Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - BREAKING NEWS: Harold Landry Signs Mega-Deal w/ Tennessee Titans

Episode Date: March 9, 2022

The Tennessee Titans got the deal done and inked Harold Landry to a HUGE new contract. What is the deal, how much is guaranteed, what's the contract structure?? Tyler gives all the latest details and explains why this was always the right move! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to a Locked on Titans podcast, breaking news edition. Harold Landry got his big time contract from the Tennessee Titans. I'm going to be breaking it all down. We're going to talk about contract structure, how everything is set up so that the Titans save themselves money this year. But more importantly, just talk about the fact that Harold Landry is going to be on the Tennessee Titans for the foreseeable future. I wanted to hop on here and record something fresh for you guys.

I recorded the show for tomorrow and the news came late at night around 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. So wasn't going to leave you guys without some instant reaction to that news. Obviously, I'm incredibly happy about the signing. I have been saying since the offseason started that Harold Landry should remain a Tennessee Titan, that he's key to the defense. And it's good to see that John Robinson is seeing what I saw, and I'm glad that I saw what John Robinson saw as well.

And Harold Landry is too important to what this defense is trying to be and what the core of the defense is trying to be and what the core of the defense is to let him go away. He is absolutely everything that you would want in a player. So it makes sense to lock him up long-term. Let's go ahead and talk about the contract details up front. And the number is big. Five years, $87.5 million. That is a monster contract. But, of course, what matters most when it comes to contracts in the NFL nowadays is structure. The structure of the contract is the key here. And when we start to get into the other details about the contract,

it starts to kind of come into focus exactly what the Tennessee Titans are trying to do. You've got to give a lot of credit to John Robinson and Cap Guy Ben Marino and that whole entire staff in the front office for putting these creative deals together and really taking advantage of the window that the roster's in right now with restructures and different, you know, cuts that need to happen and things like that. And we'll see more of that as it comes, but how is this deal structured? Number one, $50 million guaranteed and Harold Landry sure deserves it.

So that's a big number up front as well. But going down further, Harold Landry's going to get $20 million reportedly in his first year. So they're going to give him a nice big chunk up front. But, and you got to give credit here, reports to Paul Kaharski, reporting that $5 million, right around $5 million, is going to be his cap hit in 2022. So that means he's going to get a lot of money up front on this deal, at least in terms of the bonus structure, how the bonuses are going to be structured because his salary's got to stay low so that that cap hit stays low.

So going to be a lot of bonus money, and of course he gets that guaranteed money up front. So they probably want to keep the salary low, around $5 million, which helps with the cap space. And Harold Landry's franchise tag would have been a little over $18 million, close to $19 million. But now if the cap hit is $5 million, as it's reported, that's a big $13 to $14 million savings for the Titans, and it definitely helps because they don't have near as much cap space as they have had in previous years

in ways to instantly get a lot of cap space as well. So they're going to have to make some coordinated moves to not hurt the roster too much, but also make sure that they have some wiggle room to make improvements where they need them, as we know on the offensive side of the ball. So the way that this is structured with the low cap hit in year one, $5 million, Harold Landry still gets his big guaranteed money with the 50 million guaranteed getting 20 million in year one. So he gets a lot of money up front for his services. It's just a beautifully structured deal. Of course, there is some risk to it when you give bonus money up front. Of course,

there's always risk there, but Harold Landry's 25 years old. He's missed one game in his career as a Tennessee Titan. He plays a ton of snaps every year as a key member of the defense. He had nine sacks in 2019, had 12 sacks in 2021, and of course he had five sacks in 2020, which people bring up as a knock against Harold Landry, but the team had 19 sacks and he had five of them. So on a terrible pass rush team, he was still the brightest star that they had on that front. And you know, that's just the box score. That's just the durability. But when we

talk about the versatility, which is something I continue to bring up, this guy dropped into coverage 140 times. And while he's not amazing in coverage or anything like that, he has the ability to do it and do his job when asked to do it, which allows the Titans to run these different zone blitzes where they're bringing a cornerback off one side or they're bringing David Long up the middle, and they're dropping Harold Landry back into coverage. There's not a lot of guys that can rush the passer.

