Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Hot Topic Tuesday - Mariota v Tannehill, Simmons Returns to Practice

Episode Date: October 15, 2019

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Welcome to the Locked on Titans podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Rowland, Titans fans. It is a hot topic Tuesday. There is a lot being discussed around the team right now. A lot to suss out. I just want to have some conversations with you guys around the things that are going on around the team. We are going to start, of course, in our first segment

talking about Marcus and Ryan Tannehill. Who's going to start? Mike Vrabel did give us a little bit of information today about that, so we will discuss. In our second segment, we are going to talk about the return of Jeffrey Simmons. I'm going to give you guys some numbers about the Titans defense and how I think he'll help impact this defense, who's playing at a pretty high level, but I think it can take it up another notch in these situations. I'll use the Broncos game as a specific reference as to why the Titans need Jeffrey Simmons so bad and why he was taken in the first round. So we'll talk about that in our second segment, which is good to get some positive information

in. I'll also throw in a little bit of information about the AFC South in our third segment. I always want to keep you guys abreast of what's going on. I'm also going to update the overall NFL standings as the season gets a little further along so we can see where the Titans draft position might be. Unfortunately, that's looking like it's going to be more and more relevant as the days go by. So I just want to make sure that we're up to date on where the Titans stand from the bottom aspect and from the top aspect.

So we'll get into the show and discuss all that today. Like I said, a lot of hot topics around the team. Let's get it. Your Tennessee Titans lead story is the decision of who will start at quarterback for the Tennessee Titans against the Chargers on Sunday. Mike Vrabel said in his press conference on Monday that a decision would be reached either Monday night or Tuesday morning. That decision would be given to the team on Tuesday, although there is the chance that it will not be announced to the general public. Now, there are a few different ways to look at that, and a lot of them do make sense. From the coach's perspective, why give your opponent any information whatsoever if you

don't have to? While Marcus and Ryan Tannehill are similar players in terms of their numbers per game and just their skill sets on the field, they are slightly different players with slightly enough different skill sets to make the game plan different for the Chargers against the Titans. So it does make sense from the coaches' perspective of why they wouldn't want that information to be public, although it will come out based on practice. The media will be in practice and see who's taking the first team reps, which is why

it's important that the team know as soon as possible. Practice starts this week and Ryan Tannehill, if named the starter, has not had any first team reps. It will be vitally important for him to spend as much time as possible practicing and developing the chemistry necessary to run an NFL offense. One pain point for the Titans offense this season is it does seem like the Titans wide receivers and tight ends and running backs are not always on the same page with Marcus Mariota as to what to do on a specific route or on a specific play. A lot of times in the NFL, the route that the wide receiver, the tight end, or the running back is going to run is determined by the coverage that they're facing on that play. Whether it be a cover two zone with two deep safeties or cover three with the corners and

one safety in the middle or cover six, cover four, man coverage, things like that. All of those different coverages will make the Titans wide receivers and tight ends routes be different. So it's important that the wide receiver, the tight end, the quarterback all see the same coverage, understand that the route is going to be a certain way so that they're able to keep the offense going. That's something the Titans have struggled with for years going back to the previous coaching staff. Now we will get to see if the Titans have had coaches who don't coach option routes and understanding how those routes change well enough to get their players on the same page or if it was just something that Marcus wasn't reading correctly.

Now, I've pointed out in previous episodes and previous weeks that I've seen certain wide receivers who I believe made the mistake on the route. It's impossible to know for certain unless we're in the huddle and know the play call but you can typically see from the reaction of the players a lot of times a player will say my bad things like that out on the field so you can kind of read the body language and understand based on the coverage where the wide receiver really should have been to maximize the opportunity that the offense had on that play now we're going to see was it just Marcus missing a lot of those? Was it the coaches who are just unable to coach this to their players? Because if the Titans still struggle on these things,

and Tannehill is not on the same page with the wide receivers. One example we saw in Denver was Marcus threw to the sideline to Corey Davis on the left-hand side. It looked like he thought Corey Davis was going to stop and do a curl immediately when he got past the first down marker but Corey took it outside to the sideline which watching the tape I felt like was the right call for Corey to go to the sideline on that route and Marcus read it differently so things like that we're going to see how often those chemistry issues pop up if Ryan Tannehill does end up getting the start which kind of leads me into my belief that he should at this point. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, Marcus is broken. He sees ghosts in the pocket.

