Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Derrick Henry Gets PAID & Ultimate Division Crossover Series Finale - Jaguars

Episode Date: July 16, 2020

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Welcome to the Locked on Titans podcast. I am your host, Tyler Rowland. Titans fans, long live the King. We got major surprising news on Wednesday about Derrick Henry and the Tennessee Titans. A four-year, $50 million contract agreement. This was an incredible surprise to anybody who listened to yesterday's show or had been following the news whatsoever throughout the beginning of the week. So very, very exciting times, an exciting day for the Titans fan base, an exciting day for Derrick Henry and everyone involved with the organization as well. So, of course, we are going to start off our show talking about that contract extension, talking about the guaranteed money, why it's very similar to as if Derrick Henry would

have gotten two franchise tags to start with. So, we'll talk about all of the different information that we need to discuss surrounding that extension, what it will look like going forward for the Titans in the future, and just in this offseason in general, how does this affect certain things like Clowney Watch 2020, for example. So we'll talk about all of those things first, and then we will get into the finale of our Ultimate Division Crossover Series Training Camp Preview. Today is Jaguars Day.

I really do enjoy talking to my guy from Locked On Jaguars, Tony Wiggins. So he will go in the hot seat today. And me, along with Evan Sidery from the Locked On Colts and John Hickman from Locked On Texans, will be shooting Tony some questions about the Jaguars, some things that we have on our mind going into training camp for the 2020 season. So excited to get all of that to you guys. But most excited to talk about the return of the king.

Derrick Henry will come back to the Tennessee Titans on a long-term deal. Let's get it. We got major bombshell news on Wednesday at the buzzer that the Tennessee Titans and running back Derrick Henry had agreed to a long-term contract for four years, $50 million total. And this was incredibly surprising news because on Tuesday, we got reports from ESPN's Adam Schefter that a deal between the Titans and star running back Derek Henry would not be reached by the deadline. Now, this would be the rule rather than the exception because numerous franchise tag players around the NFL did not

expect to have deals either. So it was an incredible surprise to see the news reported that the Titans did in fact get a deal done at the buzzer before the deadline. Now the terms of the deal are still coming out, but at this moment in time, it does appear that it will be a four-year $50 million deal with $25 million guaranteed to Derrick Henry. And this makes a lot of sense when you look at what the alternative route would have been for the Titans if they did not get a long-term deal done. Most expected that the Titans, along with franchise tagging Derrick Henry in 2020, would

again franchise tag Derrick Henry in 2021. If you are franchise tagged for a second year in a row, that means that the franchise tag Derrick Henry in 2021. If you are franchise tagged for a second year in a row, that means that the franchise tag value goes up a tad bit. So Derrick Henry would have been paid $10.27 million on the franchise tag in 2020. And then if franchise tagged again in 2021 by the Titans, he would be paid anywhere between $13 to $14 million. So that makes the total of those two seasons about $25 million. So what the Titans did was they offered Derrick Henry similar money,

but with additional security rather than worrying about, from Derrick Henry's perspective, he would have to worry about an injury during 2020, a lack of production in 2020 if he were to have some sort of drop off statistically. Also, you have to worry about the salary cap implications in 2021 based on the obvious revenue dip that the NFL will see due to the COVID-19 restrictions. So that put Derrick Henry in a very uncertain area. So it makes sense from his side to go ahead and give yourself some security lock in 25 million dollars guaranteed and give yourself a four-year contract that if things do go well

now you're in the same place for the next four seasons so from Derek Henry's perspective although maybe his market value would indicate that he would get paid a little bit more money right now with this contract he only comes in as the fifth highest paid running back in the NFL behind Christian McCaffrey, who signed a deal this offseason, Ezekiel Elliott, David Johnson, and Le'Veon Bell. So while Derrick Henry's representation could argue that he's been better than some of those players recently, it makes sense that Derrick Henry would not try to get too much money out of the deal, but instead look for a little bit of security and return to a place where he knows that the offense schematically is built around him, which should in turn cause him to have even more success in the future.

