Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Crossover Wednesday - Titans vs Buccaneers
Episode Date: October 23, 2019Follow Tyler on Twitter @TicTacTitans Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices ...
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Welcome to the Locked on Titans podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Rowland. Titans fans, it's Crossover Wednesday.
We have an excellent conversation with the host of the Locked on Buccaneers, James.
He is going to come on, hang out with us for a minute.
In the first segment, he is going to ask me some questions about the Titans.
Our second segment, I'm going to ask him some questions about the Buccaneers
and get his take on what we've seen so far from Tampa Bay throughout the season.
And then in our third segment, we're going to come back, talk about our key matchup to focus on for the game,
and give you guys a little bit of a prediction on a score and the outcome of the game.
So really excited to get into all of it with you guys.
I really enjoy Crossover Wednesday.
Hope you guys do too.
So we'll jump into it after the break.
Let's get it.
What's up and welcome back to Crossover Wednesdays here on the Locked On Podcast Network brought to you in part by Peloton.
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I am James Yarko, one of the hosts of Locked on Bucks,
joined by Tyler Rowland, host of Locked on Titans.
You can check out everything I'm doing on Twitter at jayarco underscore box
and check out Tyler at Tic Tac Titans.
Tyler, how you doing, buddy?
I'm doing great tonight.
I'm doing great.
Looking forward to a big game on Sunday.
Both teams are still right in the thick of it.
So hopefully we get a pretty good football game.
Yeah, I'm sure the general feel amongst Titans fans is a little more positive than that of
Buccaneers fans.
You know, Bucs are two and four when they should be three and three, possibly even four
and two, just some rough games there where they beat themselves.
And when we looked at the schedule before the season started, it was, okay, well, coming up in October, we have Winston Mariota III, and that's not the case anymore.
Give us a little insight as to what's going on with the quarterback situation in Tennessee.
Well, it's a typical question that I get when we do these crossover events, and I can't even blame anybody because so much hinges on the quarterback
position,
basically to put it blankly,
Marcus Mariota had lost his confidence and lost his feel for the position.
A lot of that can be blamed on the Titans organization.
Some of it can be put on him at some point,
you got to take accountability for your own actions,
but he was,
I guess someone said this on Twitter and it
made a lot of sense it says uh you know Winston misses a lot of long contested threes and uh
Mariota misses a lot of layups and it's it's it's true it worked he just doesn't make the simple
throws that you have to make in the NFL to keep the offense on track yeah it's just a five yard
bubble screen but you got to be accurate and give Adam Hum the offense on track. Yeah, it's just a five-yard bubble screen,
but you've got to be accurate and give Adam Humphreys a chance
to get three or four yards to stay ahead of the chains.
It's just Johnnie Smith out in the flat,
and he'll probably only pick up about six yards.
But you need those to sustain offense in the NFL,
and he just wasn't throwing the ball when there were possibilities open.
At some point, you've just got to let it rip in the NFL
and not have guys wide open.
And unless they were wide open and it was well-defined,
he wasn't making the throws and he wasn't turning over the ball.
But at some point, you got to take some risk
and rip the ball in there to get things going in the NFL.
And we saw the offense pick up immediately with Ryan Tannehill.
He just has more confidence.
He reads the pocket just a smidgen better, enough to not get sacked every time.
And he's got a much stronger arm and can just zip the ball in there and take those chances.
So we saw the benefits of that on Sunday when the Titans were able to pull out a victory over the Chargers,
who have a pretty good pass defense.
Yeah, oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
It was quite the surprise win i i would say i don't
think a whole lot of people given that tannahill was the starter were were betting on the titans
to win um one of the more curious enigmas in the nfl is that of derrick henry now i like derrick
henry i've been a fan of his for a while,
but he's one of those guys that will explode for three games
and then enter witness protection for four.
What's been the feel of Derrick Henry so far this season?
Well, I'm glad you have a pretty good read on the pulse
of Derrick Henry and the Titans offense at the moment.