He doesn't step up in the pocket well. He holds the ball too long. He's indecisive. He never had a really strong arm to begin with, which limits the kind of passes that he can make. And holding the ball longer and letting the windows get tighter just really hurts his chances of being able to have a competent year, and we're seeing that. So I think it is time to go ahead with Ryan Tannehill, give him an opportunity.

Their stats are eerily similar for their careers in terms of per game average. Marcus is thrown for 212 yards per game with one touchdown and.7 interceptions. Tannehill is thrown for 228 yards per game with one touchdown and.8 interceptions. So they're so similar, even their records. I know that I don't like to go off quarterback record a lot. It is a team game. But Marcus is 29 and 32. Tannehill is

42 and 46. They're very, very similar players for their career, but one thing that we know for certain after watching the game so far is that Ryan Tannehill has a little bit more arm strength and a little bit more accuracy, and for the Titans offense and where it's at right now, that's probably more important than the athleticism and the dynamic play that Marcus could give you because quite frankly, those weren't being utilized. So that's going to do it for our first segment. In our second segment, we are going to do something a little positive, talk about the return of Jeffrey Simmons and how that is going to impact this Titans defense that while

it's playing well, could take it up another notch. Before we jump into that, I do want to remind you that the folks at Roman, a men's health company, are changing the game with Roman Swipes, the secret to longer-lasting sex. Get $10 off your first order of Swipes and free two-day shipping at GetRoman.com slash LockedOnNFL. That's one word, locked on NFL. We are going to jump into some more hot topics here. I just want to let you guys know a little bit of house cleaning information. So typically throughout the

season, I had done my Tic Tac Titans segment on Tic Tac Tuesday. Realistically, because of the way that the show has to be put out, most people have reached out to me and said they prefer that the show is released in the morning. So if I want to release a show Tuesday morning for you guys, I have to record that show on Monday night. I can't get up early enough in the morning, 4 or 5 a.m., to be able to record a show that day, and at that point there wouldn't be any new information anyway. So recording the show the night before,

as late as possible, quite frankly, to make sure I have the most updated information I can for the morning's podcast, it is essentially impossible to get my hands on the tape necessary to give you guys the kind of breakdowns I want to give you. So going forward the rest of the season, and as I did last week, I kind of made the decision to move our film breakdown, our Tic Tac Titans segment to Thursday. So unfortunately, we won't hear Tic Tac Tuesday anymore, which sounds great, but we still have our Tic Tac Titans segment.

Tuesday anymore, which sounds great, but we still have our Tic Tac Titans segment. As always, you can follow me on Twitter at Tic Tac Titans to get the visual side of those breakdowns. So I appreciate that. We'll jump into the Jeffrey Simmons news right now. Just wanted to make sure you guys were understanding where the segments were going and what we were doing from a house cleaning perspective. However, on to football. So the return of Jeffrey Simmons is imminent. It appears that Paul Kaharski's report last week was 100% accurate and that Jeffrey Simmons will return to practice on Tuesday for the Titans. This is exciting news and one of the only bits of exciting news that Titans fans can point to at this time, but I could not be more pumped and more hyped to watch Jeffrey Simmons finally play football.

There's a reason that he was considered a top five talent before his ACL injury in February. There's a reason that the Tennessee Titans selected him with the 19th pick in the first round, even though they knew that he would be out for this amount of time or even longer. And it's because of his talent and his ability to disrupt an offense. So the Titans have 18 sacks on the season. That's not bad in terms of the NFL. It's top 10 in the NFL and seems like just on its face that it's a good thing. But unfortunately, this is something that I've been harping on since the preseason.

