Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans 10/10/17: Terry Robiskie isn't the guy to blame

Episode Date: October 10, 2017

Was offensive coordinator Terry Robiskie to blame for the Titans loss in Miami? We don't think so. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thanks for coming in, Mr. Mahoney. Do you have your member ID card? Yep, I have it right here in the FEP Blue app. See? Great. Can I... It's awesome. The app can also help me find a provider and keep tabs on my deductibles. Okay. Can I see... Oh, yeah. And my out-of-pocket spending and visit limits. And I can call the nurse line. I'm really glad it does all that, but I only need to see your member ID card. Oh, that's it? Why didn't you say so?

Fearless is just one tap away. With the new FEP Blue app from Blue Cross and Blue Shield, you can access your health benefits on the go. Download it now at FEPBlue.org slash app. You are Locked on Titans, your daily podcast on the Tennessee Titans. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome in to another edition of Locked on Titans. I'm your host, Jimmy, joined as always by Terry Lambert. Terry, how are you?

Doing good, Jimmy. What's going on? Not too much. We got a few things to talk about now on the injury front with the Titans, so we'll hit that in just a sec. Before we do that, though, I want to tell you about my bookie. At the game, just got a gut feeling, no problem. Now you can bet from anywhere, anytime with the all-new MyBookie mobile betting platform.

With the MyBookie mobile platform, you'll enjoy the safety and convenience of at-home betting while you're on the go. Try it out today and you'll never miss another winning bet. So that's MyBookie.ag. Check them out for all your sports betting needs. And then also, as we've been talking about for the last week, there the promo run with with pro football focus uh if you rate and review the podcast on itunes leave your twitter handle in your review you can you're entered in into a drawing to win a pff edge subscription um and again that's really cool if you play fantasy football at all season long daily whatever um they've got a lot of cool stuff

and they have a lot of cool stuff around the draft and all that stuff. So you get a year-long subscription to that. It's $39.99 value. You get that if you just review the podcast. And we'd appreciate you doing that anyway, giving us feedback, and that helps with the rating of the show and that kind of stuff. So check all that stuff out. The big news today was Mike Malarkey's Monday press conference.

He said that marcus mariota is is getting closer was basically the sentiment that that you could take away from what he said today um now we won't really know anything until thursday the times won't have to release a practice report until thursday since they don't play until monday night but um i i would say there's cautious optimism that mariota will be able to go this week. It's something we didn't really talk about last night, but Malarkey was kind of pressed after the game on Sunday in the press conference about the NFL Network reported that Marcus was out two to four weeks,

and Malarkey said, look, I told you all he was day-to-day. Are you going to believe them or are you going to believe me? So like we talked about last night, Malarkey has been pretty up front as far as injuries go. I think there's a real chance that Moriota is able to play on Monday. I wouldn't say it's 100%, but I think there's a much better chance he's able to go this week than what

we were talking about at this point last week. Yeah, and he's just a guy you have to have. We saw what happened with Matt Castle. Just the Titans are not going to win football games with Matt Castle, and that's a problem. So you wonder if their hand might start to get forced, and you hate to think like that because, obviously,

Mario DeSalle is priority number one. And in reality, a regular season game against the Colts doesn't mean too much. But at the same time, the season kind of feels like it's teetering. Like the Titans need to start winning ballgames. So it's kind of an interesting dynamic. Yeah, and I mean, you know, it is just one game, but it's a division game. And the good news is they're getting to a point in the schedule where it's a little bit softer.

But even with that being said, you know, we saw miami is is pretty bad miami was right yeah and we saw how that went um and you know i mean we can talk about the the you know we talked about it last night the pass interference and the you know the opi call the the fumble and all that stuff i mean if those things go the other way then we're having a different conversation but you know they didn't and the titans still weren't able to muster up very much offense so the coles defense is not good but again you know you just don't feel confident about what they're going to be able to do with matt castle out there and you know they've got to win over the jaguars but right now the jaguars are the standalone leader in the division at 3-2 with everybody else being 2-3.

