Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Fan-Made Monday: Weekend Titans News, LoT Fantasy League Recap & Mailbag Monday w/ Kevin

Episode Date: January 18, 2021

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You are Locked On Titans, your daily Tennessee Titans podcast, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome to the Locked On Titans podcast. I am your host, Tyler Rowland. Titans fans, we have a special Monday edition here of the Locked on Titans podcast. As I promised earlier in the year, I would have the winner of the inaugural Locked on Tennessee Titans Fantasy Football League on the show to host with me. And that is why today is a fan-made Monday. And this fan-made Monday episode of the Locked on Titans podcast is presented by 1010.

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launching exclusively on January 18th at bluenile.com. This exciting limited edition collection of Diamond Engagement Rings launches on January 18th, and you can preview it exclusively at BlueNile.com. But as I mentioned, it is a fan-made Monday, and we are going to have the winner of the Locked on Titans Fantasy Football League, my guy Kevin Scheschventer. he is on the show with us today. And we can't just sit here and talk about fantasy with you guys today.

We got news over the weekend. Arthur Smith was officially hired, and we also got some interesting news about who may be joining him with the Atlanta Falcons. So me and Kevin are going to talk about that to start off things, and then we are going to dive into the fantasy season that was. And Kevin is our champion. So I got some questions for him about his journey to the title. And then we will round off today with a Monday mailbag. That's right. The mailbag is back for the off season. I'll be answering your guys' questions

at the end of the show. And Kevin will help us and give his input on some of these questions as well. So excited to dive into today's Fan Made Monday on the Locked on Titans podcast. Let's get it! All right, guys, we are here and Kevin is with us. Kevin, how are you doing today and how are you doing this weekend? I'm doing pretty good. Thank you. Glad to be on. Yeah. Figured I'd mention you got my last name correct. Usually people mess that up, but.

I would like to think I would like to think that I have a way with words here, Kevin. So I'm glad I was able to get that right. Obviously on Twitter, as Kay says, man, you have been one of the most loyal and one of my favorite listeners to interact with on a daily basis on Twitter. Where can other Tennessee Titans fans find you on Twitter and maybe enjoy those interactions as well as we talk about our Titans? It's funny because I only really use Twitter to follow sports-related stuff, mainly Titans. I created Twitter years ago, and I never really use it. I've only started using it recently to follow sports.

So, I mean, not really looking for followers per se. Fair enough, fair enough fair enough hey man obviously Twitter started for me as just a news source and and it kind of developed over time to what it is now but uh we're gonna dive into some news here before we do though Kevin I wanted to ask some some questions for you how long have you been uh following the Titans as long as I can remember I'm not I'm in my mid-20s, but I'm trying to remember when I first started. It was the late McNair years. That's when I started it. I mean, ever since then, he pretty much attracted me to the team. Right, right. Yeah, I understand that

completely. He's a very exciting player, and you know, all of us got on this, got into this abusive relationship with the Titans at some point in time. But, you know, glad to have you around. Obviously, like I said, very thankful to have you as a listener. And we are going to dive into some of this Tennessee Titans news here. So over the weekend, we got some big news, obviously something that we were expecting Arthur Smith was officially hired by the Atlanta Falcons as their head coach and that is obviously a blow to the Titans who have had you know the best offense that we've seen in a long time Kevin how concerned are you generally speaking about losing Arthur Smith this offseason it's funny because I was well I guess the first off I mean it gotta be at least somewhat concerned because he was a really good coordinator for us but I just kind of thought back the last few years how we went from the floor then to him and then obviously this year we didn't have a DC I guess we might may get to that later but the year before we had Dean Pease. So I'm relatively confident in Bray Bull and John Robinson picking a good staff.

Now this year, obviously, he didn't really officially pick a DC. Hopefully he changes that in the future. But I guess going forward, cautiously optimistic that he'll make another good decision. Yeah, well, I think that's fair. And I think one thing about Mike that we've learned is he's not going to rest on his laurels and just continue to do something over and over if it doesn't work. And we're seeing some of the news about defensive coordinator candidates from

outside the organization that gives me hope as well. But you mentioned a name in there in your answer, a previous coordinator for the Titans, and that is Dean Pease. And Dean Pease, of course, retired, and he cited his reason for retiring after the 2019 season is that he wanted to travel with his wife. But obviously the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and those who like to travel are in for a tough time as things currently stand. So it looks like Dean Pease, according to some reports, may be jumping back into the NFL. But contrary to what Titans fans may think, it would not be in Nashville. There are rumors that Dean Pease would be joining Arthur Smith in Atlanta

to coach that team. And from my perspective, at least, that's disappointing to hear. You would hope that if Dean Pease wanted to come back in, it would be an easy fit to come back into Tennessee. So at this point, either maybe Mike Vrabel isn't interested in that reunion or maybe a more negative way to view it. Dean Pease doesn't want to be under Mike Vrabel anymore.

