Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Christmas Injury Update & Titans Talk

Episode Date: December 25, 2019

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Welcome to the Locked on Titans podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Rowland. Titans fans, Merry Christmas. It is Christmas Day. I wanted to make sure you had a little bit of something for Christmas Day. As I said, I wanted to put out five shows this week, even if they're a little scaled back. So I wanted to make sure to do that for you. I do have a little more clarity on when the crossover episode will be able to take place.

And I will be dropping the crossover episode with Cody and John from Locked On Texans on Friday. So I'll have to shuffle around the segments that we typically do. Tomorrow's podcast on Thursday, I'm going to be able to give you guys a little bit of a film breakdown. I'm going to have obviously a scaled back version of that, but I want to make sure I give you guys what I think is a really, really important aspect of the game. And if the Titans make the playoffs, they're going to need some more of this anyway. So I'm going to leave you with a little teaser for what the film breakdown will be, but we'll be doing that on Thursday's podcast.

We'll also be doing my beautiful dark, twisted fantasy preview on Thursday this week as well. Going into Friday's show, we are going to have the crossover conversation, which will be two segments, but I'm going to give you a jam-packed Friday show to make up for the scaled back week of Christmas. We're going to have four big segments with a game preview, the crossover segments, and then we'll do a little Song of the AFC South playoff picture review as we go into the weekend, just as a quick refresher of what the Titans should be rooting for other than just them winning the ballgame. So that's kind of the schedule for the rest of the week.

As for today's episode, in our first segment, I want to talk a little bit about the injuries, give you an update on how the injuries impacted practice on Tuesday which the Titans don't typically do on Tuesday And then I will give you some Titans talk let you guys hear from head coach Mike Vrabel and play that out So you have some listening for your holiday commute as I said I wanted to put out some content for you guys I know how it is when you don't have any content going into these holidays So that's what I wanted to do and we will jump into everything now. Let's get it.

Your Tennessee Titans lead story. It was very obvious from the Titans' perspective that they were trying to use Sunday's game against the Saints as somewhat of a buy for some key players who they absolutely will need back as this playoff run starts. And make no mistake, this Week 17 matchup against the Texans is a playoff game. Titans are playing playoff football right now, which leads me into a conversation about practice on Tuesday. The Titans typically do not practice on Tuesday. They practice on Wednesdays, but with the importance of this game and the holiday schedule, it looks like they decided to bump that up and get things ramped up on Tuesday. Let's talk about

what players were out there on the field. Kalief Raymond, after that ridiculous shot and non-call, is still in concussion protocol and was the only player for the Titans who's been on the injury report lately that wasn't suited up on Tuesday during the portion of practice that was open to the media. That means Adoree Jackson, Adam Humphreys, Corey Davis, Derrick Henry, Jeffrey Simmons, and Darren Bates all were suited up out there and on the practice field to at least go through the limited session that Mike Vrabel put together for the team. As a side note, some roster moves here. The Titans did bring Darius Jennings back onto the team and signed him. That makes

sense because Kalief Raymond essentially took his job. Darius Jennings will be tasked with kickoff returns. I would imagine if Adam Humphries is able to play, he'll go back to the punt return duties for the moment. And then, you know, Darius Jennings will play that spacer in the Titans offense with the speed to get deep and kind of open things up. Now, I don't believe that Darius Jennings is quite the wide receiving talent that Kalief Raymond was, so that will definitely hurt the team and it'll be even more important to get Adam Humphreys back to hopefully help them in that role as well. Maybe Tajay Sharp can help in that, you know, blow the top off the coverage role for the Titans.

Personally, I do think that's a area of the roster where they will need to improve this offseason. The Titans need more of a speed threat that they were never able to develop with Taewon Taylor. So that is something to look forward to. Hopefully, the Titans can have all hands on deck here. And I will update you as the week goes along to advise which players are practicing and in what capacity. But hopefully, this is a positive sign that everyone will be able to play on Sunday.

Lord knows the Titans will need it. But with that, we will go ahead and jump into our second segment, a little bit of Titans talk. I'm going to let you guys hear from Mike Vrabel's Tuesday press conference, as always, courtesy of titansonline.com. So we'll get into Titans talk. Let's hear from Tennessee Titans head coach Mike Vrabel's Tuesday press conference as they kicked off the week of practice. Audio courtesy of TitansOnline.com. I think he continues to just work technique and be strong with the football.

You know, this is a fast, violent, big game. I think he's done a good job playing through contact and catching the ball and being strong with the catch. Yeah, I mean, I think that that's, you know, something you probably try to worry about when those guys get close to 12 and 13 games, and I think we're past that, and I think he understands where we are in the season. I think that everybody's done a good job of trying to take care of everybody's body as late as it is in the season,

and that's a testament to our training staff, our weight strength staff, and then also the players. We've always had a lot of confidence in Darius, and there's different personnel things that we have to work through. So we're excited to get DJ back, and I know that if and when called upon, he'll be prepared and he'll play with great effort and probably take advantage of his opportunities.

