Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Kickoff Thursday - Injury Updates, Titans Talk & Rowland's Rewind

Episode Date: November 21, 2019

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Welcome to the Locked on Titans podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Rowland. Titans fans, it is a kickoff Thursday. The NFL week will begin today. Really excited to get the Titans back out on the football field. Like I've said all week, as much as I enjoy watching all the games and not just having to have one game on at all times and just being able to kind of float around with, you know,

the Sunday ticket and red zone, I miss my Titans and I'm ready to have them back on the field and start that playoff push. With that in mind, I want to get you guys ready as best as possible today. Full disclosure, I'll be honest with you guys. I had about six hours of dental work done today. I'm pretty sore. I'm taking some medication to deal with the ramifications of that.

So I'm giving you guys the best effort I possibly can while being on the injury report myself as questionable at this moment in time. So because of that, I'm going to shuffle the schedule just a little bit to kind of limit how much I have to talk just due to the pain that I'm kind of in at the moment. So in our first segment, we're going to talk coincidentally about the injury report make sure you guys know how healthy the Titans are now that they're coming out of their bye week and we'll cover where the Jaguars are at as well so you have a good idea of what the health of each player is on both sides of the ball for each team in our second segment we are going to do some Titans talk I'm going to let you hear from Mike Vrabel and his press conference to get you even more ready for the Jaguars

and kind of hear what the coaches are seeing and what they're thinking going into the game. In our third segment, I am going to make sure to get you guys your Rollins review that we do every Thursday and talk about the last time we played the Jaguars. Obviously, this is the first Rollins review that we've done that will be reviewing a game that happened in season. So that'll be a little bit different, but I'll use that opportunity to talk a little bit

about my preliminary thoughts about the Jaguars and how the Titans should plan to attack. I also, with a little bit of extra time I'll have here in the next few days, I want to put something together for you guys special because we're missing out on, you know, a more film-driven segment this Thursday. I will make sure to get you guys something special in the feed

coming up in the next few days so that we cover all of that. So I wanted to explain all of that. I appreciate you guys hanging with me while I am fighting through some adversity. But we will jump into everything now. So let's get it. your Tennessee Titans lead story. Obviously, the Titans are coming out of a bye and hoping to get everyone healthy. Four key starters for the Titans

did not play against the Kansas City Chiefs, which makes that victory even more miraculous upon review. But it's a good time in the season with the bye week to try to get the team as healthy as possible to make that final push. So you see that around the league and a lot of these late buys. I honestly think it does benefit the team to have a buy a little bit later, just in my opinion, to help them get healthier towards the end of the year and have that extra rest towards the end of the year rather than have it so early and then have a long stretch at the end of the season. So getting a look at the Titans injury report coming out of Wednesday's practice,

Chris Milton, the defensive back who primarily plays on special teams, has an ankle injury, and he did not practice. Milton is a really important member of that special teams unit. Mike Vrabel lauded him and Darren Bates and Joshua Kalou last week for kind of creating a core in the special teams unit with Dane Cruikshank. Those guys kind of putting something together to create a nice core unit in the special teams. And the Titans have a great cover team,

and obviously I think their special teams, other than in the kicking game this year, have been very, very strong. So having Chris Milton out there, while he's not a big name, he's not a starter, he's not a vital person to the game plan, I do think he does serve value. So it would be nice to have him back for this game. We want the team as healthy as possible. So moving into those aforementioned four starters that missed the Chiefs game. We will start with Delaney Walker. Obviously Delaney has missed a bunch of time this year as his broken ankle hasn't really recovered quite as well or quite as efficiently as Titans fans and the coaches and Delaney himself would have hoped. So that ankle injury had him limited in practice. It's definitely better than being out. So hopefully he's able to see some action, at least in the role that he's expected to have. I think Jonu Smith is this team's

starting tight end for semantic purposes. He is the starter, the most versatile guy, but having Delaney as a red zone threat, having Delaney in passing down situations will definitely benefit this team and help Brian Tannehill keep this offensive success going so Jayon Brown which in my opinion is honestly the the player that would be missed the most out of these four just his ability to cover running backs and tight ends in the passing game his versatility on defense to play different coverages to play man I think he's really important he was a full participant with a groin injury today so that's a great sign to see Jarrell Casey with a shoulder injury was a full participant obviously Jeffrey Simmons was getting a little more attention

without Jarrell Casey in than he was used to which kind of hurt his ability to you know stay from getting fatigued during the game but but also stay productive. So it would obviously be great to have the captain, Jarrell Casey, back, even if he's not producing at the levels that he had been in previous seasons. Still a very important player for this defensive line and this defensive unit. And then finally, Corey Davis with a hip injury. Was really surprised to see him miss last week's game and maybe some of the snap count controversy that happened with Corey in the Panthers game was part of that hip injury that we just hadn't really heard about yet.

