Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: 2018 stats predictions

Episode Date: August 14, 2018

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Welcome in to another edition of Locked On Titans. I'm Jimmy Morris, joined as always by Terry Lambert. Terry, what's going on today? Not a whole lot. What's going on, man? Not much. So we've got a few things to run through today. We've got some kind of newsy stuff that's happened since we recorded last week. And then we're going to take a look at some of the polls that have been going up on the Titans MCM Twitter. So if you follow that, add Titans MCM. Justin Graber running that, doing a great job. Just kind of taking the pulse of the fans on some different things. So we'll talk about those polls, the results, kind of where we fall into that, kind of to tie up the show today.

Before we do that, again, remind you, we're right for musiccitymiracles.com. So you can check us out covering the Titans for SB Nation right there. You can also follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmorrismcm. Terry's at tlambertfb. You can find the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Just search Locked On Titans. We've got some exciting stuff coming up.

We're going to have Rhett Bryan later this week from Titans Radio. He's going to help us recap the Titans joint practices against the Bucs, which are taking place on Wednesday and Thursday. And then heading into week one, we're going to have Mike Keith on again, just kind of setting the roster, the temperature of the team, and all that stuff as we head into week one. So a couple of exciting things to look forward to there. All right, so for today, first off, just kind of some news and notes type things.

You know, we had the whole Corey Davis thing last week. Was he hurt? Was he not? He didn't play on Thursday night in the first preseason game, but he was dressed. Went through warm-up, so we figured that was probably a good sign. He's been back on the practice field playing well. So, I mean, just kind of, you know, the only question with Corey Davis at this point is his health. I mean, we've seen that every time he's out there, he's making plays.

He had a really nice route, they said, on Malcolm Butler in practice on Monday. So, I mean, I think the only question mark at this point remaining around Corey Davis is can he stay healthy, can he hold up for the whole season? Yeah, and it's probably on us a little bit for freaking out. But, I mean, when you're not getting information from the team and all you've got to go on is what you experienced last year, you'll kind of understand why we did that. But he seems to be fine.

It seems like he just needed a couple days of maintenance, maybe a couple days to rest, whatever it was. But, yeah, when he's been out on the practice field, it's been nothing but glowing reviews. So I've got to be excited about 8-84 this year. Yeah, and then the other big injury has been Rashawn Evans. I feel like there hasn't been as much talk about that one. He's been gone since, you know, like the third day of camp

or whatever it was early in camp. He was on the side – I was up there Sunday, and he was on a side field doing some work with a strength coach, didn't practice again. You know, still we're not going to get any kind of update on what his injury is, how long he's expected to be out. But so we'll kind of keep an eye on that, I would assume, at this point. I mean,

maybe he could be back this week and he could play on Saturday against the Buccaneers. We'll just have to wait and see how all that plays out. But, I mean, Mike Vrabel has kind of doubled down on, we're not going to give you any information about these guys other than they have an injury, they're not practicing. So that's all we know about Rashawn Evans. So we'll

kind of keep an eye on that. The other couple of interesting things, just as we kind of tie this part up, Nick Williams is the guy that's kind of consistently made plays, obviously made a big play in the game on Thursday night, that big third down catch and run. So he's a guy that showed up a couple times. He's been showing up in practice. I think when we've done our 53-man roster projections,

we've had Campanaro in there as a lot. Campanaro's been hurt, hasn't been practicing, didn't play in the preseason game on Thursday. I think one of those two guys is probably going to make the team. At this point, I mean, it might be leaning a little bit more toward Nick Williams just based off of what we've seen from him on the field while Campanaro's been hurt? Yeah, it's hard to say because I think Campanaro's signed for a specific role.

I think Nick Williams filled that role in the last game. But it's going to be interesting to see when Campanaro gets healthy, how that rotation comes out, and where does Darius Jennings fit in all this? It's a guy that we've heard a lot about in camp uh he caught that touchdown against Green Bay so uh there's some opportunity at the back end of the receiver rotation uh it's going to be interesting to see how it plays out whether or not they keep five or six guys but uh all three of those names uh that's going to be it's shaping up to be a pretty tough decision yeah it's going to be something to keep an eye on. And then one other thing, when you look at,

I was going through snap counts from the game in Green Bay, and interesting that Darius Jennings played five special teams plays. I don't know exactly what they were, but he was out there for five of those. When you look at a guy like Deontay Burnett, who's gotten some buzz at different points during camp, he didn't play special teams at all. I think that hurts his chances of making the team. We talked about how these kind of back-end guys need to be able to play special teams

if they're going to stick. And we know Nick Williams, he played four special team snaps, has some return chances. We've seen that in practice. So he's kind of a guy to keep an eye on there. And then the other thing, you know, Sharif Finch, you know, made a play, a couple plays in that game against Green Bay.

