't actually matter in the standings. LeBron has it absolutely right.

This is about the money. This is about protecting the golden goose. They can sell ads on it, so they're going to have a game. And that's just the reality of the situation that we are in. Coming up next, are the Jets the most interesting team in the NFL, at least for a couple months? Now, here's what you need to be locked on today. It took overtime, but the Lakers beat the Thunder 114-113. Wednesday night, LeBron James made a three with 19 seconds left in the fourth quarter to tie it at 105,

then got the defensive rebound on the other end to send the game into overtime. The Phoenix Suns ended the Milwaukee Bucks five-game win streak last night in a game that came down to the final seconds and a Giannis jumper at the buzzer that wouldn't go. Brendan Kleen here with you from locked on Phoenix Suns, coming to you live from Phoenix Suns Arena after a 125-124 victory by the Phoenix Suns over the Milwaukee Bucks, one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference. The Suns come from a back-and-forth game,

and Devin Booker takes them home once again with some fourth-quarter scoring, gets to the free-throw line off of an isolation on Chris Middleton late. But more than anything, this is the Suns offense that we've talked so much about. They started off as a strong defensive team. They came together defensively with Jay Crowder, DeAndre Ayton, Mikael Bridges leading the way there. Now the offense is really at its peak. I've been talking about it for days and on Locked on Suns, and here we are.

Another magnificent performance, 125 points against this Bucs defense. Weathered the storm as Giannis got to the line. I think 20 or so times the refs were almost using broken whistles, it felt like, with how consistently that call was there for Giannis Antetokounmpo. But no matter, the Suns come away with the victory in front of an arena full of fans, and it's their fourth straight.

They are now 15-9, heading up the Western Conference standings and, as I said, coming together as an offensive squad and really realizing their potential. For more on this team, follow Locked on Phoenix Suns wherever you listen to podcasts. The Timberwolves fell to the Clippers 119-112, but they did get Carl Anthony Towns back as he returned for his first game since contracting COVID-19. Towns played 31 minutes and scored 18 points.

Towns, of course, lost multiple family members to the COVID-19 outbreak and has been outspoken about his difficult experience in the pandemic. been outspoken about his difficult experience in the pandemic. Five WNBA teams combined to make five trades, including seven players and five draft picks on Wednesday, highlighted by Natasha Howard heading to the New York Liberty and the Dallas Wings landing the number one overall pick. The Seattle Storm lost two key contributors to their 2018 and 2020 title teams while reshaping the roster with a focus on younger talent that also involved the Minnesota Lynx and Phoenix Mercury.

Nearly half the league's teams in all were involved in the transaction. Here is another story you need to know. Between new coach Robert Sala and the swirling Deshaun Watson rumors and as much cap space as any team in the league has in an offseason where a lot of teams are going to be cap crunched,

the New York Jets just may well be the most intriguing team of the NFL offseason. Jon Buchko from Locked on Jets joins me now. And Jon, when you are looking at the big picture for this Jets offseason, John Buchko from Locked on Jets joins me now. And John, when you are looking at the big picture for this Jets offseason, do you have a number one priority list here on what they need to get accomplished moving forward? You know, Peter, it's difficult to say because the Jets just need pretty much everything right now. This was a 2-14 football team. And as you mentioned,

there are going to be a lot of tools at the disposal of this team because they have cap space. And this is a unique year to have cap space. Most years, the salary cap goes up in the NFL. So even if you are among the league leaders in cap space, everybody's got some money to spend. So you may be able to get certain free agents, but you have to pay a lot for them. This is going to be the type of year where there are not going

to be a lot of teams with money to spend. So your dollars will go further. But in addition to that, the Jets also have an extra first round pick and an extra third round pick from the Jamal Adams trade. So that's the good news. The Jets have a lot of resources to make their team better. But the bad news is they need a little bit of everything. Right. They've got a lot, but they need a lot. And that that creates some questions about priorities. So is there a price with Deshaun Watson that you would just say, look, that's too much. It's just too much. You know, the way I look at it is, I don't think that you would ever say 15 years from now, oh man, we shouldn't have given up

that extra first round pick for Deshaun Watson. He's that good. So I think it's more, what are you trying to accomplish? Because if you can figure out that either a Zach Wilson or a Justin Fields, or maybe some other quarterback like a Trey Lance is going to be a franchise quarterback, that might be the quicker way to contention because then you take the classic NFL strategy of getting the quarterback on the rookie deal, and you have all these resources to build around them. With Watson, you're guaranteeing yourself stability, but he's going to come at the expense. First of all, he's going to take up a lot of the cap space that you've got. But second, he's going to take up a lot of the draft capital that you have. Now, if you're trying to win a Super Bowl over the next 10 to 12 years, Deshaun Watson is probably

the best starting point that you can have. But it's probably going to be a slower build, although it's a lower risk because you know Deshaun Watson's going to be great. So the way I view it is not so much, is this the right move or is it the wrong move? It's more, which strategy do you want to take? Do you want to take the sure thing that maybe brings you stability quicker, but it would take a little bit longer to build up the rest of the roster? Or are you looking for the home run right now to potentially have a talented young quarterback to build around and as many resources as any team in the league to build around them? It's not, I think it's more, which path do you want to take as much as it is? Is this the right move?