Maybe he didn't enjoy his time. We don't really know at this moment in time, and we may never know. But your first thoughts, Kevin, on Dean Pease coming back in the NFL, but maybe to join Arthur Smith and not the Titans. Yeah, when I saw that report, I was kind of taken aback. Not that I didn't think he was completely done, but it's just very interesting that Arthur Smith his first uh I guess candidate uh was Pease and it seems like he's potentially willing to come back but um yeah I I guess we'll

see in terms of who we end up choosing yeah yeah I mean it's it's definitely an interesting thing to watch and obviously for people like me it, it's something to discuss and think about. But, yeah, it's one of those situations where I can't blame Dean Pease if his retirement plans can't go as planned and he wants to get back into the league that he loves and do the job that he loves. I really can't blame him. It's more of those things where I'm not mad,

I'm just kind of sad seeing him go to do that. So I can't really blame Arthur Smith, no hate towards his direction, but it does make you maybe feel some type of way to see that. But I appreciate all your answers, Kevin. That's kind of the big news from the weekend, other than the playoff games that are currently still going on right now, as we record after a Saturday night going into the Sunday games. But we are going to transition into the reason why we are here today, Kevin,

and that is the Fantasy Football League that we are in, the first ever locked on Titans Fantasy Football League. So we are going to talk about the league a little bit more in our next segment. Before we dive into that, though, I do want to tell you guys about a great way that you can get in shape this winter, and that is Echelon. Nothing feels as good as that feeling of accomplishment, hitting your fitness goals, just feeling great about yourself. Echelon can get you there. Echelon offers the next generation of connected fitness bikes, fitness mirrors, rowing machines, and their Echelon StrideSmart treadmill.

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That is E-C-H-E-L-O-N-F-I-T dot com slash locked on to check out everything that Echelon has to offer today. All right, Kevin, let's dive into the Locked On Fantasy Football League. And you were, of course, our champion. Everyone's journey to the championship in fantasy football is different. So, Kevin, why don't you start just giving us a brief explanation or summary of the journey that was in your 2020 championship fantasy season? Yeah, before I get to that that i just want to shout out keenan my uh championship opponent his team was pretty incredible we joked in a league chat that

it was a david versus goliath matchup him being the goliath and me the david uh i just i guess we'll touch on his team a little bit here he He had, you mentioned it episodes back, but he had Aaron Jones, Jalen Hurts. He came on late in the year, Darren Waller, DK Metcalf, Stefan Diggs, Keenan Allen. And it was interesting because everybody knows what Alvin Kamara did championship week scoring six touchdowns. He actually used to have Kamara. so that kind of worked in my favor. Got a little bit lucky.

He was 12-1 during the regular season, too, for the people at home. So, Keenan Jones had a fantastic team the entire season. It really was a David and Goliath matchup that you were able to win. For sure. And this isn't to say it was a bad trade, because he ended up getting Stephon Diggs in that trade and he had 40 points in a championship match. So just figured I'd mention that. Shout out to him.

But, yeah, going back to my squad, I was actually in the same division. He was first. I was second. I finished eight and five. When talking about my team, I just kind of wanted to break it down and go back to when we drafted it. And I know everybody dealt with injuries, but I just thought it was interesting that my first four picks in the draft had some pretty significant injuries. First up, my first round pick was Michael Thomas.

He ended up missing eight games. Second round pick was Joe Mixon. He missed nine games. Third round pick was Kenny Galladay. He ended up missing 10 games. And then the fourth round pick was David Johnson. Not quite as much, but he missed about four games. So it just goes to show you, even if you have injuries, just work the waiver wire. Just stay with it. You never know what can happen. Is there one waiver wire addition or one trade that you feel like you made that really helped you get to the championship, ultimately dealing with all that?

I can't remember if I, I may have done one trade. If so, it was probably small. It was, it was more so waiver pickups. Yeah. And to go with the Kenny Galladay one, I ended up finding a way to get Marvin Jones, and he started to do pretty well lately, or at the end of the season, especially with Kenny Galladay going down. And then also Brandon Cooks with Will Fuller getting injured. He started to pick it up. And then also another key waiver pickup was the Rams defense, actually,

who ended up being the first, when you go back and look at total points for the league, they ended up being the first-ranked defense. So I guess those would definitely be the three main pickups for me. Yeah, I mean, those are huge. And I think, Kevin, you're teaching the people a fantastic lesson, not just for fantasy, but for life. It's a long journey.

The fantasy season is a grind, just like the NFL season. And your team is going to be massively different at the end of the year than it is going to be at the beginning of the year in terms of who you hang on to. And like you said, some of the people that made huge contributions for you late really turned it on late in the year. Jonathan Taylor, Marvin Jones, Brandon Cooks, like you mentioned, picking up the Rams defense. So you got to keep grinding. You got to keep your nose to the grindstone, as they would say. Keep doing the best you can, even when you get injuries.

And yeah, that's a great lesson for life. So did you play in any other fantasy leagues this year other than this one? How long have you been playing fantasy? This year, other than this one, how long have you been playing fantasy? A good chunk of years. I played in about three leagues this year. I was in two championships. This was the one that I won. The other one was a money league.

I ended up winning that, but still fun nonetheless. You kind of touched on some of the players. I wanted to touch on some of those too. Yeah, go ahead. Just in terms of late round values uh i believe you mentioned josh allen i got him in the ninth round wow he ended up being the top qb in terms of total points and you also mentioned jonathan taylor i got him in the sixth round he ended up being rb6 was skewed a bit because of the week 17 explosion where he had 250 yards. And then a couple others, the 12th round pick, Antonio Gibson, he ended up being RB13.