He was a full participant. We're going to need every weapon possible for this offense to be successful to make a push with some really good teams on the schedule coming up. So good to have Corey back. He's a weapon on this team. He's a physical receiver. He's a good route runner some things that we don't get from the other receivers in the group so obviously important to get Corey Davis back just to round out this conversation the Jaguars most of their

team was limited or full participants they're in a similar situation to the Titans where most of their starters are going to be available only one of their role-playing tight ends, Seth DeValve, was out. So expect the Jaguars to be fairly healthy as well. Okay guys, that is going to do it for the injury report for both teams. Finally, I am listed as questionable for the rest of the show with a left tooth issue. Just kidding. We are going to keep it rolling for you guys. Jump into Titans Talk. We're going to hear from head coach Mike Vrabel next, what his thoughts are about the Jaguars continued. So going to play that for you guys. As always, audio is courtesy of titansonline.com.

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And that's on top of the risk-free bet. Let me repeat, that's a guaranteed deposit match and risk-free bet for Thanksgiving only. So if you're a true football fan and you don't want to let this opportunity pass you by, you simply can't lose. Make sure you do your part to support your team this season. Hop on the gravy train and get in on the action with MyBookie. You play, you win, you get paid. Let's get into Titans talk and hear from head coach Mike Rabel. I mean, I think that there's, you know, throughout the season, whether that had been with Marcus or Ryan, things that, you know, were good and then just trying to fix the stuff that's bad.

But I think that we're starting to get into a little bit of a rhythm. I think that, you know, we still have to do a much better job on third down. We have to do a better job of not putting ourselves in those third and long situations. You know, we have to find ourselves, if we're going to be successful in the red zone, to find ourselves in a red zone more often. Harold has kind of come along this season. Has he gotten overall more impactful, you feel like? Continuing to develop and I think impact the game.

You see him off the ball a little bit. You see him rushing, rushing inside, coverage. We feel like the more that he can handle, the more that we can continue to do with him. I think that he is versatile. I think that he takes the coaching. I think that he's playing hard. And so any ways that we can get him to impact the game can certainly be helpful. So I think that he's continuing to develop and improve.

I mean, I think that that's all part of the process in the National Football League or whatever anybody. I'm sure you guys had had times when you started out in this career that maybe know maybe you weren't quite as sure um what questions to ask or what story to follow uh and i think that as you become more comfortable in your job just like harold is the confidence grows and and makes things um you know confidence gives you the opportunity to maybe you know be a little bit more aggressive knowing that that if you make a mistake, it allows you to kind of take a few chances, and that's what he's done. We just have to be prepared for pressure and have answers for it. It was an extensive pressure game, and again, we'll have to be ready for whatever their plan is,

whether that's making sure we protect, making sure that we get the ball out, you know, making sure that we're not in those long-yarded situations to force that. And then also I think as a team we can do a better job of not being in a situation where we're down a few scores. I think we need to be on tight coverage. I'm not sure that he's going to stray away from trying to take shots to Conley and Shark, those guys that are linear and fast. those guys that are linear and fast.

So, you know, not really trying to, you know, predict what they may do differently with foals. I think that we all understand whether Leonard got nine touches or 99 last week. The key was still going to be able to swarm and tackle and understand where he's at and his impact. I mean, he's a very good player, and that's what when teams have good players, you have to try to find ways to defend them no differently than each and every week. Some weeks we do it better than others.

I felt like for the most part in the first time around we could use some of those examples of tackling. I thought we tackled well. He's a tough player to tackle, as is Shark and Conley and Westbrook, but that's a challenge this week. I think that any player that's not in a starting role and that in the quarterback's case is not rotating. Maybe the sixth or seventh offensive lineman or the quarterback,

guys that know they're going to go in if something happens during the game that they really have to stay focused and be ready to go, and that's a tough challenge, not getting a lot of those reps. And I think mentally it becomes critical to do those things during practice to be focused and get the call and play it in your head and be ready to go and still find ways during our course of practice to improve your fundamentals and if you're locked in and kind of focused and you're ready for the opportunity, that's about all they can do.