He's had a couple good practices. There is some room at outside linebacker for a couple of these guys maybe to make the team. And Aaron Wallace, the guy that's shown up a couple times as well. So that's just another thing to kind of keep an eye on. You know, they waived injured Jamil President, so he's out of the mix for that spot.

So I think at least one of those guys is going to stick, and it'll just kind of be a matter of, you know, watching again. I think these couple days in practices against the Bucs are going to be key for these guys that are on the bubble because it's the first time that these guys will get an extended look against a team that's different than them, against a guy that they haven't been going against every day. So, I mean, I think those practices probably even go further in those guys having a chance to make the team than the game does on Saturday against the Buccaneers.

Yeah, Finch has a big opportunity. There's just not much back-end depth there. You've got Aaron Wallace. I didn't see much out of Aaron Wallace in the Packers game, so maybe that changes this week in the Bucs practices and against the Bucs in the preseason game. But back to the receivers real quick. Deontay Burnett and Vesey seem to get all the hype in rookie camp

and OTAs and all this, and we're sitting here talking about Nick Williams and Darius Jennings. So, you know, Jimmy's golden rule, never fall in love with an underactive free agent receiver. It seems to be ringing true once again. It just seems like they were distant, you know, sixth and seventh guys behind Nick Williams and Darius Jennings. Yeah, that's the thing.

I mean, those guys go up and down all the time. So it's just once you fall in love with one of them, it seems like another guy has a good week. So anyway, I don't know. I mean, we still haven't seen Rashard Matthews. He's still on PUP. So, I mean, hopefully these guys don't really factor in once the regular season comes around

and you're getting good production out of Matthews, Corey Davis, Taewon Taylor, Tajay Sharp. I mean, you don't really need to go any deeper than that as long as all four of those guys are healthy and playing well. But it's just kind of something to keep an eye on as we go through camp here. All right, so now we're going to talk about vivid seats. Obviously, NFL preseason is in full swing. So we've had Titans have had their first game, and that means the start of the NFL regular season is right around the corner.

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Preseason and regular season tickets are available now. The Titans kick off their home schedule this Saturday against the Buccaneers, and you can be there for all the excitement. Go to VividSeats.com or download the app and enter the promo code LOCKEDON for 10% off your first order. The offseason is over, the NFL is back, and Vivid Seats wants to help you get in the game. Okay, so like we said, we've been running a few polls on our Twitter site

for me to see miracles at Titans MCM. And we'll just kind of run through these and talk a little bit about the results and what we've seen so far. The first question that was thrown out was, which Titans player leads the backfield in total yards from scrimmage between Derrick Henry and Deion Lewis. Derrick Henry got 67% of the votes. This one is interesting because I still think at this point we don't really have any idea how they're planning on using these guys. You know, everybody just assumes, you know, ever since the picture went out of Derrick Henry standing next to Deion Lewis and he's, you know, nine feet taller than him.

Everybody's like, oh, that's your goal linebacker. That's your, but we've talked about how that's not really Derrick Henry's strength. And if you go back and look at how the Patriots use Deion Lewis, he runs well between the tackles. So I wouldn't be surprised if when you get inside the, you know, get inside the 20, you've got a guy like Deion Lewis who can pass protect, who can run routes, and who runs well between the tackles. I wouldn't be surprised to see him get plenty of opportunities in those situations. Now, that doesn't necessarily translate to when we're talking about just total yards from scrimmage. I think Derrick Henry probably is the guy that ends up with more because I think he gets more chances.

I think he gets significantly more carries throughout the course of a game than Deion Lewis does. But I think Deion Lewis is going to get significantly more targets, and so then it just kind of breaks down to what do they make of those opportunities. Yeah, and just to go off on a tangent here, can we end the picture of Henry and Lewis? I mean, I see it every day. It's been done before.

Anyways, anyway, I'm going to take the opposite stance. I think Lewis has more yards. I think he gets more opportunity in space. I think he gets more opportunities in the passing game. Henry, I think, is pretty clearly going to get more carries. But I just think Lewis is a guy that can do more. You talk about the third down and the pass protection and all that stuff. He may be small, but he's better at all that stuff right now than Derrick Henry is.