And then the last one I'll go with is fifth round pick, Tyler Lockett, ended up being wide receiver eight. Funny with him is about half of his points came in three weeks. Yeah. He had some explosion weeks. Yeah. Tyler Lockett's that guy. He's going to give you seven points or 27 every time.

Yeah. No in between. But, yeah, I just want to touch on them. That's kind of how my team rounded out. Good pickups and then some late round value. Yeah. You had good waiver wires, got good value on your mid-round picks, stayed the course, dealt with the the injuries set your team up and your guys came through at the end I thought it was an

excellent season and honestly I must say other than playing the fantasy games with everybody uh being in the group chat with everybody and having everybody give their input on not just fantasy but you know all the things going on in the NFL we've been talking about the Deshaun Watson news which I guess it's not a bad time to mention know, all the things going on in the NFL. We've been talking about the Deshaun Watson news, which I guess it's not a bad time to mention that since we didn't cover that in the news at the beginning, but it looks like Deshaun Watson has played his last snap for the Houston Texans. And as we kind of transition into the mailbag, I'll end this,

I'll get your quick thoughts on that. Where do you want to see Watson go and just how happy are you at the fact that Deshaun Watson may no longer be in the Tennessee Titans division it's it's funny you say that because we talked about losing Arthur Smith and then now potentially a division rival in the Texans losing their franchise starting quarterback I may potentially view that as a net win if that ends up falling through. But, yeah, it's pretty wild. In terms of what team I think he may go to, I know he mentioned –

I think I saw he preferred the Dolphins, so that would be interesting. Maybe 49ers. I think he posted a pic and maybe it was a flashback. I don't know. We're taking all the clues. Any clue that we can get. I did see earlier, someone mentioned the Jets have a very compelling package with the number two overall pick, a pick in the next, you know,

two drafts after that as well that they could put together. So that would be kind of interesting. It would. I don't know if he would necessarily want to go there, but. Right. And if they just want to go for best value and don't really want to take his preference into account, then they could go that route. Yeah, yeah. I think he does have a no trade clause,

but someone has mentioned he liked Robert Sala a lot, and obviously he just got hired by the Jets, so maybe he would be willing to go there because that's a coach that he wanted. So it'll be interesting to watch, but all the heavy hitters are reporting that would be that we've seen the last of Deshaun Watson in Houston. And after that last performance, he gave us a 41 to 38 loss where Watson just went nuts and almost ripped the

playoffs from us. I can't say that I would be too upset to see him go, but that's going to do it for this second segment here. We are going to dive into our first mailbag of the all season so me and Kevin are going to be answering your guys questions do want to say that we will be doing the locked on Titans fantasy football league going forward every year and you know closer to the season as we get I will give you guys a way to get entered into the league so hopefully just want you know, give this experience to you guys that we can get more people on board for next year as well.

It's a really good time. But Kevin, obviously, once again, one more time, congratulations on being the champion. Thank you. I also wanted to shout out a group chat I'm in. We like to bounce off lineup decisions and waiver wire, pick up some stuff. So it never hurts to have people to bounce off, line up decisions and waiver wire, pick up some stuff. So it never hurts to have people to bounce off ideas with.

Yeah, yeah, it takes a village. I'm a full believer of that. But let's move forward into that mailbag segment. Before we do, got to tell you guys about the best protein bar on the planet, and that is Built Bar. I always tell you guys, because the proof, the proof is in the orders. We had a promo code running with Built Bar originally. You guys sold out their inventory. They're back and better than ever with the promo code relaunched and

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All right, it is time for our mail bag Monday segment, our first mail bag of the off season. Before we dive into me and Kevin answering your guys' questions, I want to remind you guys about the Locked on Bets podcast. I just told you about betonline.ag. And if you want to get a little bit of inside info on how to place some of these wagers or which ones are going to give you the most value, make sure you check out the Locked on Bets podcast, the new podcast from the Locked on Podcast Network.

But Kevin, after paying all those bills, it is actually time to open up the mailbag. And the first question that we have here comes from my guy, Alex, on Twitter at King Fonte. He said, did you go to any games during the season? He said he's a Titans fan from Miami, and him and his best friend, Adam, are going to a game next year and a playoff game. For me, personally, Alex, I did go to one game this year. I went to the Cincinnati Bengals game. It was miserable. It was very windy. The Titans played like crap. Now I've gotten some really good games to go to in recent years. The win over Indy the year before, the walk-off DeMarco Murray touchdown against the Bengals. I've seen quite a few good

games. I went to the Browns game at the beginning of 2019 season, the blowout. So I've seen a lot of good games recently, but that Bengals one was not one. But I am excited for you, Alex, to check out a game next year, especially in Miami. That'll be fantastic. I recently visited Miami for a friend's bachelor party, and that is all the information that I can share with you guys about that trip uh but kevin did you go to any games this year and if not what was the last game that you went to i did not i reside in uh va and was not able to catch a game i have been to a titans game before though my wife is a giants fan and the first game i actually went to see of the Titans was a couple years ago.