Well, I feel like Derek Henry is one
of those guys who's more dependent on his surroundings than others. You look at some
of the backs around the league, Alvin Kamara and Ezekiel Elliott, Saquon Barkley, they're probably
going to be able to produce no matter the circumstance or situation because of their
talent. While Derek Henry is talented, he's not the power runner people would think he is for a
size. He's more of a finesse runner and he's admitted that himself. So it's all about how well things
are blocked up for him. He's going to make some yardage after contact. He's doing a pretty good
job of that at the moment with the contact that he's taken. He's tops in the league for getting
contact early on in his runs. Right now, it's like one yard is his average
before he takes contact on his runs.
So if you can give him an open lane like we saw
with his pitch sweep touchdown on Sunday,
if you can give him just a little bit of space to get up to full speed,
then yeah, he's going to be a problem once he gets into the second level
for some of those smaller guys.
But if you can bottle him up at the line of scrimmage,
which the Buccaneers do have a fantastic run defense, that's one thing they can hang their
hat on. If you're able to bottle him up at the line of scrimmage and not let him get that momentum
going, he's not as effective because he's not a very agile runner. He won't bounce in between
holes and find daylight. The hole has to be there and he has to get through the first line
with minimal contact to get into the second level and then make those smaller guys pay.
So that's why it kind of depends on the blocking, and it depends on the matchup, and that's why he can be a little hot and cold.
You know, the story for the Buccaneers, you know, for half of their games this year has been going up against former Buccaneers.
Week one, it was Quan Alexander who was ejected from the game.
You had week two against Gerald McCoy who was shut down,
and then most recently in week six against Gerald McCoy again
where he had two and a half sacks, had an absolutely fantastic game.
Yeah, he was great.
Former corner JV and Elliott got an interception.
Now the Bucs are facing Adam Humphreys,
which I think a lot of Buccaneers fans are missing
far more than they thought they would,
considering the Bucs really don't have a surefire number three receiver.
They should be using OJ Howard in that role,
but that's a conversation for another day.
How is Adam Humphreys doing
in Tennessee? For those that haven't followed, it seems like it's been awfully quiet. I was
real high on Humphreys early in the offseason when he signed with the Titans. Or has he been
a product basically of, as you alluded to earlier, Mariota's shortcomings?
Yeah, I think it's hard to judge any of the
skill position players in the Titans offense simply based on that. Right now, Adam Humphreys
has 25 catches, which is the most on the team, which you would expect, but only 229 yards and
he hasn't scored a touchdown yet. You were hoping he would be a little bit more of a red zone threat,
but the reality is for the first six games, this offense was so unhealthy and running at such a slow pace.
And it was so clunky out there on the field that it's hard to really judge Adam Humphreys and his ability so far.
But he's able to make some really good catches, some really good route running.
He's not going to do much with the ball after he gets it in his hands.
He doesn't have a lot of shiftiness in terms of ball carrier skills but he runs very precise routes gets open
and I would imagine that with the Titans newfound offense and having Titans fans will be upset about
this but actually having an NFL quarterback out there I think that'll help Humphreys get going
and give a little bit more of the production that we saw on Tampa Bay when you know Jameis Winston isn't the greatest quarterback in the NFL but he was still able to
make Adam Humphreys a really productive receiver and utilize him the correct way I'm hoping to
see more from the Titans whose outside receivers are the most talented players on the offense so
they want to get them the ball but Adam Humphreys will be essential to keeping the chains moving and
getting some of those four five six yard completions that I mentioned earlier really help in offense. So I
expect his production to increase throughout the remaining portion of the year based on the
offense just increasing in production in general. On the flip side of the ball, the Titans are
allowing the 10th fewest passing yards per game. They're allowing the fourth fewest points per
game. What has been the catalyst for this defense to rise to the level that it has this season?
It's pretty simple, actually. It's the talent and versatility of the secondary.
The Titans do a decent job getting pressure on quarterbacks. I say decent, even though their sack numbers are
pretty good on the year. They're in the top half of the league in sacks with 19. So they do a pretty
good job of getting pressure on the quarterback, but that's only with blitzes from linebackers
and cornerbacks and safeties. They don't do a very good job of getting pressure with just their
front four down line. And that's a big weakness for this team.