The Titans are completely unable to get pressure with just their four down linemen. Anytime that you see the Titans sack numbers heavy in a game like against Atlanta or against the Bills, it's because that team struggles to block up the type of pressures that the Titans will bring. The Titans have to manufacture pressure with blitzes and complex coverages and disguises. They can't just line up, tell the defense, hey, we're running man. We're running cover two. We're running cover three and just have their four down linemen attack. Harold Landry has four sacks on the year. He's second in the

league in tackles for loss. He's playing phenomenal. He's had a great season in his second year. It's exactly what you'd hoped he'd do. Unfortunately, he's all alone. The Titans don't have another player in the top 100 in tackles for loss. Right now, even though the Titans have 18 sacks on the year and are in the top 10 for sacks, they're 18th in quarterback pressure percentage per pro football reference. Also, they're second to last in pro football references QB knockdown stat, which combines hits and pressures and contact that makes the quarterback fall to the grass. The Titans are 17th in the NFL in quarterback hits. They had one sack against the

Broncos last week who don't have a tremendous offensive line. They had zero sacks against the Broncos last week who don't have a tremendous offensive line. They had zero sacks against the Jaguars in that debacle of a game. So the Titans pass rush is inconsistent. And the reason it's inconsistent is because they can't rely on getting pressure with their four down linemen. Enter Jeffrey Simmons. That's exactly what he was brought in to do. We've talked about this before with Simmons. He was incredibly productive in his college career. 163 tackles, 33 tackles for loss, seven sacks, five force fumbles. This is exactly the kind of disruptor and presence that the Titans defense needs to take it to the next level. Right now, the Titans have everything working on defense because of their versatility. But the one thing that I've mentioned forever that they're missing is the pressure with

the front four. If you have Harold Landry coming off the edge, and now you have a disruptor like Jeffrey Simmons coming up the middle, if he can get back to 100% where he was pre-draft, now that's a pretty deadly combination and as Jarrell Casey begins to age and lose just a little bit of explosion it'll free him up to have some more one-on-one matchups and hopefully help him to become a little bit more effective as the season goes forward. So it's going to be really important for Simmons to get back into the fold excited to see what he's able to do. Now I will say I expect him to be rotated

in in a very limited fashion he's not going to come out and play 75% of the snaps on defense I would imagine that he'll get about 20 snaps per game they'll get him out there in some very pass heavy situation so he knows exactly what he needs to do I am worried a little bit about him anchoring in the run game at this moment in time without the adequate play strength that you need to have from playing football. He hasn't played football in quite some time, so it'll be pretty important for them to just get him in on a rotational basis at first, which is exactly what I'm sure the Titans plan to do. They do a good job of rotating defensive linemen and rotating personnel as it is to keep everyone fresh. This will definitely carry over to Jeffrey Simmons as they get him up to speed and up to game

speed finally to help this team hopefully turn the season around. So that is something really positive I wanted to cover. I'm really excited to watch Jeffrey Simmons. Definitely has a strong chance of being our Tic Tac Titans breakdown next week if he does get adequate snaps in the game on Sunday against the Chargers. So can't wait to do that. In our third segment, we are just going to quickly go around the AFC South, quickly look at the NFL standings, and give you an idea of where the Titans sit within the division

and within the draft race. Let's catch you up on where the Titans sit within the AFC South and as they currently sit within the NFL in terms of how the draft will play out, which is definitely something that the Titans need to pay attention to at this point based on where they're at in the division. The Titans still sit last in the AFC South at 2-4. The biggest issue there is that the Titans are 0-2 in their division game so far. Now, the bright side of that is that the Titans are able to play the Texans, who are leading the division right now, twice at the end of the year, and they get to

play the Colts and the Jags once a piece so they do have the opportunity to turn that division record around right now the Texans do sit at the top at four and two after a really really solid win for them against the Chiefs I can't stress enough how disappointing it is that the Colts and the Texans on back-to-back weeks go into Kansas City and get a win. Just devastating for the Titans and their position in the division. You had to think that at least one of those teams would lose to the Chiefs. So really disappointing that, like I said, the Texans were able to knock off the Kansas City Chiefs in Kansas City by a score of 31 to 24 Deshaun Watson has blossomed into an MVP candidate it's very difficult to play in a division with a quarterback that talented he consistently raises the level of the