We versed the Jets. We made a trip and went to New York to watch a game against them. I think Ryan Fitzpatrick was the quarterback at the time, if I remember correctly. And then I think it was the same season we went to a Giants game. I don't know if we were – I don't think we were versing – it wasn't a Titans-Giants game. But, yeah, that's the only Titans game I've gone to in my short time. Yeah, well, I mean, games are complicated for me personally, because I obviously take notes during the game. I try to

really focus on some of the schematic things so I can give you guys quick analysis of what the Titans are doing from an X's and O's perspective. I can't lie when I go to a game, I'm just purely a fan at that point in the stands watching football. So, you know, games are hard because I want to give you guys the best analysis possible, but I also am a big football fan who loves live games. So it's a tough balance, but I definitely do understand when you live out of

state, you know, it makes it even harder to go as many games as possible, but definitely something that we all want to do. But let's keep going. Let's keep asking or keep getting into these mailbag questions. And the next one that I have here is going to be from Corey Beard. He asked for some top prospects for OC and DC. I want to mention just quickly my top prospects in the Titans organization.

I would like to see either Keith Carter or Pat O'Hara, who is the quarterbacks coach and offensive line coach. I think one of those guys would be a good fit, even though they don't have play calling experience. And then Mike McDaniel from San Francisco. I like to look at top offensive assistants who don't call plays for teams that run a similar scheme as the Titans. So outside zone running schemes, you think about the Packers,

you think about the 49ers, you think about the Rams, just to mention, you know, the top ones in the league. You look at some of the top assistants that they have on their coaching staff and that don't get to call plays because Lafleur calls the play, Shanahan calls the plays, and McVay calls the plays. So I have the exact list and some more candidates, and we're going to go over that later this week. But quickly, my top prospects internally, like I said,

Pat O'Hara, Keith Carter for the Titans, and then Mike McDaniel from San Francisco on the outside. For D.C., your names like Gerard Mayo, Jim Leonard would also be a good candidate. And I'm not too off on Terrell Austin, who has been rumored to be interviewing with the Titans for a D.C. spot as well. So we're going to dive into more of those candidates and get more in-depth in their history and how solid their candidacy is later in the year.

But that's kind of just a quick synopsis. Kevin, the names that i mentioned there do any of them stand out to you as more interesting than the others i don't know the the main i don't know a ton about all the candidates i do remember seeing one that you didn't mention was wade phillips i don't know how much he actually fits our system and our scheme but i saw the tweet that he was retiring from retirement, so I just thought that was interesting. I don't know if Rabel and them would be interested in giving him a shot. Yeah, that's a great question, and actually a lot of people online talk about that.

So I think we'll consider this your mailbag entry, Kevin, because a lot of people are thinking about Wade Phillips, and here's my thought. So I would be okay with Wade Phillips. He fits that old sage, the wisdom guy in the room to go with Mike Rabel's young aggressiveness. So that kind of fits the DNP's personality. But from a schematic standpoint, I will say that Wade Phillips runs a 3-4 defense and he loves to run a ton of man coverage. And the issue is he's very married to his philosophy and his scheme, and that's why Sean McVay for the Rams actually got rid of Wade Phillips because he wanted to get a younger defensive play caller

who was more multiple and who was more versatile in what kind of scheme that he runs. And Mike Vrabel has shown that he wants to run a very multiple, very versatile scheme, different fronts up front, different coverage looks, different pressure concepts. And one of the reasons that Wade Phillips, you know, got booted out of LA was because he didn't want to kind of do some of those things. So philosophically,

philosophically speaking from a schematic standpoint, unless Wade Phillips is able to adjust and adapt and work with Mike Vrabel to be more multiple, then I could see it working. And the wisdom that he has from all the years in the NFL could be beneficial. But if he's as married to his scheme and playing the way he wants to play on defense as he was in L.A., then there's no way that a stubborn guy like Mike Vrabel

is going to want to bring him on. So we will see what happens there, but that's obviously a big name people are asking for this is a really good question and Kevin I'm excited to get your answer on this from uh oh that question was from Corey Beard I think I said it but want to make sure I get that out there the next question here is from Andrew Shelton he says how many years till we need to worry about the revamped Jags and and Kevin I'll let you answer that first how long do you think now with Urban Meyer coming to the Jags, them getting Trevor Lawrence at quarterback, how long do you think it would take Urban Meyer to turn them

into something Titans fans should be worried about? I would think at least two, maybe three years. I mean, if Trevor Lawrence, assuming they pick him, comes in, it's just amazing, obviously, that changes things. But a new coach, a new quarterback quarterback and still a pretty young team I myself probably wouldn't be too worried just yet yeah I think that's a good way to put it I'm kind of I'm lukewarm on on the Urban Meyer hire we we've seen college coaches have some success a guy like Pete Carroll but we've also seen college coaches have some success, a guy like Pete Carroll, but we've also seen college coaches not have success, and it's a totally different game.

And Urban Meyer, obviously everyone who listens to the show knows that I'm a Buckeye, but it's a proven fact that when Urban Meyer gets into a little bit of trouble or there's a little bit of turmoil, he tends to find a way to bail out of the situation. So just as much as I could see Urban Meyer turning that into a winning program, I could also see the Jags going two seasons, not being able to get much going, and then Urban Meyer finding some way to get out of it. So I'm lukewarm on that.