So the versatility in the secondary with Kenny Vaccaro and Kevin Bayard at safeties with
Logan Ryan, Malcolm Butler, Adoree Jackson at cornerbacks, and even the two linebackers,
Jayon Brown, who was actually out last week.
We'll see if he plays.
And Rashawn Evans.
They're so versatile and so talented.
They can play multiple different coverages. They can play man. They can play zone. They can disguise.
They can line up flat and just play you. The versatility of the back seven and all of the
talent in that secondary allows them to do so many different things on defenses. Like I said,
disguise coverages, run complex coverages, cover six, cover four, cover three, show different looks.
Because those guys are so smart and so talented and so cohesive,
it allows the Titans defense to do a lot of different things
to mess with other offenses.
And you see that with the Titans offense struggling the way it is,
it is a miracle that the defense is putting up those kind of numbers
and that kind of production.
They are flat-out phenomenal.
And it would be scary to see what they could do with an actual front-four pass rush with their down lineman
that's hopefully developing.
But yeah, the defense is lights out.
It's no fluke.
I just have to say I love Bayard.
He was one of my favorite players coming out of that draft.
Best player on the team, yeah.
He's so good, and my best friend of over 20 years
is a diehard Titans fan and the time I remember the Titans drafting him and he texted me and he
goes who the heck is this guy and I'm like dude you are going to love him yeah three interceptions
so far this year he's he's got 38 combined tackles.
He's just all over the field.
Even last week against a few slants on Hunter Henry,
he had some pass breakups on third down.
He's one thing that the Titans aren't always a fun team to watch
because the offense struggles and has for 20 years.
But Kevin Byard makes this team fun to watch because he's just so special,
and it's obvious when he's out there captaining the defense it's great he's fun to watch all right and the last one for me Tyler
before we uh before we flip the script here is with as good as this Titans defense is obviously
no defense is perfect you've already kind of mentioned that they have trouble getting to the
quarterback with just the front four they have to incorporate a lot of blitzes.
Tampa does the same thing. But if you could pinpoint a weakness on this defense
that the Buccaneers offense may be looking to exploit
with some of the weapons they have, Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, O.J. Howard,
the duo of Barber and Rojo,
what would you say would be your game plan of attack if you were running the Buccaneers offense?
So, and I'll probably ask you just to make sure our theories line up here, but the way I see it,
the Titans defense is vulnerable if you can prevent them from getting pressure. Like I said,
the Titans defense runs a lot of blitzes from the linebackers, the safeties, and the cornerbacks.
Now that's great because you have to manufacture pressure
because the front four isn't getting it done.
So that's what you've got to do.
And they're able to do those things pretty successfully
because of how intelligent the defense is.
But where that opens you up and makes you vulnerable, like you said,
is if you're able to block up that blitz and block up the initial pressure
that the Titans are sending,
now you're going to have some advantages out on the field. able to block up that blitz and block up the initial pressure that the Titans are sending,
now you're going to have some advantages out on the field.
And when you have guys as talented as OJ Howard and Mike Evans and Chris Godwin and even someone like Cameron Brait, who's been underrated his whole career, in my opinion, big fan of
Cameron Brait.
When you have weapons like that who can win one-on-one or find holes in the zone, the
Titans are going to show signs of weakness.
I would say the Buccaneers may look to keep in some of those tight ends,
keep in a back, and maybe have six or seven in protection
on some of these plays so that they can give Mike Evans
and Chris Godwin time to beat their man.
The Titans are better than the sum of their parts.
Malcolm Butler one-on-one, Mike Evans or Chris Godwin will probably roast them.
I feel the same about Adory Jackson.
Logan Ryan as our slot corner, no, I feel very confident in him playing one-on-one.
But if they don't get pressure and time and leave those guys out on an island
with Evans or Godwin and the pressure doesn't get there when it's supposed to
and gives Winston enough time to see it, then that's going to be an issue for the Titans.
And we saw that against the Chargers as well.
The Chargers were able to pick up a couple of the blitzes.