Is that the wrong move? The Tampa Bay Buccaneers went from out of the playoffs to into the Super Bowl. Can the Minnesota Vikings take the same kind of leap and break their seeming franchise curse? That's our Q of the Day next. Agree or disagree? This is the Q of the Day. There's an old joke about the Vikings that you can't let them go near cereal because anytime they get near a bowl, they choke. But it was the case that the Buccaneers, for most of their franchise's

existence, was a laughingstock. And so the Vikings, could this be the time to follow the Bucs script to go from a below 500 team to not only into the playoffs, but into Super Bowl contention. Locked on Vikings, Luke Braun has how they could get that done. All right. So in 2019, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, they go seven and nine in 2020. They go 11 and five, make it into the playoffs as a wild card and win the Super Bowl. So how can the Vikings do the same thing?

Seven and nine in 2020. How can they turn 2021 into that promised year? They have a bunch of problems from 2020 that they have to solve and some from before 2020 that they have to solve before they can get to that kind of promised land. And I think the biggest one that ailed them in 2020 is that they were soft. They were soft up the front on both sides of the ball, especially on the defense. And a lot of that had to do with some backups playing. They didn't have Michael Pierce because of a COVID-19 opt-out. They didn't have Daniel Hunter who was injured. They didn't have Anthony Barr for most of the year. And they didn't have Eric Kendricks for a pretty decent chunk of the year as well. That'll hurt your run defense, but they were soft. They were able to be pushed around by pretty much

whoever the opposing guard was. It didn't have to be a good one. They were unable to hold their spots, to stay in their gaps, and a lot of times they would run themselves out of position anyways, leading to a lot of explosive rushes. Depending on how you define this, there were three games in the 2020 season where a rushing offense looked like an explosive passing offense against the Vikings. You can't let that happen. You have to be able to be a defense that you have to pass on to beat, and that wasn't true of the Vikings. You can't let that happen. You have to be able to be a defense that you have to pass on to beat. And that wasn't true of the Vikings. You did not have to pass to beat the Vikings. You could have beat them on the ground entirely. And that is an outlier that you have to be able to fix. You can do that in a number of ways through free agency,

if you can figure out the cap through the draft, just by virtue of getting a lot of players back from injury and otherwise. But you have to fix that softness problem. The other thing you have to do is deploy better coverage concepts, and the Vikings didn't have a lot of options around this because they started a bunch of young cornerbacks who couldn't get some of the more complex coverage rules down with no preseason or at least a really truncated preseason. They were rookies getting used to the speed of the game. You saw that with Cameron Dantzler in 2020, who had an absolutely catastrophic first six

games of his year. But then once the season kind of started to come around, he was able to do things like lock down Super Bowl winning wide receiver Mike Evans and had one of his better games against those Buccaneers. He locked down Robbie Anderson and a whole bunch of players near the end of the season had a much better time. And Jeff Gladney also got better as the season went along. So you have to continue that and also be able to kind of trust those players a little bit more. You can ask them to do a little bit more man coverage, some more complex coverage rules that allow Mike Zimmer and his defense to come up with some more complex ways to counter

the infinitely complex things that offenses are going to throw at them. And on the offensive side, though the offense was pretty good, you have to fix the offensive line. This is something that Vikings fans have been crowing about since like 2014, but there were 19 sacks, at least according to Pro Football Focus, that were only the fault of guards. You have to fix the guard situation. Dakota Dozier is not an acceptable starter, and a rookie left tackle in Ezra Cleveland playing at right guard is not acceptable either. You have to find a better strategy than that going into the 2021 season.

What's interesting here is they could follow a lot of what the Bucs did last season. If you hit on one or two draft picks, the Buccaneers, they add Tristan Wirfs in the first round. They add Antoine Winfield Jr., coincidentally, a former Vikings player's son in the second round, and that catapults them further. Those are the missing pieces, so to speak, along with guys like Vita Vea, Devin White, Mike Evans, and first-round picks they've accumulated over a long period of losing. The Vikings haven't been picking in the top 10, in the top 15, but they have gotten some

elite talent, guys like Justin Jefferson. And we saw last year Jeff Gladney, Cam Dantzler. They are guys who played well for stretches last season. If you can get that year two leap out of some of these guys and then add a rookie or two in this draft, figure out the cap and get some of that stuff is not going to be easy to navigate. But the Vikings have been doing it the last few years under some difficult conditions. They could be right back in the mix. I don't think it's likely. I think when Kirk Cousins is your quarterback, that caps your ceiling in a way that, well,

let's be honest, Tom Brady's doesn't, but Kirk Cousins has shown that he can win some of these big games. He's won some playoff games for the Vikings here. And so could he get really red hot in the playoffs with Adam Thielen and Dalvin Cook and Justin Jefferson and an offensive line? That's a little bit better. Yeah, I think he could.

I just don't think it's likely. And they still have the Packers in their own division who they don't seem likely to pass. And finally, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers held a boat parade Wednesday to celebrate their Super Bowl championship. At one point during the parade, Tom Brady was captured on video tossing the Lombardi trophy from his boat across the water to where a shirtless Cameron Brate made the catch and brought wild cheers from fans and players. That was the best catch of my life, Brate said. Unbelievable. That was the best catch of my life. If I had dropped that, I think I would have had to retire. Just imagine if Tom Brady had missed the throw. I guess he's got plenty back home. He's got six spares, so he could have found a replacement, I think, there. Now that you've got the news, go make some money.

Listen to Locked on Bets, download and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts coming up on Friday. Can the Chargers do what the Bucs did and land themselves the Super Bowl in their home stadium, just like Tampa Bay? At least until tomorrow. Stay locked on today.