Not saying that it's not going to work, but I don't think it's an obvious slam dunk. But let's go forward here. The next question comes from Nestor Manco or McNo on Twitter. And he said, this may be too early to know, but assuming the Titans draft an edge in the first round, who do you think it is possible to pick based on being the 22nd pick? I'd love to draft Kitty Pay from Michigan, but he's looking like a top 10 pick. Yeah, Kitty Pay is not going to be around for the Titans unless they trade up. and I don't think that the Titans should trade up for an edge rusher. But I actually got to give a shout-out to Varney Vale,

who answered the question before I could. But Joseph Asai from Texas I think is a really good fit. You see a guy like Gregory Russo who's going mid-first round out of Miami. I don't think he's going to be available for the Titans, but you never know in the pre-draft process how that can knock him down. But those are two names that kind of stick out to me as mid to late round edge rushers. Now, I will admit fully, my heart is still kind of broken

from the Titans season. I haven't fully dived into the college football draft preparation that we need to get into. But that's something that's coming in the coming weeks. But shout out Varney Vale. That's the name that I was planning on talking about. And he fits kind of the value there. Kevin, just to kind of spin this question to you,

I know that you probably aren't, you know, fully into all of the different mid-round edge rushers and everything, but do you agree that maybe the Titans should be looking for an edge rusher with their first pick? Sure, yeah. I don't know the answer now to everybody who's in the draft class, but I definitely expect them in the first couple rounds to get an edge rusher and probably sign a free agent, too, to add some good depth.

Yeah, see, that's – I'm going to talk about this more, as I keep saying, teasing stuff for later in the week, but I don't think that the Titans can rely on a rookie to fix their pass rush problem. I don't think that the Titans probably have another year of a Superbowl window, maybe two years at the max with Ryan Tannehill and Derek Henry's contract and, and the way that the team is set up. So to me, you need to go get edge rush help and pass rush help immediately.

And that's going to be a veteran free agent. But, of course, I think you double down because of how important of a need it is, and you draft a rookie in the first three rounds as well. But let's continue forward. Shout out to Tyler Chandler, another guy who has always given me some good questions and some good feedback. He says, let's talk QB. The teams that seem to have the most consistent QBs seem to be the ones who draft and let them sit.

Seema Holmes, Rodgers, is Jordan Love next? Does J-Rob finally draft his quarterback of the future and let him sit and learn from a great guy like Tannehill? And if so, is this year better or do we wait for a different draft? Who is a guy we could snag this year? What round? I know sitting isn't a guaranteed way of finding a legit QB but it seems fairly successful Kevin just generally again I don't know how much you've been looking into the the draft eligible quarterbacks but how important or how viable do you think it would be to maybe draft

a quarterback in the first round to let him sit behind Tannehill and after you tell me what you think about that you know path are there any quarterbacks in college who you kind of like when I saw this question it made me think of last week when you were doing your season review and in a lot of those games I remember Tannehill having a go-ahead drive or even a game-winning drive and it just kind of made me think although he wasn't able to do it in the playoffs that i'm pretty confident in him going forward and he's not incredibly old so i guess my answer to this is unless you really love a guy uh late in the draft that you think could be something i i would probably wait a couple years or one or two years before you

draft one and i don't really know a ton of prospects aside from like the main two, but obviously we're not going to be able to. Yeah. We're not going to get Justin Fields or Trevor Lawrence, but I'm a little mixed on this, Kevin. I agree with you. And like I've been talking about the Superbowl window is now. So the Titans probably really need to focus on finding veteran prospects from college who we can count on to come in and at least contribute, especially after the nightmare that was last year's draft

and what took place. So I agree with that, but I'm also split. I do think that there are some decent quarterback prospects that are going to be going around where the Titans are. You look at a guy like Trey Lance from North Dakota State who has just tantalizing athleticism, and I think if he developed the mental aspect of his game behind Tannehill, the Titans could have a real stud there.

You look at Mac Jones, maybe Zach Wilson from BYU falls that far. I'm not completely sold on Mac Jones, but he's got a skill set that maybe is very similar to Ryan Tannehill and the Titans feel like they could get that guy and start to groom him. So I think that this actually is a pretty good year to do something like that if the Titans are going to try and get that guy to sit behind Tannehill. But you have to balance that between what prospects are available on the board that can help you win a Super Bowl,

which needs to be the number one priority for this Titans team who's proven that they have enough talent to have an offense to get that done if they can have a defense to match them and get hot. So that's kind of how I view that, and we'll talk more about that as we get closer and closer to the draft but continuing in this mailbag you guys sent a ton of questions so I'll start going through them a little bit quickly we have diver39 on Twitter why do you think Bayard regressed so much this year forced himself to try to do too much solely due to lack of pass rush, complacency because he got paid, interested in the thoughts. Also, I'm assuming Vaccaro will be a cap hit and they will stick with Hooker. Quickly, yeah, I think Vaccaro is out of town. I was

disappointed by his effort late in the season and the cost that he had for what he can do for the Titans. Now, I think they're going to let Amani Hooker go out there and roll him out and hopefully they get a guy like Dane Crookshank back who could be that third safety, or maybe they draft one like they did. But as for Bayard, I definitely don't think it's complacency due to having money. Bayard got paid before this year, and he was fine. I think a lot of it was around him. The pass rush is obviously a big hurt.