They only got one sack on Rivers throughout the day and he had time to kind of pick apart.
And like I said, the Titans do a lot of disguise coverages.
Well, if you have time to figure it out post-snap what the coverage is, it's not as effective
that you disguised it.
So if the Buccaneers can give Winston time by keeping some extra blockers in
and give their wide receivers time to get one-on-one matchups on the cornerbacks,
that could be really successful for the Buccaneers.
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We are going to continue our crossover Wednesday event here.
My name is Tyler, host of the Locked On Titans podcast.
We are here with James of the Locked On Buccaneers podcast.
James, I just answered some questions for you about the Titans.
We are going to do the flip side of that here,
and I'm going to ask you some questions about the Buccaneers.
But first, how are you doing this evening?
I am fantastic.
Yeah, it's finally out of the bye week, so we can stop continuously talking about how bad the Bucs got bludgeoned in England.
Yeah, it's very important to have a win before your bye week,
or it definitely makes the bye week a pretty rough experience.
I know being immersed in the Titans Twitter universe,
anytime there's a loss, it can be a really toxic place.
So having a bye week to give you another week to stew,
I know that's not a great time.
Yeah, not at all especially
when the loss comes at the hands of a division rival and your quarterback turns the ball over
six times yeah yeah well that that will lead us into this uh Winston had six turnovers turnovers
in that game I think it was four interceptions he's had 10 interceptions on the year that's
always been kind of a bugaboo for him is the turnovers. With Bruce Arians, though, who's typically really, really good at coaching up quarterbacks,
what is it that is still causing Winston problems with the turnovers?
You know, he went on such a great stretch. He had a four-game stretch where he had a quarterback
rating of over 100. He had an 11, I believe it was an 11 to 4 touchdown to interception ratio
over that span. He was playing some absolutely great football, and the Bucs were 2-2 in that
span. So a lot of the people that like to put the blame on Winston, we're starting to see,
you know what, our quarterback is playing great football. He may
not be targeting the tight end, but it's not him that's losing these games. And then London
happened. And it was one of those things where we had seen three losses, the 49ers, the New Orleans
Saints, and the New York Giants.
And they didn't lose any of those games in the same way.
You saw the mistakes that were made,
and then those were corrected the following week.
And so it began to give Bucs fans a little bit of confidence,
like, okay, well, we should have won a couple of those games,
but we're not seeing the same mistakes over and over.
Then in London, every mistake this team has ever made,
all the way back to peewee football, everybody made those mistakes again, all in one game.
I did a deep dive earlier in the season about how Carson Palmer looked early on in his career
under Bruce Arians. That first year that Bruce Arians was the Cardinals head coach,
how did Carson Palmer look early in the season?
He had his worst completion percentage through six games in his career.
He had his worst touchdown to interception ratio
through six games in his career.
Larry Fitzgerald, he was on pace for a career low in targets and
receptions. It takes a little while for these players to really start to grasp Bruce Arian's
system. So although not everyone is fully panicked, there are people that that game against
the Panthers where he turned the ball over six times, had five interceptions.
That was the straw that broke the camel's back for a lot of them. I'm still holding out a little bit,
but my confidence in his ability to turn the corner has wavered immensely. But there's still
10 games left, and if he goes on a six or seven game run like we saw that four game span earlier you
know but before the bye week then he's going to change a lot of people's minds and he's going to
earn that that next contract with the Buccaneers it may not be a massive lucrative deal it may be
a three-year deal where they can get out of it after two years if he regresses. But you can see pieces of where Bruce has gotten Jameis
to kind of change his game a little bit,
but it's just not a complete transformation.
That takes too much time for it to immediately take effect
in the beginning of this season.
Yeah, well, that's one thing that both our teams can take from this
is there is tons of
season left to change the feeling and change the narrative. But one narrative that I think is
probably the most interesting with the Buccaneers this season is the emergence of Chris Godwin at
wide receiver. You have a guy like Mike Evans there. You have a guy like OJ Howard there,
who I would say, statistically speaking, have been a little disappointing this year.
But you look at Godwin, 43 catches, 662 yards and six touchdowns.