Familiarity with him, division opponent. Played him a short time ago. They're successful because they do what they do, but they also add some wrinkles. There'll be third down wrinkles like there is every week. They also add some wrinkles. They'll be third down wrinkles like there is every week. Offensively, they've been pretty consistent. Very productive running the football.

Quarterback being accurate, being accurate outside the pocket, making explosive gains in play extension. Hopkins playing physical, running good routes, getting open. So there's a lot of things that are going to be similar. I'm sure that there'll be a few game plan things that both of us have that we'll have to make adjustments on when we see him in the game. Two sacks every game, Jim. That'd be great. He just continued to work and understand what's going on, take advantage of his opportunities.

And when you do that, you usually earn more opportunities no matter who the player is. So, you know, Roby was a guy that, you know, he was probably close, not close enough at training camp. Probably needed a little bit more seasoning, practice, meetings. Trying to get him brought up to speed on special teams. That he had never played it or done it. He did all those things. We thought it was the right time. We'll hope that he can continue to progress this week. Well, I think we have to, you know,

bring this thing together this week to play and to win together collectively as a team, with coaches, players, all three phases. To say what's happened, whether it's a missed tackle, a mental error, a detail, whatever, that's what happens when they gain yards. And when we don't do those things, we've had numerous opportunities of getting three and outs, but when we do score, like you mentioned, it is that much more critical that we're able to get a stop.

Our offense, there's some momentum there. There's some energy there. We punted the ball down there. We got them to punt. We went down and scored. I think that's the formula. But, you know, when you can just sit there and trade touchdowns, it's hard to do in this league. I mean, it's about what the players can understand. I mean, we have a lot of time that we can, you know, the plays are great. The players are the ones that make them work and make them

successful. I think it's a fine line between just running a bunch of stuff that we think may work or running things that the players have shown confidence in and have a belief that will work and have answers versus multiple coverages, multiple fronts. And then if there's a play that we think that can help us, then we try to add it each and every week if it's, again, watching it on the practice field and something that we feel like the players understand. When you run a football, there's either no edge, there's no wall,

or there's a missed tackle because of multiple reasons. Guys leave their feet, cross over, hop, or no swarm. And I would imagine that any yards that they gained would fall under one of those categories. But there's a lot of multiple opportunities where we knocked a line of scrimmage back, shed, made a tackle. So, you know, I'm not going by the, you know, 35 runs that they had and taking them one by one. But if there was anything that was a double-digit run, there usually falls in that category.

You know, and again, the quarterback ran for, you for, like he always does, 50 yards or whatever it is and drops back to pass and scrambles or pulls it. So again, that all adds up to whatever number you look at. But again, just in general, the run game, that's really how we look at it. We're going to stop the run, set an edge, build a wall, and swarm. And if there's cracks in a wall, then they're getting to the second level. If there's no edge, then they're taking easy yards around the outside. And if you miss tackles, then guys better be running.

We're going to just try to prepare the best way that we know how. They'll be scaled back. We played a short time ago. Players' bodies aren't used to practicing on a Tuesday with a Sunday game. Again, I think it's been great. I think the players have been focused already today in meetings and what we think that the keys are going to be and how they need to understand and execute the game plan.

We'll have an opportunity to practice it. We'll have an opportunity to meet about it after practice. Let these guys spend some much-needed time with their family and then be able to come back in on Thursday and Friday and Saturday to clean up and continue to game plan and prepare to win. I just try to make decisions that are for the best of the team. Again, practice is never going to be perfect. It's just like the games.

Hopefully we can have focus and understand what our job is and how we need to execute it in the first and second down, which is going to be the emphasis today. Third down when we come in on Thursday, and then on to the red zone. So just try to do what's best for the team and what you feel like. Everybody just works a little longer and a little harder. Again, this is a common opponent just a few weeks ago.

So I think that we have, just as they do, familiarity with what we want to do or may want to do and vice versa. If it helps us win, yeah. I mean, I'm not really sure. I just am trying to prepare them to win and do everything that we possibly can to do that. So if hearing the score is going to help us do that, then we'll try to do that. That was head coach Mike Vrabel.

Hopefully you guys enjoyed that. And just before we get out of here, I want to, again, as I did yesterday during the podcast, extend my well wishes to all of you guys. Hopefully, you're having a happy holidays, a merry Christmas, and you stay safe and warm out there and are surrounded by the people that you love. As you know, there are some people during these times who struggle due to loss and other reasons. So make sure you're kind to everyone you see during this holiday season as you never know what someone else is going through. With that, I will let you guys go. and other reasons. So make sure you're kind to everyone you see during this holiday season as

you never know what someone else is going through. With that, I will let you guys go. I will be back with you on Thursday with a little bit of a film breakdown and some other things that I look forward to. And then of course, we're getting closer and closer and closer to the big game on Sunday. I'm so excited and ready to go. Hopefully you guys are as well and I will be with you the next two days to give you some good content and get you as ready as we can be. As always, I am your

host, Tyler Rowland. Merry Christmas and this was Locked on Titans. Outro Music