You know, I always go back to that Chiefs game where Henry almost got Mario to kill. So that stuff matters. And I just think that Lewis is going to get more opportunities in space and more opportunities to make big plays for this team. Yeah, so I think it's going to be really close. And I think it's going to be fun to watch this year where you have these two guys who are both going to be good players, are both going to be effective in their roles.

You know, we talked about two-headed monster last year with DeMarco Murray and Derrick Henry. The problem with DeMarco Murray just didn't have it last year. And so it's going to be fun to see them have these two guys and use them in different ways. So I don't, you know, I think the Titans come out ahead either way, and I think Toby Arkham's scrimmage ends up being really close. Second question, which of these two players has more receptions in 2018

between Taewon Taylor and Tajay Sharp? 80% voted Taewon Taylor. I think that's absolutely the right answer. I mean, we saw at the beginning of camp Taewon Taylor running with the ones exclusively, you know, in that X position. We talked about that on a podcast a couple weeks ago. You know, the concern with Taylor was, and I've heard multiple people talk about this,

Mike Keith talked about it on the OTP, that Taylor was apparently slow picking up his offense. So he looked behind in, you know, in the mini camps and that kind of stuff throughout the spring. And, I mean, remember when we talked about one of those Igniting the Fire shows where they had a specific part where they're having to kind of teach Taewon Taylor what to do. It seems like he's kind of caught on and he's gotten up to speed.

And I think he has the ceiling, his ability ceiling, if that's a thing, is just higher than Tajay Sharp. I think Tajay Sharp can have a role in this offense. I think he's a good player. I think he runs good routes. I think he has pretty good hands. But he doesn't have that take-the-top-off-the-defense type speed like Taewon Taylor does.

So I think the ceiling is always going to be higher for him. So I think receiving yards, I think the answer is easily taewon taylor it's a little bit closer on receptions but i still think taewon taylor leads that i agree uh and i think it was telling that tajay sharp came in behind derris jennings uh so it just seems like taewon taylor is way ahead of tajay sharp uh now i think a more interesting question is richard matthews versus Taewon Taylor. So I'd probably lean Matthews there, but it seems like Taylor has a lot of momentum going. It seems like they're going to use him going deep. They're going to use him a lot on the outside.

Whether or not he produces in a game situation remains to be seen, but the Titans staff seems really, really high on him. So that's an easy one for me. All right, coming up, we will hit these last two polls and kind of wrap things up for today. All right, so the next question was, in the 2018 regular season, Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota will throw for more than 3,400 yards or less than 3,400 yards.

Terry, I'll let you kick this one off. I'm going over. I'm a big believer in a new offense. You just see it time and time again. Something new comes into the league. Something new comes to a team. That offense explodes at least for one year. Maybe it's not sustained success, but you see an offensive explosion.

So you saw the Rams last year really come to life. I think the same is going to be true for Marcus Mariota here. If the receivers can stay healthy, if Rashard can come back, if Corey Davis can stay healthy, there's a lot of ifs there, but I certainly think he can do it. You know we're high on him. I'm high on his mental processing. I think he's next level in the head,

and I think that's the most important thing that a quarterback can be. So I'm going over here. Yeah, I absolutely agree with you. And if you just look at what Marcus Mariota has done in his – so we'll look at 16 and 17. In 2016, he threw for 34-26. Last year when he was, you know, admittedly by us who love him terrible 2016, he threw for 34-26. Last year, when he was admittedly by us, who love him, terrible, and he threw for 3,200 yards.

So if he can throw for 3,200 yards in that offense with the injuries that he had, not having Corey Davis, not having a receiving back with the capabilities of Deion Lewis, I think the over is pretty easily the answer here. I think that's 74% voted for the over in that poll. Like you said, there's so many things that are working in his favor. And, again, for the purposes of this question, we're assuming health for everyone. And, you know, some things obviously would change based on that.

But, yeah, just go look at the jump that Jared Goff took last year. I mean, he threw for 1,000 yards basically in seven games in his rookie year. Everybody thought he was a bust, running by the league. Last year in 15 games, he threw for 3,800 yards. So I think that when you've got the weapons that they're going to have, when you've got this new offense and all the different things that they're going to be able to do, I think 3,400 yards is a pretty easy number for him to hit. I think 3,400 yards is a pretty easy number for him to hit.