My Lord, he's been fantastic.
What has helped with his emergence?
And why is it that the other two guys I mentioned maybe are struggling to get going?
The big part of Godwin's emergence is his ability to get on the field.
He doesn't have Diva Jackson standing in his way who's loafing around
and giving 50% effort 90% of the time.
Yeah, or always hurt.
So Godwin being able to get on the field has played a huge role
in his ability to really reach the level
that a lot of us believed that he could.
David and I have been pumping Chris Godwin on the Locked on Bucks podcast
since he was drafted.
He's been a guest a few times, down-to-earth guy,
and we love seeing him succeed the way he has.
With Mike Evans, Evans in week one was playing with the flu. Then in week two,
they're playing on a Thursday night. So he has no time to recover after playing a game with the flu,
then turn around and play another game. So that was kind of not a huge shock that his numbers
weren't there. Then in week three, he starts to explode, has a massive game against the Rams,
then gets goosed against the Saints.
And that was, it was almost like the Saints and Bucks both schemed him out of the game,
which just didn't really make a whole lot of sense to a lot of us.
But that's neither here nor there.
As far as OJ Howard is concerned,
this is something that people were concerned about when Bruce Arians took the job.
Bruce Arians is not known as a guy who features the tight end, but he has two tight ends on this
team that are talented enough to be featured, but they're not getting the usage. I will argue to the death with anyone that based
on pure athletic talent, OJ Howard is at worst a top four tight end of the NFL. However, his usage
has dropped him to absolutely nothing. He's not getting targets. He's not getting receptions. He's being utilized
a lot in the blocking game, which is creating opportunities for Chris Godwin and Mike Evans.
He's being used as a decoy again to set up one-on-one opportunities for Chris Godwin,
and it's been used absolutely perfectly. But at some point, defenses are going to stop respecting that
because they're going to say,
okay, OJ's crossing to try to draw safety down
and give Godwin one-on-one over the top,
but they're not going to throw it to OJ.
We're not going to bite.
And OJ has got to get more involved if this team is going to succeed.
I'm hoping that's going to happen sooner rather than later,
but a lot of this, you start to see the inexperience in Byron Leftwich
as the offensive coordinator.
When you have all these weapons, you have a guy like Godwin
and you have a guy like Evans, but you don't have a third wide receiver
because he's in Tennessee.
You utilize OJ Howard or Cameron Brait in that role. If you need that blocking to pick up the blitz, like you said,
the Titans like to do a lot of, then you're utilizing Cam Brait as that number three
receiver and you're using OJ as a blocker. He's one of the best blocking tight ends in the league.
using OJ as a blocker. He's one of the best blocking tight ends in the league. I understand why you use him there, but he's also a human mismatch against any defender in the NFL. His
size, his speed, his skill makes him a mismatch and he's just not being utilized. So yeah, the
success for Chris Godwin is outstanding, but Leftwich and Bruce Arians need to sit down and
figure out how to properly utilize all these weapons
before they start to leave because they're not being used.
Yeah, that makes sense.
And Kenny Vacarta really struggled last week
against Chargers tight end Hunter Henry.
So if they wanted to get OJ Howard going,
this would be a week to do it.
I do want to ask about the defense.
Such a strange dichotomy here.
They're best on the run with 68 yards allowed per game,
the best in the league, but then worst in the league,
giving up 372 yards passing per game.
So what is going on with that difference between run defense
and pass defense?
There's been so much stress about how bad the Buccaneers' pass rush has been over the years.
They've poured a lot of time and money and draft capital into trying to fortify that front seven.
Switching to the 3-4, drafting Devin White top five. You're bringing in a guy like Shaq Barrett, who even with the bye week is
still tied for the league lead in sacks with nine. You have Carl Nassib, who you brought in last year,
who's playing outside linebacker Jason Pierre-Paul back to practice on Tuesday. I don't know if he's
going to play on Sunday, but he's back to practice now.