You don't want to fall much further behind them. Now you have to balance that with, like you said, it is just one regular season game. If it's a situation where Mario is going to go out there and he could possibly injure it worse, obviously the best thing to do is let it be completely healed so that you don't have that risk. You bring you bring it back when you know that i guess there's less of a there's always a risk but there's less of a risk of a re-injury because the worst thing that could happen is they bring it back too quickly and then what is what could have been a two three week injury ends up being

a six week injury which kind of feels like maybe what happened with cory davis we don't want to get in that situation with mariota yeah Yeah, and it's kind of interesting. I think the Dolphins have a pretty good defensive front. So we kind of knew that running the ball was going to be tough. Indy's not quite that stout up front. So maybe it is a week where the Titans can come in and run the football and not have to throw the ball around a lot. But still, that's a better offense you're facing too.

Even what Jacoby Brissett, he's been playing well. So, just, man, it's tough. It's tough. It's hard to have any confidence in Matt Castle. I liked what you did on Twitter today asking people what would you do as the offensive coordinator. I thought that was pretty funny. How would you move the ball with Matt Castle?

I don't know, and I don't think there's a good answer, and I think that's a problem that needs to be addressed. Yeah, and that's the thing. Everybody after that game is fire Terry Hrabisky, and we talked about it. We have our issues with what they did or didn't do in that game, but that's just the thing that jumps to when when the offense doesn't look good is you got to fire the opposite coordinator but you also don't understand what you're working with and you know again the whole the whole backup quarterback thing i mean we don't want to go down that rabbit hole necessarily but matt cass is what he is there's only so much you can do and when you've got a front like the dolphins have it's really hard to generate much against that if the offensive line is not going to go out there

and dominate them which they obviously weren't able to do and they took even a you know a bigger hit with a long going out um that i just i'm not real sure what what people really wanted him to do i mean there's there's not a lot of options left it was funny because the response to that was run the ball more well you know they're your backs only got x number of carries well okay but when you look at the effectiveness that they that they had in those carries the the numbers weren't there and so if you just keep running into that wall you're just going to keep hitting three and outs you're going to keep being third long because you're getting you know one two yards on first and second down you've got third and eight and that's a disaster with matt castle so i mean i don't know i i just it's just funny that's what everybody jumps to but then when you're like well what would you do there's not a lot of

productive in my opinion responses there yeah it's funny because what would the narrative be had that long bomb to delaney stood uh exactly Exactly. You know, if they hit that play, we're talking about a totally different ballgame. Titans probably squeak out a win. It's not comfortable by any means, but they probably get it done. Are people calling for Terry Hrabisky's head? You know, that's a play that should not have been called a penalty. So, you know, it's, yes,

we all have gripes with Terry Hrabisky from time to time. It happens. You know, it happens to Josh McDaniels Hrabisky from time to time. It happens. It happens to Josh McDaniels with the Patriots, I guarantee you. So it's just one of those things. You're so limited with what your personnel is. Think about what got thrown out of the playbook this Sunday. All those RPOs, all those option plays, that dangerous look with Mariota and Murray

and Henry in the backfield, that's all gone. So you're just pretty much stuck with running straight forward. And, you know, the Dolphins are a tough team to do that to. Yeah, absolutely. And that's what people just tend to forget. So a couple more injuries I wanted to touch on. But before we do that, again, talking about MyBookie. Check them out. Like I said, MyBookie.ag. The best thing about them is their mobile website. more injuries we need to touch on but before we do that again talking about my bookie check them

out like i said my bookie.ag the the best thing about them is their mobile website and if you're like me most of the stuff that you do now you do on your phone um you're not sitting down in front of a computer anymore um they have tailored their website to where it works really well on mobile you don't have to download an app you just go go to mybookie.ag. The mobile website is really great, easy to use. You can bet on anything you want to bet on. You can bet on games before the game. You can bet during the game, that kind of stuff. They have all those options.

So if gambling on sports is something that you'd like to do, you really need to be checking out mybookie.ag. Again, their mobile website is the best part about the whole thing. It's just so easy to use. So check them out. Again, mybook website is the best part about the whole thing. It's just so easy to use. So check them out. Again, mybookie.ag. All right, so a couple other injuries to talk about. Malarkey basically declared Sipper out without just coming out and saying it. He said basically it's at least going to be another week for him.