Kevin Bayard was never an excellent cover guy. That he was, he's a versatile safety who can do it all. That's what makes Kevin so special is he's a Jack of all trades. It could pretty much do everything at a good level. Well, this year he was being asked to cover way too long and man, because of the lack of pass rush. He was also doing a lot more this year than he had done before because of the Titans issues in the secondary.

We saw Kevin Byard play some of the best football he played all year when Adory Jackson got back. And Adory Jackson didn't play great, but it just took a little bit of pressure off of Kevin Byard to be so locked in every second. It allowed him to kind of float around and be more of a helper and robber as a zone safety over the middle of the field than having to play man coverage on guys nonstop.

So Kevin Byard, he's just not a Minka Fitzpatrick or something like that, but KB could still be a fantastic player when he's got a decent set around him. Kevin, would you agree with that, or what are your thoughts on kind of Byard's drop-off this year? Yeah, I think you hit it right on the head I agree with pretty much everything you said I based on his personality and everything I know about it I don't think it's complacency because he got paid I think it's more along the lines of the other things that you said so yeah that's the only thing I would say yeah yeah I agree I one thing about one thing about Kevin Bayard man I'm never gonna question his

heart whether he's in it whether he's working his hardest anything like that that's just not KB One thing about Kevin Byard, man, I'm never going to question his heart, whether he's in it, whether he's working his hardest, anything like that. That's just not KB. Moving forward, though, as I said, getting a little quicker here, WhitbyJames on Twitter said, you think we're going to save some cap by cutting Butler, or are we rocking with him because he was one of the few that produced? Kevin, do you want to bring Malcolm Butler back?

What are your thoughts on him? I think he's going to be around $11 to $13 million next year. So with that price tag and how he played this year, would you want to bring him back at that? Or do you think he's got to take a little bit of a pay cut or maybe even get cut completely? There's a lot of different ways to answer this, but I think a big thing is how they ultimately view Christian Fulton. They feel he can take that next step next year. Then it's basically going to come down to either signing Butler or King and then having Fulton step up. But depending on what they think he is, if they think he's a slot, then they would probably keep Butler. And if they think he can be an outside, then maybe they keep King. That's, that's pretty much my thoughts. Yeah. Yeah. It will depend.

One thing I will say, you know, I think it's a little too expensive for Butler, but I think he was clearly the Titans. Maybe he was the best Tennessee Titan on defense this year. I'd probably give that to Simmons or Landry, but Butler was great, and he really helped the Titans in some bad moments. So I would like to have Malcolm Butler back. I would rather have him back over Desmond King. I think I've kind of flipped my mindset on that later in the year, but I don't think that the Titans can pay Malcolm Butler what he is set to be paid. So I'd like to see a restructure there. Moving forward from Derek Shuler, so when Arthur Smith leaves us, which he has, does he take play calls that he used with us to wherever he goes,

or does he make the new plays to fit the offensive scheme? I actually talked to Aaron Freeman on Saturday morning about Arthur Smith. He's going to be running that on his show locked on Falcons on Monday. So you guys can check out the locked on Falcon show. If you would like to hear me talk about Arthur Smith, but that was actually a question I posed for, for Aaron because the players and their skill sets in Atlanta do not match what the Titans have.

Matt Ryan is too old to run the boot scheme like he did earlier in his career and run it as well as Tannehill did think of all the running Tannehill did in the second half. Matt Ryan cannot do that. They don't have a Derrick Henry to wear down defenses. They don't have a tight end like Jonu Smith or Anthony Firx, or they have Hayden Hurst, who's a decent guy, but he's not like that. So I think it would be tough for Arthur Smith to ultimately take the Titans' offensive scheme and give that to the Falcons. He's going to take elements from his offense in Tennessee, I'm certain,

but I think Art's a good coach, and he's going to try to get the best offense to the skill set of his players. So he may take some stuff from Tennessee, but I don't think he'll copy it one for one. Would you agree with that, Kevin? I would. I would definitely agree. Yeah, kind of a straightforward answer there. Not a lot to pontificate on.

But next we have a question from John Porter. The rookie class was a failure. No other words for it. If you're a glass half full guy, we get two rookies next season. Glass half empty guy, who is at fault and how to improve? Can it improve? Looking at you, Panda. Discuss.

Okay, so for me, John Robinson took – I'm not really upset about the Darrington Evans pick, the Christian Fulton pick. They got injured. That's unfortunate. But I think they took a little bit of a chance on Isaiah Wilson, something I've mentioned throughout the last – or throughout this year. John Robinson wanted to add more dogs to this team, more aggressive guys,

more risky guys, quite frankly. A guy like Jeffrey Simmons, a guy like Rashawn Evans, a guy like Isaiah Wilson. These are dudes who maybe wouldn't have been picked in the first couple of years in the John Robinson era as they tried to build a team that loved football and could be relied on. And he's tried to sprinkle in a few of those dogs as we go.