Then you invest the first round pick in Vitavia. You got Sue lining up next to him. They're working
really hard to create a fearsome front seven. And the result of that early on is how amazing they
are at stopping the run. They have given Christian McCaffrey his two worst outings
so far this season. They're the only team to hold him under 100 all-purpose yards, not just once,
but twice. No other team has done that. They shut down Todd Gurley. They shut down Alvin Kamara.
They are a phenomenal run defense.
Then you look at the back end, and you have Vernon Hargraves,
who gets burnt so much.
I have nothing personal against the kid,
but if he's not moved to the slot sometime soon,
I'm pretty sure fans are going to show up at his house with pitchforks and torches. He's just so bad. Then you have the rest of the secondary where you have Carlton Davis
in his second year, Sean Murphy Bunting, rookie, Jamel Dean, rookie, safety, Mike Edwards,
rookie, safety Jordan Whitehead, who's playing phenomenally,
but he's in his second year.
You have Justin Evans, who was supposed to be the leader among the safeties, out.
It's such a young group that they just flat out don't have their legs under them.
They don't have the skills to be the shutdown guys that they have to be in this defense. Carlton Davis is
the closest thing to that. He's the best cover corner on the team, but he gets penalized at
least twice a game for just stupid stuff. So he has to get that under control, but they just can't
seem to get the two halves to work together. The front seven will be fine and the secondary is
terrible or the secondary will actually be playing well, but now the front seven is giving the
quarterback 12 and a half seconds to throw the ball. And it doesn't matter if you have prime
Revis and prime Deion Sanders as your corners, no corner can hold up that long.
So there's just no cohesiveness there yet. I know it takes time, and hopefully Todd Bowles is the defensive coordinator
for more than just one year so they can continue to build that.
But they have so many swings and misses in the secondary,
both in the draft and in free agency,
that it just continues to set this team back.
Yeah, yeah.
Understandably, when you have a lot of young guys
and a lot of injuries and things just can't line up,
it can definitely get frustrating.
Well, I'm sure that the defense will be happy to know
that the Titans offense is squarely centered around their run game.
So if you're able to stop that, it should definitely help them out.
Here after this, we will go ahead and do some some predictions give our key matchups for the game so we will get to that next
all right well tyler are you ready for ready for a few predictions and matchup focuses?
Yeah, I'm all for that.
Not every other host on the Locked On Sports Podcast Network
likes to do predictions and things like that,
but I am always game, so ready to get to it.
All right.
Well, if you had to pick your key matchup to focus on for this game,
what is it that you're looking at on Sunday?
I think the key matchup, it's going to hinge on some things
that we spoke about before, but Chris Godwin is an excellent receiver.
He's been a key cog in the Buccaneers' offense so far.
I have, I guess, faith in the Titans' defense
that they are going to be able to stop
the Buccaneers run game. Not that
effective. 3.8 yards per
carry for the team. 98 yards per
game. I do like Ali Marpet
and Ryan Jensen on the interior
offensive line for them, but the Buccaneers
run game doesn't bother me
at all. The Titans will have to focus on
shutting down the passing game, and that
will mean shutting down Chris Godwin. Godwin's excellent out of the slot, so I'm going to look to Logan
Ryan, who has probably been the Titans' best player on defense if you just take the first
seven weeks. He has been phenomenal. He shut down Keenan Allen last week, who is one of the best
slot receivers in the league. I'm going to look for Logan Ryan against Chris Godwin out of the slot over and over and over again. Whoever wins that matchup, I have a feeling will win the day for their side of the ball. That's kind of what I see being the pivotal matchup in the game, at least for the Titans defense there. But I have a feeling that Titans defense against the Buccaneers offense will be what wins the Titans the game if they're able to
do so. Yeah, and that that plays directly into the key matchup that I'm looking at. And that is
Jameis Winston against the Titans secondary. You mentioned it earlier, the Titans like to bring a
lot of blitzes. That's how they get their pressure on the quarterback. The Bucs did not respond to what the Panthers were doing two weeks ago. They have a battered right side of the line. No real word as to whether DeMar
Dotson will be available. Alex Kappa still out with that broken arm. Here's a guy that played
almost an entire game against the Saints with a broken arm, told the media it was a bruise after the game. It's like, no, dude,
your arm is broken. So being able to protect Jameis, not force him to start to hurry things
or force things because of the pressure, which is exactly what got him into trouble against the
Panthers. And the Titans have a secondary that can make plays. If he starts
forcing passes to Godwin or getting off of his timing because of those blitzes,
then the Titans secondary is going to have a field day, and the Jameis Winston train might be
permanently derailed. Jameis has to have a good game. Even if the Bucs don't win,
Jameis still has to come out with a solid outing like he did in the loss to the Giants or the loss to the Saints
to get back on track.