Again, he's not a top flight pass rusher like a TJ Watt or a Max Crosby, the top four guys in the league, a Khalil Mack. It's just not the case. However, as a second tier pass rusher who can also add that versatility and drop back into coverage and get the job done and not be lost on an island in space. His all-around game helps make up for the fact that he's not super elite at any one thing. And also, it's formationally. I talked about the front multiplicity. I talked about this in the first iteration of Wednesday's show.

But when you have a guy who can put his hand in the dirt and be a defensive end, he can play outside linebacker in a 3-4 alignment. He can line up as an off-ball linebacker, as an outside linebacker in a 4-3. Mike Vrabel has talked about front multiplicity since he got hired as the Titans coach. And one of the big reasons that he's able to do that is a guy like Harold Landry. So yeah, there are guys who are better than Harold Landry as top tier pass rushers getting to the quarterback. Absolutely.

You're not wrong there at all. If that's what you want to say as a knock on Harold Landry, there are guys who are better in coverage and there are probably guys who are a little bit better in run defense, but are there guys who are as good as he is as a pass rusher while also being as versatile as he is as a guy who can drop back into cover, drop the line of scrimmage, or play off-ball linebacker while also being as durable as he is? No. And then you talk about the next level thing in the locker room

and doing what the coaches ask and caring about your teammates. All the things that Mike Vrabel talks about in every single press conference that he does. All the traits that they're looking for in football players. They talk a lot about that when draft season rolls around. But do we ever go back and apply that to the guys on the team? Who embodies those characteristics that they're looking for? You know who it is? A guy like Harold Landry, who's gotten better, who's done exactly what the team asked of him all the time, played multiple positions. So we can talk about being a key

on the field. We can talk about his versatility and all the different things that he does for the defense, how he unlocks what they want to do schematically. But at the end of the day, he is the type of character that they want in the locker room and has done everything that's been asked of him. So it just never made sense to let a guy like that walk away who checks every single box that you're looking for as a second round pick who fell down, worked hard, some bad circumstances, some bad talent around him at times. And he still found a way to be productive and stay on the field and help his team.

So, you know, couldn't find a more deserving player on the Titans to get this money right now at this moment in time, especially what we saw them do with Bud Dupree last year. You can't sign a guy to that kind of contract and then let a guy like Harold Landry just walk out. That just would not send the right message to the team. So I was worried, admittedly, admittedly, I was worried when they didn't franchise tag Harold Landry because I knew a guy with all those traits that I just described, what kind of team wouldn't want a guy like Harold Landry? And he wasn't going to get paid $25, $30 million or any kind of groundbreaking record-setting defensive contract. So there were going to be teams that were going to pay him. were going to be teams that were going to pay him. So this is a big win for John Robinson in a moment when the team had to keep this front four together. The Titans pass rush last year was one of the best units we've seen from this team in over a decade. So you can't break that up right now. The key

always was when we saw the Titans offense in the playoffs in recent years, we were like, okay, the offense could score a little bit. They can be that kind of offense. It's not going to blow your doors off in January. But if we can build up the defense just a little bit, then the two things together can make it happen. And once you get to the defense, the level that you need it, you can't let it slip away. You've got to find a way to keep it happen. And once you get to the defense, the level that you need it, you can't let it slip away. You got to find a way to keep it together. And despite some worry from me, the Titans did do that. And John Robinson and his team did get that done. So Harold Landry will remain a Tennessee

Titan, $87.5 million, five years, $50 million guaranteed. But again, a low cap hit of right around $5 dollars in the first year which helps the titans with their cap space and saves them 13 million dollars off what they would have paid on the franchise tag this is truly the ideal outcome for the titans in their position right now so very good time for the tennessee titans now they got to focus on those cuts and those restructures to create more cap space because they did start out about $7-8 million in the wrong direction. So going to have to turn that around pretty soon.

But we'll get that news as the week continues. And we will continue to break it down here on the Locked on Titans podcast. Thank you all for checking out this breaking news edition to go along with the podcast that I already recorded earlier in the evening and, and put out for you guys. So hopefully you get to check out this breaking news one as well, but make sure you subscribe on whatever platform you do stream.

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