He said Corey Davis is getting closer, but listening to the press conference, he didn't sound very optimistic. So at this point, I would be surprised to see Corey Davis against the Colts on Monday night, which is disappointing because we're all really excited to see what he can bring. The offense looks a little bit different, even with Matt Cassel in the center with him out there. You've got a guy that can go down the field and they can throw the ball up to him and he can make some plays. But I doubt they're going to have him.

And then he said Taylor LeJuan is day-to-day. Again, he's a guy that Titans really need. And so, I mean, I think obviously those are going to be the two biggest things we're watching this week is Mariota's status and then Taylor LeJuan, what he's able to do once they get back to practice. Yeah, I thought that was kind of an under-talked-about point. LeJuan leaving the game, Dennis Kelly's just not very good. And to stick him on an island against those pass rushers that the Dolphins had,

it was a recipe for disaster. LeJuan is obviously a pillar of this offense. So, you know, you get the feeling that he's going to be fine and he's going to be fine and he's going to be back out there and you're going to be not going to be able to keep him off the field so i'm not too worried about that yeah and you know you saw him try to get back out there and push it in the game on sunday um and just wasn't enabled i mean you could just tell he just didn't he didn't he wasn't able to have the stability in the need that needed to be out there and so at some point they got to say okay look you know dennis kelly is better

at this point than you are without being able to move like you normally can but i mean we know lawan well enough to know that if there's any possible chance that he can be out there he will be um so i feel pretty good about that you know dennis kelly it's interesting he was good last year i mean you, he ended up playing most of a game. The game that LeJuan got suspended and held up really well in that game, but wasn't very good on Sunday. Now, neither was the rest of the offensive line, so I'm not sure

how much of an indictment that is of him necessarily, but again, he's a nice guy to have in the stable. A nice guy to have is that swing tackle, but not a guy you want to rely on for any long period of time. Yeah, and there again, terry rabisky's calling plays without his his star left tackle and his star quarterback so you know and his first round pick uh their receiver so cut the guy some slack i mean we're all frustrated trust me but ter Hrabisky's the wrong guy to go after in this spot.

Yeah, I agree. And I mean, since we're on that, I mean, I think that really, and you know, somebody asked Malarkey today at the press conference, is there any consideration if Marcus can't go to starting anybody other than Matt Castle? Which is kind of a dumb question in my opinion. Because you're basically asking, I guess, do you feel confident? Are you going to let Brandon Whedon play? Or is there somebody else because you're basically asking i guess if you do or do you feel confident are you gonna bring the weed in play or is there somebody else that you're gonna bring in i mean it's a veiled cavernet question i'm sure but like and marcus responsible

is no if if marcus can't go then we're gonna go with with matt again and and then what he said i think is the thing that we really should all be focusing on. He said everybody around Matt needs a play better. You know, and that's the thing. I mean, again, this team is supposed to be built to be able to run the ball no matter what. That's what their smash mouth, I mean, his exotic smash mouth, but at the end of the day, they want to be able to line up and run the football no matter what. And, you know, and the guys, I mean, like Taylor LeJuan, to his credit, he talked about that after the game, about how that's their calling card is to be able to, against the best defenses in football,

to still be able to run the ball. And they weren't able to do that Sunday. And so I think we really need to spend, it's the sexy thing or whatever the thing, I guess the headline is, Matt Cassel's not good enough. They need to sign, you know, X quarterback. But really for this team, the biggest thing that happened on Sunday was the offensive line wasn't good enough to step up and be able to have a successful offense with Matt Castle under center.

Yeah, and look, the argument is you can't run the ball with Matt Castle under center because he brings nothing to the table as a passer. And, you know, some parts of that are valid. Yeah, the teams are going to stack eight in the box, but still the Titans had success running the football against stacked boxes last year, even when Mariota was struggling. You know, DeMarco Murray got off that hot start. Mariota was kind of still finding his way and figuring out the offense.