He cannot turn the ball over more than once.
I'll give him one, but any more than that and the train might be derailed.
So I'm really looking for him to try to get his head on straight
against a very, very talented Titans secondary.
Yeah, they definitely can't afford to turn over the ball
more than probably once.
The Titans offense, you shouldn't give it any help
if you really want to choke it out.
So I understand there.
Well, let's get into, I guess, our game predictions.
I went first on the key matchups.
If you want, go ahead and give us, I guess, your prediction for the game,
who's going to win, and what you think the score might end up being,
and then I'll go after you.
All right.
Well, the Buccaneers coming off of a bye over the course of the last,
I don't know, five, six, seven years, not great.
But Bruce Arians as a head coach coming out of a bye, I don't know, five, six, seven years. Not great, but Bruce Arians is a
head coach coming out of a bye. Very, very good. The Bucs have to bounce back this week. A lot of
that is going to be on the shoulders, as I just said, of Jameis Winston, but I expect the Buccaneers
to squeak one out on the road because they can win on the road. They can't win at Ray J, but they can win on the road.
It's a dire situation for the Bucs in the 2019 season,
but I think they get it done.
Bucs win 27-20.
Okay.
Yeah, well, I, too, think it'll be a one-score game.
I think neither of these teams are good enough to really pull away. They'll find a way to make sure that the other team is, is close in it. While I do understand the Bruce Arians by week correlation there, I think with the Titans playing at home and having, you know, a lot of confidence from the win against the Chargers.
It was a really emotional win.
I got to think that they were able to ride the lightning, so to speak, there off the Chargers' victory.
And I do see the Titans coming out on top of this game with the help of a turnover,
getting the offense one of its touchdowns.
24-17 is where i see it coming out i'll tell you i could see the buccaneers winning the game just because it'll be so close but if they're
able to put up 27 points on this defense which would be a season high then i will have to bow
down to the altar of bruce arians because that will be quite a success um for his offense and
for his team you guys have you would have to feel really good about the season turning around
after something like that.
Well, I mean, of that 27, there could always be a defensive score.
Yeah, it's definitely possible.
If the Titans ever do give up that many points,
I'm going to have to assume that it would be based on the offense
giving up some, which hasn't happened yet.
And the Titans have had like 10 fumbles and only lost one
of them so there's a lot of weird things going on for the titans that are benefiting them right now
and who knows maybe the buccaneers will be uh be the benefactor of some regression to the mean
well i i can't ever get predictions right so the tit Titans will probably win. Well, I was 0 for 6 going into this last game.
I finally got one prediction right when I predicted them
to beat the Chargers at home.
So I'm not the prediction king myself.
I think the only one I've gotten right this season
was when I picked the Saints to beat them.
Hey, well, a win is a win is a win, all right?
So, all right. Well, Tyler, thank you so much for some a win. All right. So, all right.
Well, Tyler, thank you so much for some of your time tonight, brother.
Really appreciate it.
Really looking forward to to the Bucks and Titans squaring off on Sunday.
Yeah, absolutely.
Hopefully it is at the minimum, regardless of the outcome.
Hopefully it is a fun football game to watch because that's what we deserve.
All right.
And of course, check out everything Tyler is doing with the Locked on Titans podcast
and on Twitter at Tic Tac Titans.
Check out everything I'm doing over at BucksNation.com and follow along on Twitter at JArco underscore
Bucks.
Hope you all have an absolutely terrific day.
And thank you so much for joining us right here on Crossover Wednesdays.