That's from Derrick Henry's side. Look at it from the Titans' perspective. You bring home the guy who led the NFL in rushing in 2019 for less than the top rate in the running back market. So that's an incredible value right there. There is an argument to be made that Derrick Henry should be the top paid back in the league. You're not only not paying Derrick Henry the top rate in the league, you're getting him at the fifth highest rate in the league,

lower than the names I mentioned earlier, like David Johnson and Le'Veon Bell, who clearly Derrick Henry is a superior player to, at least here recently. And then from the Titans' perspective as well, you keep the locker room settled. Not paying a leader and a productive guy like Derrick Henry after what he did for the team in 2019 could rock the boat a tad bit in the locker room

and lead to some negative feelings from some players who feel like the Titans aren't willing to pay the players who actually deserve it. You remove any of those concerns whatsoever. You lock in a very, very, and what could be the most important player on your team for at minimum two seasons, at maximum four seasons, and you roll into 2020 with the same exact core on offense that you had in 2019, which was one of the most productive seasons we've seen from a Titans offense in over a decade. So it makes sense from the Titans side. It makes sense from Derrick Henry's side to get this deal done.

And again, it was at the buzzer. Once again, deadlines do spur action. And we saw that be the case here with Derrick Henry and the Tennessee Titans. We are still awaiting further details to see how this will impact the Titans' pursuit of other free agents like a Jadavion Clowney, but at this moment in time, the most important players on the 2019 Titans will be back in Nashville for the foreseeable future. Before we jump into our ultimate division crossover conversation, I do want to remind you guys of a few things. We do have our Friday mailbag set for tomorrow's

show. Make sure you get those questions to me at TicTacTitans. Also, we're going to have big Titans news like this as we go into training camp. Make sure that you are subscribed to the Locked On Titans podcast on Apple Podcasts, following on

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And we are back for the final installment of our Ultimate Division Crossover Series here with the host of the Locked On podcast from the AFC South. I am the host of the Locked On Titans podcast, Tyler Rowland, here with the host of the Locked On Colts podcast, Evan Sidery, host of the Locked On Texans podcast, John Hickman, and then, of course, the host of the Locked on Jaguars podcast, Tony Wiggins. We are going to get into some questions here in just a second. First, I want to thank all of the listeners from all of the different shows here from the AFC South podcast for enjoying this week of the Ultimate Division Crossover Series

with us. We always enjoy doing this together. I want to thank the hosts that are here with me, Evan, John, and Tony, for joining me on this journey. It's always fun to get all of the guys together and have a good conversation about all of our teams. If you do want to find all of us on social media, of course, subscribe to all of the podcasts, your favorite team's podcasts, of course.

You can find me on Twitter, though, at Tic Tac Titans. Evan, where can the people find you? At LockedOnCulti. I've not already followed over there. Awesome, awesome. John, where can people find you and Cody for the LockedOnTexans? At LockedOnTexans on Twitter. Awesome.

And, Tony, I am going to kick things off with a question to you. You tell us where they can find you on Twitter to open it off. But for my question, right now, do you think that the Jags are going to try to maybe tank in some way to get a top pick? Or do you think that they're going to try to put the pieces they've put together in a position to win and maybe try to surprise some folks? All right.

So you can find me at LockedOnJaguars. I'll answer that question in just a second, but I'll say this because, you know, our fans can be really honoring and petty. So I'm going to say thank you to the hosts and thank you to all the fans for listening all week except for Titan fans. They don't care whether you listen or not. How about that? Oh, no.