And we see the up and down nature of that, especially with Rashawn Evans. It's really working out with Jeffrey Simmons, but we're seeing how it doesn't work out with Isaiah Wilson. And you know, for me, who's to blame it ultimately it's John Robinson. I mean, Isaiah, I can't blame the coaches for Isaiah Wilson. He wasn't even around to get coached for most of the season. So to me, that was John Robinson either didn't do his due diligence, didn't do enough research, or he did enough research

and felt it was worth the risk, or you can't blame any of them. And Isaiah Wilson just completely blindsided him, and nobody expected this, which is kind of where I lean at this time based on what people said about him pre-draft. You never thought that this would happen. So I don't want to blame John Robinson too much. He saved this franchise. But if we had to give out blame, the blame goes to John Robinson

and then Isaiah Wilson himself. So, Kevin, do you have any differing thoughts on that? And what are your thoughts on Isaiah Wilson at this time? There's not many positive ones, I'll say that. Right. I will say for the whole class class i would definitely be a glass half full except for isaiah wilson and assuming that they don't get injured again i still have high hopes for for evans and fulton so yeah i i agree i think i like what he said here john did say it

will be like we get two rookie classes at once. And I'm kind of hoping that that that is enough to kind of boost the Titans next year to get to that next level. Last few questions here. My guy PartySaurusRex on Twitter said, how often do you see a team fresh off two playoff appearances with a top five offense and two coordinator vacancies? And I got to be honest with you, Rex,

I don't know off the top of my head, like the research, but all I can say is not very often. I mean, do you recall anything like that Kevin off the top of your head? I do not really. Yeah. It's a very unique circumstance and it's a big off season for John Robinson and Mike Vrabel was they kind of try to repair the damage that they did last year. It's pretty miraculous that you consider

the Titans draft class, the free agency class and the coaching hires that they were able to win a division title even though they completely whiffed on every single one of those. Brandon, question here. Brandon Lamar on Twitter said, we know our pass rush and our pass defense

was awful this year. That having a bad pass rush puts more strain on the secondary and vice versa. Who do you think is more at fault? I personally think we have adequate players in the secondary, but scheme and injury set them back. Yeah, I got to be honest. If I had to give out the biggest amount of blame, it's going to be to the coaching staff.

Clearly there were issues with scheme. There were issues with alignment. Your best pass rusher in Harold Landry sets a career high in coverage snaps where he's dropping back into coverage. The defense wasn't coordinated well, and we are seeing that Mike Vrabel is trying to correct that error by hiring a defensive coordinator out of the organization. That gives us our answer that Mike Vrabel even is acknowledging that coaching was a big problem. I don't think that the Titans personnel on defense is so bad that they should have been as bad as they were. I think the personnel is better than that.

And when the team doesn't live up to the talent that they have, it's a coaching issue. So I'm going to give most of the blame to the coaching. Kevin, do you agree with me there? I think I make a compelling argument, but what are your thoughts? Yeah, I think it's mainly the edge talent and how we mentioned earlier, how we're hoping that they signed a free agent and draft one early. Yeah, because I think we have the talent on the back end, assuming Droid Jackson can get back to 100% health

and play how he's done in the past. Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think we do have the talent in the back end. Obviously, they need more talent at edge. That's a given. We all know that. But other than the edge position, and even we have Harold Landry there, if they bring back Clowney, which, whoo,

a lot of you guys got mad at me last week for saying that we should bring back Clowney. So that's something to see. But we're going to get into the very last question here that I have, and it is from Cooper Dunn on Twitter. And he said he wants a quick Rollins rant on Bomani Jones and his point about Arthur Smith. Kevin, I will just ask you, did you see Bomani Jones' tweet about Arthur Smith?

I did. I did see that. I read a lot of replies. Yeah. I listened to his podcast, and I'm a really big fan of him, but me too. I was, I didn't really know how to take it. Cause I definitely didn't necessarily agree with what he said. Yeah. Well, here's the thing. I like Bomani Jones.

I know he's a divisive figure because some of the things he likes to talk about and some of the stances that he has, but I appreciate that from him. And one thing is just because you, and with me, this is a good example, just because you like a person's sports analysis doesn't mean you're going to agree with every single take that they have. A lot of you guys totally hated my Jadavian Clowney take, but that doesn't mean that, you know, I don't want to listen to Bomani Jones or I'm not a fan of him anymore

because I disagree with one of his opinions. But he did say on Twitter, for those who maybe didn't say it, and Bumani Jones is a guy who worked for ESPN for a while, not certain if he's still with ESPN because they have just had a mass exodus over there of talent, but Bumani does good work. He made a name on ESPN, made a name before, quite frankly, but basically what he said was is that Arthur Smith, outside of being the offensive coordinator in Tennessee, every other job that he had in the NFL, he got because of who his dad is, the owner of FedEx. He said it smelled of nepotism, I do believe. And, you know, Bomani obviously touches on a lot of divisive topics, and maybe there's some inference there that he's making about Arthur Smith. But the big and obvious one is that he only got these jobs

because his dad owns FedEx. And a quick Rollins rant for you. Guys, if you have been following Arthur Smith's career, his career screams the opposite of nepotism. He got carried over by five different coaching staffs in Tennessee. That only happens if you're worth your salt. He worked his way all the way up from an offensive quality control coach, a position coach, then an offensive coordinator. He's one of the hardest working guys in the league and everyone who works with him would say you would

never know that his dad's a billionaire who owns FedEx. So I think Bomani tries to make bigger picture points that are smart and helpful to society. But I think that maybe he picked a bad example to make his point with Arthur Smith. Kevin, as a fan of Bomani Jones, what are your thoughts on what he had to say about Art? Yeah, I don't – everything you said. He's been with the organization a while and had to work his way up.