people around him and while having some good receiving options the the Texans clearly don't have a very good offensive line or talented running backs, but he's able to kind of put that offense on his back, make the throws, make the reads, find a way to get away from pressure, just enough time to make some really awesome throws. So Deshaun Watson is really carrying that team right now. Fortunately, the Jaguars did lose at home to the New Orleans Saints 13-6. What Teddy Bridgewater continues to do for the Saints while Drew Brees is injured is phenomenal. Jacksonville, some of the luster is starting to kind of wear off of the Minshew mania and

everything. And once the team stops winning consistently week to week, it'll fall off even more. Not rooting for the guy to fail, but obviously the persona and the mustache help him get a little bit more fame than his play necessarily warranted. The Jaguars are 2-4 now after that loss tied with the Titans, but with the division record being what it is, they do have a slight edge over them in the division rankings. Going towards the NFL total rankings and where the Titans sit in terms of draft position, Going towards the NFL total rankings and where the Titans sit in terms of draft position,

right now there are five teams below them. The Dolphins and the Bengals, who are winless. The Redskins, the Falcons, and the Jets, who all have one victory. And then you have a slew of teams at two and four. So the Browns, the Broncos, the Jaguars, the Chargers, the Giants, the Steelers, the Buccaneers, and then you have the Titans. Now, whichever way you want to look at it, if you're a Titans fan who's kind of started to look towards the draft, you're on the pessimistic side, then obviously this is going to be a positive for you. If you're someone who still has hope in the Titans playoff push, as I do,

and that they can still turn this season around this is probably the most disappointing aspect the Titans are currently one and four in their conference so at this point if you do think the Titans are going to make a playoff push and they're going to be able to turn things around realistically they have a chance to make a wild card and with your conference record starting out at one and four and being so poor, it's going to be an uphill battle for the Titans to be able to make the playoffs, even if they do turn things around and start to play better because of the position they put themselves in within their conference in the AFC. So if you are someone who's pessimistic and wants to look towards the draft, that's actually a good thing because that will be the tiebreaker for the Titans. because that will be the tiebreaker for the Titans. I don't expect the Titans to have a 3-13 or 2-14,

anything like what some of the teams lower than them will probably produce on the season. So if you want the Titans to have a higher draft pick, that conference record being what it is and probably staying the way that it is for a while is going to help the Titans, air quotes, win the tiebreaker to have a lower pick in the draft. So either way, you're looking at it, whatever kind of outlook you have as a Titans fan, I want to make sure that you understand where they sit right now and how things are projecting

and where some of the biggest areas of concern are coming from when we look at the division and the conference and the Titans record and where they sit. So that's going to cover everything for today. We talked about the quarterback battle and the announcement that should where they sit. So that's going to cover everything for today. We talked about the quarterback battle and the announcement that should come shortly this week. Hopefully we are able to find that out when practices take place, whether it will be Tannehill,

whether it will be Marcus, there's reasons for both sides. In our second segment, we talked about the return of Jeffrey Simmons, why that's so important to the Titans defense and why it's going to try to help out a critical area of weakness that this Titans defense and why it's going to try to help out a critical area of weakness that this Titans defense, while being solid, still has.

And in our third segment, we just took a look at where the Titans currently stand within their division and within the NFL as a whole. So I appreciate you guys hanging with me, looking to turn this game around. The Chargers obviously aren't a great team this year either, as they are 2-4. So hopefully the Titans are able to turn some things around after a rock-bottom loss to Denver. So I will catch you guys tomorrow on Crossover Wednesday. We will have the host of the Locked On Chargers on the show

to answer questions and ask some questions. Always enjoy those shows, and I'm sure you guys will too. So we'll get that tomorrow. I am your host, Tyler Rowland, and this was Locked on Titans.