We couldn't make it all week without a little heat, man. I know I can count on you, Tony. There you go. Yeah, but in terms of tanking, this is one of the things I've said for a long time. I don't know how you do that. And what I mean by that is, if you're Doug Marone, if you're Dave Caldwell, and you've had all of this heat, how can you tank? If you're Gardner Minshew, who has the keys to the car,

you're going to tank for them to take Trevor Lawrence? What about if you're just a player like Leonard Fournette or whoever that's in the last year of his contract? How do you go put out bad take to justify you getting a contract or getting a shot for another team? So there's just too many elements and too many different variables to tanking. And then we forget about this part of it too these guys didn't make it to the NFL without being totally competitive and and

almost narcissistic in a way at some point every one of these players was the best player in high school and one of the two or three best players on their college team you don't get to that level of being an alpha by not giving it everything that you have so I don't know how the dynamics of tanking works I do know maybe you can do it in boxing you can. So I don't know how the dynamics of tanking works. I do know maybe you can do it in boxing. You can't do it in the NFL. It takes too many people to do it. I think overall with this team and heading into 2020, Tony,

I wanted to hit on Gardner Minshew because I think he's one of the more interesting young quarterbacks. And, of course, at the Jaguars, you finish with a top three pick. Maybe this is his last year starting. But he did very well for himself last year when Nick Foles went down week one. And he's a very accurate quarterback, especially on deep balls. Do you think there's a possibility that Minshew could be the future there

and Jacksonville, I think, is kind of the bridge to maybe, like we talked about in a further episode earlier this week, maybe Trevor Lawrence, Justin Fields? I think there is a possibility because if you're Gardner Minchley, you're playing with house money. Two years ago, you were at like Coastal Carolina or somewhere, and then you were headed to Alabama to be the GA with Nick Saban. Then you get a call from Mike Leach to come out and compete,

and then a guy gets hurt, and you ended up doing what you're doing. Now you're a six-round pick. I'll put it to you this way evan if he was a second round pick and he thrown for 21 touchdowns and six picks and had a six and six record as a starter on this team with all of the jaylen ramsey stuff all of the trades all of the you know they had some injuries in some key spots what i mean that nobody's talking he won Rookie of the Week seven times, okay? And didn't even get consideration for Rookie

of the Year. And nobody else won. Nobody else came even close to that. At some point, we're going to have to get past the fact that this dude was a six-round pick. At some point, people are going to have to get past the fact that he's pop culture, sort of like icon, if you will, especially around here with the way that he looks and the way that he talks.

And we have to look at the nuts and bolts of who he is as a football player and the things that I mentioned about his record and how he performed. You can accidentally show up. You can Jerry Millen for one week. You can't do it in the NFL for 12 weeks at 21 and 6 in terms of touchdown interceptions it just doesn't happen at some point we have to realize that this kid deserves and has earned a legitimate shot to be the starting quarterback for this football team you know evan kind of stole my question there but

i'm looking at gardner menschue and the entire uh second year players how do you feel about the progression so far of the second-year players? We just mentioned Gardner Minshew, Josh Allen, for one, Jawan Taylor. And I love Josh Allen, by the way. And Jawan Taylor, how do you feel about the progression of those second-year players? Well, I feel good about them. And I tell you what, it's almost as if it's a shame

because they're not going to have the opportunity to be second-year players. Gardner Minshew is the quarterback, is the leader of this offense. And by that, the very nature of that, he's the leader of this football team. Josh Allen, now that Calais Campbell is gone, along with the newly acquired middle linebacker Joe Sjobert, Josh Allen is the leader of this defense, because Yannick Ngakwe is holding out and might not be here. And even if he comes in, the nature of his relationship with the team

might not lend him to be a leader in the locker room. And Josh Allen played 60% of the snaps and had 10.5 sacks last year. And, you know, that's something else the staff has to figure out. That can't happen. If he's that good, he needs to be out on the field. He needs to be just like Nick Bosa was in San Francisco. He needs to be on the field more. And Jawan Taylor, you're right, is their best offensive lineman.

It's a good thing that they hit on those draft picks. That might have been the saving grace for Dave Caldwell as well last year. But it's almost a bad thing if people are expecting too much of them and they're not allowed to be second round picks.

It's almost like a kid that's 15 years old and his parents go through a divorce and now you got to step up and you got to be more than just a 15 year old kid. You actually have to get a part-time job to make sure you keep food on the table. While that's an admirable thing to do. It's not ideal in terms of the development of the football player. I have a question for you about Yannick Ngakwe.