I don't know if there's a benefit or a plus to it. I just know that that's what we're asking those guys to do. I don't know what level. I mean, I can't really put a level of confidence. I mean, you either have confidence in something or you don't. And so, you know, Ryan's done a good job in those situations and helped us, and guys have gotten open and responded.

So that's part of it. We don't always want to be in those positions, but we are. We have to make a critical drive either to stop them or to go down there and score points. I like guys going out, playing well, doing their job, winning. If that helps, then we should do a bunch of it. But there have been a lot of fiery speeches that have gone the other way. Played with Brian Cox, and he always – I learned a lot from Brian Cox.

Played with him one year. And he said usually the guy that's talking the most, that's the guy that I usually go after first. So that's the one thing I remembered from Brian. That's going to do it for Titans Talk. We are going to jump into Roland's Rewind and take a look at the last time we played the Jags so we can analyze the game from Week 3

and see what the Titans can learn from that. Before we jump into that, though, I do want to remind you guys you can treat yourself to a meal you deserve and have your favorite restaurants come to you with DoorDash. Right now, our listeners can get $5 off their first order of $15 or more when you download the DoorDash app and enter promo code LOCKEDON. Listening on the go? If you can't visit DoorDash right now,

you can find this and all other offers from LockedOn sponsors at Locked On sponsors at LockedOnPodcast.com slash offers. Rollins Rewind. So let's take a look and go back to week three when the Titans played the Jaguars. Like I said, this is the first time we've had a Rollins Rewind that took place in the same season.

So obviously this is going to happen for our division opponents. Maybe if the Titans make the playoffs again at some point in time, we can talk about playing another team that we've played before. So a lot of different opportunities here to do this late in the season. I want to look back at the game. So it started out pretty terribly. If you guys remember, this was the end of the Adoree Jackson experiment at punt returner, which in turn hurts his value as a draft pick in the first round because that was something that he was expected to do.

But he did fumble the first punt. The Titans defense made a nice stop in the first two minutes really good way to start the game and then a dory fumbles the balls on the seven yard line turns directly into a Jaguars touchdown go back out nothing going on offense this wasn't what be like the sack issue didn't really start until the second half. So it was just poor performance, and I'll get to that later. But the Jaguars get the ball back. This is one of those times where Malcolm does get beat one-on-one. They're unfortunate.

He plays pretty well, but sometimes in the red zone or when he's in man coverage, he will get beat in one-on-one. He got beat by Shark on that one. So the Jags are up 14-0 essentially. But what I really want to point out about the first half is how bad Marcus played. And this was kind of the beginning, in my mind, of the end for him. Atlanta kind of saved him for a little while. But when I saw this happen, I kind of knew that we might be in for some trouble.

Took a lot of heat at the time for pointing out some of the mistakes and some of the throws, but that's all right now. But just want to point out in the first half, six for 16, 62 yards, took one sack, only one sack in the first half. That wasn't the problem with the offense, just completely inaccurate. I believe it's a 45.9 quarterback rating. Just a really terrible performance there in the first half and really hurt the offense and its ability to keep the team in the game. So they come out in the third quarter. This is another head-scratching Mike Vrabel game early in the season.

The Titans are down 14-0 in the third quarter. Plenty of time left. They're in the red zone it's fourth and six and he goes for it why not kick a field goal there put some points on the board get some positive momentum going the defense did play pretty well for most of the game what about the offense that night made anybody believe that they were going to get a fourth and six conversion we couldn't convert on third down to save our lives at the beginning of the season. So that was just a head

scratcher for me. And even going back to week three, I had mentioned that in real time on the podcast that night, I didn't understand that decision, why he had confidence, why he had confidence in a Dory Jackson after his fumble to put him back out there again for a second time. Why he had confidence in Marcus to continue playing him at the beginning of the season, which there may be more behind that, obviously, as we've heard. Why he had confidence in the offense or Arthur Smith to draw up a play to convert a fourth and six in the red zone. I'm just not certain.

