Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: Bennie Logan, NFL Draft visits

Episode Date: April 10, 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, how are you tonight? Doing pretty well. What's going on, man? Not too much. We've had a few things happen since we recorded last. The Titans did start their off-season program today. This phase is mainly just conditioning stuff, so I don't think there's going to be anything on the field for us to talk about. I don't think there's going to be anything on the field for us to talk about. But they had a press conference and all that kind of stuff today, so good to see some action going on there. And it's a good time for the players to get to be around the new coaching staff and all that stuff.

So that's kind of what we've got going on. We've got a few news items that we'll talk a little bit about. Before we do that, Terry and I write for musiccitymiracles.com, covering the Titans for SB Nation. So check us out there. You can also check us out on Twitter. I'm at TitansMCM. Terry is at

TitansMCM is the blog. At jmorrismcm. Terry's at TLambertFB. And then we have the podcast account at LockedOnTitans. A lot of Twitter accounts to keep track of there. And then you can follow the show on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, wherever you get podcasts.

So check us out at all those places. All right, so Friday, a little bit of a surprise announcement. Steve Watterson, who has been the Titans' strength coach since long before they came to Tennessee, they announced that he was retiring after 30 seasons with the team. Kind of interesting timing-wise, was a guy that was obviously a holdover from Malarkey's staff. And Vrabel had said initially, we're going to kind of go through an evaluation phase and see if we want to keep him on.

They decided to, and then the news broke Friday that he was out. So I don't know how much of an impact it's going to have, but it will be weird to go out there and not see him there. He's been with this team for so long. Yeah, it's kind of hard to give an opinion on strength coaches. We as outsiders don't really know what goes on on the coaching staff, much less in the strength training program. But I think you kind of speculated when all these coaching changes were being made

that Watterson might be on the outs with the Titans. Just from an injury standpoint, you had the rash of hamstring injuries that the Titans just could not seem to shake with Corey Davis. And DeMarco Murray, Jonathan Ciprian just seem to be one right after the other. Marcus Mariota. Yeah, that's the big one. But, yeah, interesting timing because you've got the rest of your staff set across the league all through college football, so you can't exactly go hire a new one.

So you promote internally. But, yeah, just a little weird. It's May, everything's set up, ready to roll, and then you decide to retire. So I just wonder if there's more to that story. Well, like you said, it's hard for us to know what effect the strength coach has with all that kind of stuff. The people inside the building know that more than we do. But, and maybe this is just, you know, an uninformed opinion,

when you see a team that has a bunch of guys go down with the same injury, a muscle injury like a hamstring, that it just kind of raises a red flag for me. And, again, I may be way off base here. But it is one of those things where, like, you know, guys are going to get hurt in football. You understand that. A lot of things are just, you know, hits and that kind of stuff. People roll ankles.

You know, those kind of things can't be prevented. But it just seems like a soft tissue injury to the same soft tissue with all those players. I don't know. It seemed kind of weird to me. But, you know, a guy that's been with the team for a long time, they had a good track record. And, you know, other than the hamstrings last year they they really stayed healthy so i mean you know obviously doing some things right but you know i don't know it just makes it's kind of like a complete turnover now at this point with with everything uh kind of a fresh look for this staff um and you know so i

mean i think that's good and then moving forward we'll just you know kind of see how it goes but now you've got i mean it's good good that it happened right before the OCA started, not halfway in. So it's just the same voice the whole time. So keep an eye on that. Other, I guess, newsworthy item, the Titans signed Benny Logan over the weekend. We talked a little bit about him visiting last week. Just a guy that is going to come in and stuff the run, hopefully. Will play nose tackle for this team.

Has been a good run stuffer in his time in the league. And he makes more sense for this defense than Sylvester Williams did. Absolutely. More of a traditional nose tackle fit. 6'2", 315. A little more size than Sylvester had. So yeah, that's a true nose tackle. So I think you're pretty much set with your starters. Casey Daquan and then I think Benny Logan slides in there. I did in there. I'm interested to see how this kind of affects Austin Johnson. You know, we said he's a good player.

We don't know how great he is. I just wonder if Austin Johnson kind of gets a shot to start over Benny Logan. So, you know, that's my takeaway. How much better is Benny Logan than Austin Johnson? Would they want Austin Johnson in that nose tackle role? So I don't know. Maybe Austin Johnson is just that depth guy. It doesn't seem like he's going to get that chance to start. But, again, just what is it, a one-year deal for Benny Logan?

Yeah, it is. And, you know, I mean, if nothing if nothing else you got competition there now and i think this at least says that they're not sold on austin johnson being that guy um could he be looking out you know yeah sure but i mean i i think that this is just now you got two guys there vying for that one spot and that's always a good thing yeah and I think it's hard to imagine them drafting another defensive lineman at 25. You know, Benny Logan on a one-year deal certainly does not take defensive line off the table.

But, I don't know, you want that instant production, you want that instant starting spot from your first-round pick. I know you're not going to necessarily get that with the 25th pick, but at the same time, that just seems like a lot to invest in that defensive line. But, again, I think it all depends on how the board falls. If all the pass rushers are gone, if all the linebackers are gone, you've got to pick something if you can't trade out. So, I don't know.

And we're going to talk about this coming up. They've been connected to some corners, some receivers, some safeties. So, maybe that board is starting to kind of broaden their horizons outside of edge and linebacker. Yeah, sure. I mean, those are the two obvious need points. But we talked about how they have the ability to look at best available if that's what they decide to go. So that's what we'll get into next, talk a little bit draft visits and what they may or may not mean for the Titans at 25.