So we've obviously seen his story kind of carry out throughout the offseason. My question is, when you have somebody like Caleb on chase on who's a rookie, and then you have a Yannick Ngakwe who doesn't appear to want to be a part of the future. I mean, maybe he'll play this year on the franchise tag, maybe. But even then, he probably won this year on the franchise tag maybe but even then he probably won't be on the team next year how do you balance wanting to get reps for someone like Kaylevon Chase on in the pass rush and then having someone like Yannick Ngakwe who's probably the better player of course at this moment in time how do you balance having those two guys out on the field

and making sure that you're developing somebody who you want to be a piece of your future versus a better player who, you know, won't be a part of your future. That's a great question. And Jan is, people wonder why I've sort of taken up for him more than I, you know, I know him, he, you know, a little bit, he's been very, very respectful. We got a little bit of connection because the fact that he grew up where I grew up a part of my life in right outside of Washington, D.C. and PG County. So we had that, you know, little connection. And, you know, when a guy comes in and he's a rookie and you talk to him,

it's good that he sees somebody that's familiar with where he grew up. But that being aside, let me give you a little bit of background. They picked Dante Fowler in the first round, top five pick. He got hurt. The next year they picked Yannick Ngakwe. Yannick Ngakwe played better than Dante Fowler in training camp. The first game at home, they announced 12 starters. They announced both Ngakwe and Fowler. Ngakwe runs on the field. They call him back, send Fowler out, and Ngakwe got pissed on the sideline.

All right? Ngakwe outplays Fowler, and he outworks him, and he outprepares him, and everyone knows it, and everyone's kind of under their breath saying Dante needs to be more like him. And he get 38 and a half sacks in four years. Then when you become a free agent, they're still holding these other things against you. The same thing I said about Minshew.

You need to forget that he's a six-round pick. They're saying Yannick is 6'2", 245 pounds, and that's not... You know, he reminds me of Mathis, who played opposite Freeney up in Robert Mathis. That's what he reminds me of. And you can keep talking about his size all you want to. You can talk about his

value all you want to. Bottom line is 38 and a half sacks. It doesn't grow on trees. And it also doesn't grow on trees to a guy who shows up early and leaves late. And what else doesn't grow on trees. And it also doesn't grow on trees to a guy who shows up early and leaves late. And what else doesn't grow on trees is the fact that the guy probably hasn't eaten a cheeseburger or chicken wing since he's been here. All he does is work. At some point, at some point as an organization who wants to win, you have to reward guys like that. And you have to start forgetting about all of these measurables and you have to reward guys like that. And you have to start forgetting about all of these measurables

and you have to forget about all the analytics and just give it to them based on the fact and send a message to your team, that's the kind of guy that we want. We're going to move on here into the second segment of our show with Tony talking about the Jacksonville Jaguars heading into the 2020 season. Before we do, I want to remind you guys,

if you're not already, to subscribe to not only Locked on Jaguars, but also Locked on Colts, Locked on Titans, Locked on Texans, all of our AFC-style podcasts here. As we give you guys our ultimate division crossover, we're wrapping up this week. Go ahead and remember to stream, platform, and listen to us on. Subscribe to all of our shows, Locked on Colts, Locked on Jags, Locked on Titans, and Locked on Texans. We'll be back with you guys in just a second to wrap up the show talking about the Jacksonville Jaguars.

We're getting into the second part of our conversation here with Tony Wiggins from the Locked on Jaguars podcast to round out our week of the Ultimate Division Crossover Series here. And Tony, my first question for you to kind of kick things off in the second portion of our show is about the other first round rookie you have there in C.J. Henderson. Obviously, the secondary in Jacksonville has been overhauled quite a bit from the talented team we saw in 2017. What do you think C.J. Henderson can do to try to get the secondary back to those sort of levels?

I think what he gives them is what they lost when they traded Jalen Ramsey. And they're not really the same type of player. Jalen is extremely physical and obviously ran track at Florida State and he could run. Well, CJ Henderson is almost like an offensive player, playing defense. He's physical. He runs like the wind and he gives them the athleticism to show you how people tend to forget some of the things that they say. One of the reasons that people said you trade Jalen Rams is because, okay, you don't need a franchise corner.