I mean, maybe how he first got with the organization a while and had to work his way up i mean maybe uh how he first got into the league then maybe yeah could be a good example but throughout his whole career and how he's built his way up i i wouldn't say it smells of nepotism yeah yeah that's how i feel too and uh ultimately though uh people like bamani Jones, who don't feel like Arthur Smith was deserving, they're going to be right or wrong based on what Arthur does in Atlanta. And one thing I will say is I'm glad that he did end up in the NFC so that we can guilt-free cheer on Arthur Smith. And obviously there's the bromance between Julio Jones and AJ Brown. So Atlanta's kind of a fun team that we can secondarily root for

on the football weekends that we have coming up next year. So I did have one question myself to add, and I believe you already talked about them earlier this week or sometime in the past, is Corey Davis, and I'm sure you'll talk about him again in the future. Corey Davis, and I'm sure you'll talk about him again in the future, but in the group chat that I'm in that helped me with fantasy and whatnot, we kind of half-jokingly call him his year,

basically because in the last couple of preseasons, everybody expected him to blow up and become that bona fide number one. And lo and behold, this – well, he might not be the number one. He didn't have his best year yet. So I just wanted to get any additional thoughts that maybe you didn't say in the past about him and his impending free agency. Well, I guess it's just a simple situation of how you want to allocate your resources. I think the Titans will keep a similar offensive scheme to what they had,

and I also think that they need an interjection of speed. They need somebody like Kalief Raymond with that kind of speed, but that is a typical wide receiver too. So a guy like, you know, example like a Marvin Jones, a Will Fuller, that type of burner guy, I think that would add an element to the Titans offense that they simply do not have right now. And I would want that guy in Corey Davis's spot. The reality is Corey Davis is probably going to get

about $10 to $12 million this year. Halfway through the year, I was like, you know what? Screw it. Let's do what we got to do to keep Corey Davis. I want to keep him around. But as the season went on, he started, you know, having some poor performances at the end of the year, the way the playoff game ended. I just think you can replace what a guy like Corey

Davis does, because I think if I had to give the most credit for his success this year, it's the scheme that he was put into more than, you know, how great of a player he is. I think he's a starting wide receiver in the NFL, but he's he's a starting wide receiver in the NFL, but he's a solid number two wide receiver in the NFL. And I simply think you can find a guy like that in the second round of the draft or look for a veteran. That'll get a little bit less than Corey Davis and fill that spot. And, you know, halfway through the year, like I said,

I was okay with bringing Corey back, but after seeing what took place with the pass rush, after seeing what took place with the passing game there I just like to add a different element in the passing game and maybe put more resources to the defense so that's where I kind of come down on Corey Davis that's fair enough one of the people in that group chat is a Bills fan and he's a big fan of Corey Davis and always jokes that he'd love to have him on his squad, even though he has Stefan digs and whatnot. I don't know if they'd be able to get him, but. See that. And, and that's kind of like where I'm at here.

The bills don't need Corey Davis enough to spend the money on the cap that they would need to add him. Like, you know, a guy like Gabriel Davis, maybe 75% or, you know, 70% of Corey Davis, but he's way less money. A guy like John Brown. See, I would like to have a guy like John Brown on the Titans offense. A Corey Davis, John Brown swap would be great because John Brown's going to be less expensive than Corey Davis, but I think he can be just as productive as Corey Davis in this offense. Bringing up the Bills, that's actually a great example of a guy that I would like to take that Corey Davis spot. But Kevin, man, this was great. I really appreciate you coming on with me today. We're going to hopefully do things like this, maybe a little bit more in the future,

just have a fan-sponsored segment or things things like that and then obviously the winner of the next year's football fantasy football league will be able to do this as well but you're the first person first uh you know fan that i've had on and listener i've had on the show titans fan on the show and uh i i really appreciate it man thanks for coming on thank you it was a awesome awesome league, and I definitely implore people who listen who are even remotely interested to try to get into the league next year. Yeah, and obviously I'll have something set up for that. Unfortunately, that is pretty far down the road, but before we get to football games, there's a lot to take place. We got contract situations, coaching hires, which should take off even for the Titans in recent weeks.

We got draft preparation, free agent preparation, outside the market, inside our house. There's options, contracts to talk about. So a ton coming up later this week. We're really going to start diving into the 2021 outline on Friday or Thursday. I'm going to do my ideal offseason as an episode to kind of set the groundwork to give you guys my opinions of what I want to see and then go forward with what I think will happen

as we move forward. So make sure that you subscribe to the Locked on Titans podcast on whatever platform you do stream so you don't miss any of the Monday through Friday Tennessee Titans content I'll be pumping out all offseason long. Where can you find daily daily five days a week, Tennessee Titans content during the off season nowhere, but here on the locked on Titans podcast.

So make sure you subscribe on whatever platform you do stream. And if you want to get your question in the mailbag, give me a five-star review on Apple iTunes, put your question in there or follow me on Twitter at Tic Tac Titans, and you can send them to me there and I'll bank those for the next time that we have a mailbag. But thank you very much, Kevin, for joining. As always, I am your host, Tyler Rowland, and this was Locked on Titans.