So, I don't know. I kind of feel like fans are kind of ignoring the fact that the Titans are kind of struggling to run the ball consistently. I know what the numbers say, but I think they're a little inflated due to that half in Jacksonville and that big run against Seattle. There's just not a lot of consistency there. They've hit a couple big plays, but, you know, it's just not the same offense that we saw last year, and even with Mariota in the game and in the mix.

So I don't know. I don't really have an answer. Nothing's changed up front. They did lose Fasano, though. That was a big piece. And I said that all summer long. They're going They did lose Fasano, though. That was a big piece. I said that all summer long. They're going to miss Anthony Fasano, and I think they still are. Jonu Smith is great.

He's just not there blocking-wise yet. Maybe he gets there down the road, but that was just a huge loss. I think that might just be the difference. Yeah, and it is going to be a big drop-off from a guy like Fasano, who was so good in the role that the Titans had him in, to a John O'Smith. I mean, even if he does end up – I mean, I think he's going to be a better receiver, obviously, than Fasano was, but Fasano's role in this offense was not as a receiver, and I don't know that John O'Smith will ever get to that level of the blocking tight end

that Fasano was, and I don't necessarily want him to. I mean, I that level of the blocking tight end that Fasano was. I don't know that they necessarily want him to. I mean, I think maybe that's more of what Superdoll is supposed to do at this point. But, yeah, I mean, I think they absolutely do miss him. But, I mean, that's really, to me, that's what we should really be talking about is how is his offensive line going to step up and be better? Be better if Matt Cass is under center, be better if Marcus Mariota is under center. They need to be better either way because they're supposed to be the thing

this team can count on, and they haven't been that so far. So really I think that's the biggest story through five games and the thing that I think we need to be questioning the most because even if we get Marcus Mariota back and he's healthy, if the offensive line is not good, this team is still going to struggle. So that's something for us to watch. And like I said, I think that's the biggest storyline going forward. All right, anything else that we need to touch on before it's night?

I think we got all the guys that were injured. So, I mean, I think we'll – again, we'll really know more on that stuff as the week goes along. Yeah, real quick before we get out, for everyone that's still talking about the penalties, Malarkey agrees with you. He thought that the penalties shouldn't have happened, especially the fumbles, that fumble that the Dolphins took back for a touchdown. He said the play should have been blown dead and played a whistle.

So he was confused, just like the rest of us on that play. He also said that there was 13 defenders on the field for the Dolphins with some guys coming off the sidelines. So I know that doesn't make you feel any better, but the head coach feels the same way. Yeah, and that's something that people were kind of hammering him on Twitter last night for not challenging that particular call. But he made the point today.

It's a change of possession. It's a scoring thing. That's a league review. And so if they don't catch that in that review, there's nothing he can do about it because he doesn't have the ability to challenge that play because that one's automatically reviewed. So, yeah, again, yeah, it's one of those things where, like, I guess it's supposed to make you feel better, but it doesn't really.

It doesn't change the outcome at all so yeah um and again we talk about that and and you know it's a game of it's a game of that type of stuff and you know like we talked about last night with the with the penalty on jonah smith and all that it's a different conversation we're having today if if if even just one of those two plays doesn't go the way that it went in that game titans probably win. But anyway, they didn't, and they're sitting at 2-3, and they've got to deal with what's coming from that. So, yeah, so we'll be back tomorrow night. Probably tomorrow night.

There's been quite a bit of AFC South injury news, so we'll kind of talk about some of that and how it's going to shape up the division going forward. Because especially with the Texans, you've got a couple of guys that are key players in their defense that are not going to be there for the rest of the year. So we'll look at that and how that affects the Titans a little bit tomorrow night. Anything else, Terry, before we get out? That's all I got.

All right. So, again, Pro Football Focus. Rate, review the podcast. Leave your Twitter handle in the review. You'll be entered to win a subscription, a year-long subscription to PFF. Really cool stuff. Check that out, mybookie.ag as well. So for Terry, this is Jimmy saying thanks for listening,

and we will talk to you tomorrow night.