You don't need to go out and draft a guy. I used to say, why did you draft him then at number five? And then four years later say, well, you don't need a franchise corner. And then people turned right around and said that that's not what you need. And what did they do at the ninth pick? They drafted another corner. Anytime you draft a guy in the top ten, you hope he's a franchise player. I think it gives him athleticism, and I think in a league that throws the ball around a lot at the end of the day even if he technically has some

work that he needs to do he just gives you a guy that can run with people and and he'll give you a guy that if he can get his hands on the ball he can take it the other way if he has to with this draft class you put together with C.J. Henderson, Caleb on chase, on the viscous, Shane all as well who I think could really have a good future there in Jacksonville. This all ties into the Jalen Ramsey trade, in my opinion, from last year where of course Ramsey forced his way out of Jacksonville, went to LA. The pick he used from the Ramsey trade in 2020 was with Caleb on chase on

the course of the 2021 first round pick as well. Looking back on now about six plus months later, Tony, how do you feel like that Ramsey situation went and doing the Jaguars are better off now? They're better off because he got to the point where he didn't want to be here anymore. And most people attributed that to Tom Coughlin. And that stuff can really tear up your locker room. And there are a lot of people that thought Jalen wanted bigger and better

things in terms of being in a market that, you know, would bear his, you know, pocketbooks even better. So from that point, yeah, they're cool. But look, this is what Jacksonville has to do. They have to get to the point where they stop replacing and start building on the foundation that they set. If you look back, they drafted Leonard Ford at number four. They're already planning on replacing it. They spent a lot of money on Malik Jackson a few years ago,

and then they draft Taven Bryant at 29 in 2018, when Lamar Jackson's sitting right there and went two picks later, and they had Blake Bortles as their starter. So now they're replacing Taven Bryant. They're replacing Malik Jackson with Taven Bryant. You trade Jalen Ramsey, now you're replacing him with C.J. Henderson. You might lose Yannick Ngakwe, so now you're going to replace him with Kelebi Ancheson.

At some point if you don't have these building blocks and then add at other positions and instead of just having four great players now you have 12 sort of the way Seattle did it Dallas did it and the way a lot of these other teams Kansas City did it at some point

it's not about cherry picking guys that can play they're going to have a lot of guys that left this team that can play and they're playing for other people it's not about cherry-picking guys that can play. They're going to have a lot of guys that left this team that can play, and they're playing for other people. It's about team-building. And until you get to the point where you're team-building, instead of every three years replacing your foundation, you're never

going to ever get any better. Hey, Wig, I had a quick question. Earlier in the week, you know, your rookie-run receiver LaVisca Finault, Jr., who signed his contract with the Jacksonville Jaguars. He's picked 42nd overall. He was just out there playing around early in the week, you know,

just doing a lot of different things outside of, you know, what he possibly should be doing when it comes to quarantining and the possibility of having an NFL season or not. My question is, are the Jags an organization to look to right now with confidence on how they're handling the COVID-19 situation? I think they are. They've I will give them credit. They were the first team to wear Black Lives Matter shirts as a team, as an organization. They were the first team. They marched to the police station. They had the players involved.

And they not only – they had not only the players' management, and then they had the actual police involved too. One of the guys they had involved was a former Jaguar who played here, a wide receiver for the Jags for a long time. And it went very, very peaceful. Leonard Fournette got with the mayor. And the mayor and little Duvall shout out to little Duvall and Rich Broke you know that's that's our boy they they had a rally

with fans they were they they really took the lead and didn't wait for the NFL to do a lot of things so in terms of that and in terms of you know they've implemented safety precautions in quarantine we've been zooming and guys aren't allowed access. They recently announced that they're going to only have 25% capacity at their game. So they've been up front with all of that stuff. But I know everybody's excited about LaVishka Chenault, but people need to be more excited about D.J. Chark.