So those are some of the head scratchers we saw from Vrabel early. Ultimately, we go into the second half and that's when the sack parade starts for the Jags. They rack up eight sacks into the second half, and that's when the sack parade starts for the Jags. They rack up eight sacks in the second half, and here's the difference. So in the first half, the Jags defense, who historically plays zone coverage and rushes four because they have a talented front four, they totally altered their traditional game plan, and they just brought the house on Marcus. They played man coverage on the outside, said, you guys got to beat us. The quarterback's got to make accurate throws. And obviously, we weren't able to do that. The Titans weren't able to be successful going against that kind of game plan. In the second

half, once they had a lead established, they totally flipped it. They went back to their zone coverage, played really, really soft zone, and just rushed four. But what they did in the second half that caused the problems with the sacks although they weren't blitzing as much as they were running games and stunts with their offensive line so that's something that I've talked about a lot that this offensive line struggles which with which I think is coaching related but when you have a defensive end lined up on the outside you have your defensive tackles on the inside a lot of times what you'll see is a defensive tackle or defensive end will kind of crash in in a strange way. So let's say a defensive tackle was inside.

The defensive tackle will burst to the outside towards the offensive tackle. Try to take the guard and the tackle with him so that the outside end can loop behind him and have a free rush to the quarterback. Stuff like that was killing the Titans offensive line at the beginning of the season because they had Dennis Kelly, who's not very athletic, although he's a good swing tackle and backup. Jameel Douglas was in there with very limited experience at the time. Roger Saffold couldn't have good chemistry with the line that he was out there with being so new. So a lot of issues kind of stacked up on each other, but that's why you didn't see a lot of sacks in the first half, although they were bringing tons of pressure because Marcus was getting at the ball but just

making inaccurate throws and then the second half they were playing soft zones Marcus felt a little more confident like he could find somebody because they were playing zone and they weren't blitzing but really that just led to the offensive line getting eaten up by the the games and the stunts that the Jaguars ran with their front four. So two different ways the Jaguars were able to dominate the Titans offense in that game. It'll be important. This is where we kind of spin week three forward, even though it feels like a totally different season because that was so long ago. One thing that the Titans have to be ready for is both of those concepts. The Titans have to be more prepared for the stunts in the games that

the Jaguars ran in the second half. That's something that's plagued the team all year. It's gotten better in recent weeks, but they'll have to be ready for that. And they'll have to have good audibles and good checks ready. So when they identify that if the Jaguars go to that game plan where they're going to man up, now they don't have Jalen Ramsey now. So maybe it's less likely that they do that. But if they go to the same game plan they had in the first half where they man up. Now, they don't have Jalen Ramsey now, so maybe it's less likely that they do that, but if they go to the same game plan they had in the first half where they man up, they blitz a bunch, the Titans have to be ready with good audibles and good checks and have good communication ready between the wide receivers and Ryan Tannehill and the Titans in the offensive line to be ready to handle that much better than they were prepared in the first

game. That's a coaching thing, so look for Arthur Smith here. It's a big game for him. He's had the ability to see two different ways the Jaguars want to attack this offense. Now with Ryan Tannehill, will we have a more prepared offensive game plan to take on that kind of scheme and that kind of versatility that the Jaguars are willing to show against the Titans? We will see. Being at home has to help. The noise, having the momentum there, but I'm very curious to see how that plays out. So that's going to do it for Roland's Rewind

for this week, covering the last time that we played the Jaguars in week three. Guys, we got to get the streak back going. I really enjoyed having such a long winning streak over the Jaguars, having 999 consecutive days without losing to them. We need to get that going again. It's clear that we are a better football team. The Titans are a more talented football team than the Jaguars. And being at home, they need to go out and show it and be prepared for everything that the Jags can throw at them. Arthur Smith, we need you right now.

So hope that they are ready to do that. That's going to do it for today's episode. We went over the injury report coming out of the bye week starting practice. In our second segment, we let you hear from Mike Vrabel about how he plans to deal with the Jaguars and some of the things that he's seen from the team so far. And then we just went over our week three loss to the Jaguars and hope that the Titans can improve upon that and take some things away from that game to prepare them better for this Sunday.

Hope you guys enjoyed the show. Like I said, I am dealing with the dental pain and everything like that. I hope it didn't compromise the show or the audio or anything like that too much. So I appreciate you guys bearing with me on this one. I'm going to rest up, get back to 100% so we can have a fired up Friday and have a good game preview and get ready for the weekend. So that's going to do it for today's show. I am your host, Tyler Rowland, and this was Locked on Titans.