Now, again, like I said, that's not a given based on health and all that kind of stuff. But when you look at the last two years, he threw for 34-26 and 32-32, I just think that those have got to be his floors, again, assuming he stays healthy. So I don't think, again, I would be shocked if he plays 16 15 16 games whatever it is and throws for less than that i just think this offense is going to be good enough um that that's what they're going to have to do and i mean i don't know i just again but you know maybe we're not the right people to ask maybe we should get somebody um i don't know i i think you see a difference in the way people feel about marcus mariota based on you have people who watched the games last year who

watched the offense who knew what was going on and they pretty much to a person will say you know they were in terrible system this new thing's going to be a better fit for him and all that kind of stuff and he's going to be really good and then you have people that just look at box scores and all they see is 13 touchdowns 15 interceptions and they're like okay marcus mario the bus who cares about the offense so i think you have kind of those different schools of thoughts we obviously fall under the first school and i don't know i mean that that to me is a pretty easy mark i think i would have set the over under a little bit higher yeah you can really tell if a person has paid attention to the titans their opinion on Marcus Mariota. Anyone that

watched, you didn't even have to watch a full 16, but if you watched most of the Titans season it was pretty obvious what was going on. There was just a big disconnect with that offense. Considering the numbers he put up last year in a broken offense, there's just no way he's going under that

number this year. Last poll. Which of the Titans players leads the group group interceptions you've got your options it's kevin byard adory jackson malcolm butler logan ryan who you got i think it's byard because i think that's where you're going to get the most zone coverage so uh zone allows you to take more chances it allows you to kind of read the quarterback and react to what you're seeing in front of you. Those other three guys, they're going to be playing a lot of man. So Kevin Byard, what did he have, eight interceptions last year? Yeah, that's an easy one to me.

The all-pro safety is going to get it done again. Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, just when you look at, like you said, from a scheme perspective, it makes the most sense for Byard to lead that group. If we break it down to the cornerbacks, I think I'm going to go with Adory. I think that, again, we've talked about this, but his first, his rookie year playing corner was so much better than I expected it to be. We heard all the reasons, you know, throughout the offseason why it was going to take him a little bit to get up to speed at playing corner. He was really good last year. I mean, you look at his passer rating when targeted and all that kind of stuff. He was, you know, among the top guys in the league. And so I think that he's only going to get better in year two,

a better understanding of what they're trying to do, a better understanding of how people are trying to attack him, all of those types of things. So I think you're going to have a group. I think you'll see probably more interceptions from the Titans' defensive backs than we've seen in a long time. I think that's going to be based on, one, the group being better, two, the pass rush being better.

So all those things, you know, kind of force things. I mean, you saw in the preseason game, right, when President hit, whoever was playing quarterback for the Packers, I can't remember who it was at the time. And Jayon Brown had the interception. Those kind of things create those types of opportunities. So I think they're going to see more opportunities for things like that with Harold Landry and that group getting after the passer.

And I'll take Adore among the cornerbacks. Who do you have among the cornerbacks? I agree on Adore because, you know, you go back to last year, really sometime in the middle of the year, the light switch kind of came on for him. He started playing really, really well. And those that kind of wrote him off after the first few games were eating crow there. So he was starting to get his hands on the ball.

Those interceptions are going to come, like you said. Yeah, absolutely. It's a group that we're excited about. And obviously this is a team that we're excited about. You can kind of tell from the optimism that we have in some of these questions. So that's good stuff. We just kind of wanted to look through that and take a break from all the other stuff that qualifies as news during training camp.

The good news is for the next two days, the Titans are going to be on the field against the Bucs. And like I said, I'm going to be out there tomorrow. So we'll break all that down tomorrow night. And then on Thursday night, we're going to have Rhett Bryan on from Titans Radio to kind of recap the whole thing. I'm sure he'll be out there watching both days. So that'll do it for today.

In the meantime, like I said, check out musicseemiracles.com. We'll have your place to follow. I've made a list of all the Titans Twitter media people, and we'll have that up during the day so that you can just kind of keep that up and you can see all the Titans news that comes up at one time during practice. So we'll have that up there tomorrow when that kicks off, and we'll have plenty of other stuff from those practices as well. So check that out.

Follow us on Twitter at jmortismcm and at tlambertfb. For Terry, this is Jimmy saying thanks for listening to Locked on Titans, and we'll talk to you again tomorrow.