D.J. Chark, I'm sorry. Chark, much like A.J. Brown, with the exception of the fact that he's in his second year instead of his first, Chark was a Pro Bowl alternate who eventually made the Pro Bowl. If you look at his numbers, D.J. Chark is a 6'4", 215-pound superstar that runs a 4.35. We can't look past him when we're looking at these new shiny parts. D.J. Chark is the number one wide receiver on this football team, and I expect him to show not only the AFC South,

but the rest of the league that that's not by accident. Yeah, and Chark is pretty impressive, I think. And that's one of the bright spots when you look at this Jaguars roster. One thing I do want to say real quick before I throw my question to you, Wigg, is if you have not heard yet, please go check out the Black Lives Matter roundtable done by the Locked On Podcast Network. It was a fantastic conversation that our own host, you know, John and Tony were a part of. And I think both of them did a fantastic job telling their perspective.

It was a great conversation. And if you have not heard that, make sure you go back and check that out. It was on all of the national show feeds. You can find that on the feed for whatever team it is that you follow out of the AFC South. I would encourage you to check out that conversation if you have not already. But my question for you, Wig, is kind of about the bright spots here. I know that not a lot of people are expecting a great season out of the Jaguars. But if they do surprise and have a competitive season, what do you think the recipe, I guess, as a man who knows how to cook,

what do you think the recipe would be for the Jaguars to have a better than expected season? That they adapt quickly to what Jay Gruden brings to the table, that Gardner Minshew continues to develop and becomes a quarterback that plays as good on schedule as he does off schedule, that Leonard Fournette, believe it or not, in his first three years, he had one year where he got hurt and he got suspended. The other two years he ran for 1,000 yards.

Right now, without even looking down at stats, how many balls do you think Leonard Fournette caught last year? All of you. Just give me a roundabout. 20. I want to say 78. It was over 75 catches. Wow.

So my thing – right. So my thing is he had a 200-yard game at Denver. The problem with Fournette is he's not named Mahomes, he's not named Watson, he's not named McCaffrey. That's it. And that's what I keep trying to tell people. If you look at his first three years, he's averaged just about a thousand yards.

And last year the guy caught 70 some odd balls. I mean, so it's just amazing to me that people can act like this dude is, is like Kajana Carter or something. So I think if, and he's done this now for the first two years with no quarterback play and last year with a rookie. He's done this with stacked boxes, with a subpar offensive line. I think Leonard Fournette has a huge year this year, and I think that has to work in conjunction with Gardner Minshew and Jay Gruden being on the same page

so people can back up out of that box a little bit. But because they're so young – and I want to talk about that youth too before you guys go. But because they're so young, I think there's going to be a team that gets in a bunch of shootouts. You know, they're going to look like the 49ers did the year before last, where they're real, real competitive. They're going to look like the Colts.

In fact, I believe the Colts, their 11 losses two years ago, they were like winning nine of them going into the fourth quarter or some crazy stuff like that. They're going to be a team that's a hard out for everybody because they're going to keep firing and keep firing and keep firing, but they just may not have the experience that's required for them to win those games down the stretch. Yeah, that makes sense, and it's something that obviously

we are going to watch this division. as we know from the past few years, this division can go any direction at any time, and that's why it's one of the most fun and competitive divisions in the NFL. But once again, I want to thank all of the hosts from the Locked On AFC South podcast, Evan Sidery of Locked On Colts, Tony Wiggins of Locked On Jaguars, and John Hickman from the Locked On Texans. Been another great week here of an ultimate division crossover as we head into training camp.

Make sure that you are subscribed to all of the shows that we have talked about with and talked about and talked with throughout the week. Make sure you check out the national shows as well from the Locked On Podcast Network, the Locked On NFL Show, the Locked On NFL Draft, and the Locked On Fantasy Football for great content there as well. Follow us all on social media. And most of all, thank you to all of the listeners for another great week. And we look forward to kicking off training camp here shortly and getting into

another great season of NFL football. Guys, it's been a fantastic week. Thank you so much. Thank you, man. Thanks, everybody. Awesome. That is going to do it for us here. The host of the AFC South Locked On Podcast. you