All right, so this time of year we start to see a lot about people the titans are having in for draft visits and you know it's it's kind of hard to keep track of everything because there's it'd be nice if there's like a centralized location on the internet we could find that but you got to kind of piece things together um but like terry said before the before the break they've been it's been a lot of cornerbacks and wide receivers or maybe not a lot but you've seen some of the notable guys at corner and wide receiver that have been brought in. Those, to us, don't seem like the biggest needs the Titans have at this point. But what do you think that says about this process

that they're going through right now in the draft? It kind of seems all over the place. I don't know. And like we said, picking 25th just is rocking our world because it's just totally not what we're used to. So, you know, I feel like we've been locked in to, you know, two, three options. Now we're locked into about, you know, 10 to 15 options. The back half of the first round just gets wild.

So I think you're seeing them prepare for anything. You're seeing them look at safeties. You're seeing them look at corners. You're seeing them look at defensive linemen, pass rushers, linebackers. The one I don't get, though, and the one I want to talk about is cornerback. I just don't understand.

You've got Malcolm Butler there. You seem to be set with starters. Where would a corner fit into the equation if you take one at 25? Oh, it absolutely would not. And just think about the amount of capital that they have invested in corner over the last two years. You talk about signing Logan Ryan last offseason, drafted Indore Jackson in the first round last year in the draft, and then signing Malcolm Butler this year.

So you have a lot of resources invested in your corners there, and you've got a couple of guys in LaShawn Sims and Ty Smith that have played well at times for you. I mean, not guys that you necessarily want to be your one or two or maybe even three, but when you're talking about those guys being four and five, it seems like they're pretty set at that position. So just don't see if you drive the corner at 25 does he play in dime i mean i just don't know i know that you know you need three now and i get that i get what they signed malcolm butler um all that stuff sub packages and you know the percentage of time

they're in that stuff but at this this point, I don't understand why. I mean, I guess you want to talk to a lot of people, and that's good. But I just can't understand why they'd even be thinking about corner at this point. Yeah, it kind of reminds me of the Bengals. It seems like the Bengals just draft corners in the first round, whether they need them or not. So I don't know. Maybe they're planning ahead for the future.

I don't know. Maybe they're planning ahead for the future. I don't know. I couldn't tell you where. Josh Jackson is the guy that's now visiting the Titans. If you take him at 25, where does he start? Does he start over Dory? No. Start over Logan Ryan? No.

He doesn't start over Malcolm Butler. So you're talking about a guy who's your fourth best corner, and then you've still got Ty Smith and LaShawn Sims, like you said. So, yeah, I just don't get it. I don't see it. I don't think it's possible. Maybe they're just preparing if one of these guys fall. They've got more info than we do for sure.

So maybe they're just doing their due diligence here. Yeah, and not only do you not have a place for him to start but you still have that need at edge you know i mean like so it just it doesn't it doesn't make a whole lot of sense i mean i i guess you know what there's four guys right that are in the conversation in the first round outside linebacker you've got chubb who's obviously going to be long gone by the time the titans pick you've got harold landry who we think is going to be long gone by the time the Titans pick. You've got Harold Landry, who we think is going to be long gone by the time the Titans pick. You've got Marcus Davenport. You've got Josh Sweat.

I mean, I think probably one of those guys is still on the board when the Titans pick at 25, but I wouldn't be shocked if all of them were gone. So, you know, maybe they're just evaluating their options on past that if there's not another guy that they think is worthy of that pick. But, again, talk to inside linebackers. Talk to safeties. gone past that if there's not another guy that they think is worthy of that pick but again talk to inside linebackers talk to safeties um that that's a need to me that not a lot of people are talking about um because even if you like cyprian john cyprian you don't have anything behind him um you know you obviously you have kevin byer but i mean on the other side you just i don't know

that seems like a place that they could definitely stand to upgrade definitely at depth and bring in a guy that could compete with Ciprian. So I don't know. The corner thing doesn't make any sense to me. Wide receiver makes a little bit more sense. But again, I guess you could have a guy that could come in and be your third maybe right now behind Corey Davis and Rashard Matthews if they're not sold on you know Tywon Taylor uh Tajay Sharp I mean those guys definitely haven't proven anything

but so not to say they couldn't get better at that position but I just at 25 it seems like you have a lot more pressing needs than that yeah and and on, they've talked to Michael Gallup, and they've talked to Cortland Sutton and DJ Moore. DJ Moore's probably the only guy that's probably going to go in the first round of those guys. So we talked about this last week. I just can't see them adding more youth to that room. I mean, you would be talking about Rashard Matthews as your only experienced guy coming back, and not that that can't work, but, man, that's a lot of inexperience.

That's Corey Davis, Taylor Taylor, each with well under a year of experience, you know, when you factor in playing time and injuries for Davis. Tajay Sharp coming back and, you know, missing all of last year. That's just a weird – I'm not sure I've ever heard of any situation like that. So I think they could add one, but I think it would be on day three. Again, I've talked a lot about this, along with a veteran addition and a guy that we both liked that made a lot of sense, Jordan Matthews' son with the Patriots.

So that's not going to happen. So, again, you might be looking at John Robinson waiting for some camp cuts to come down before he adds one. That's typically where you find your bargain bin deals. Eric Decker signed late with the team, so maybe you're looking at another deal like that. But, yeah, just not a lot of pressing needs outside of edge rusher. But, you know, if one's not there, you can't force it.

So that's going to create kind of a wild situation on draft night. And I've never felt less confident about what the Titans are going to do with a draft pick. Yeah, and then one more note on draft visits. Leighton Vander Esch was supposed to be visiting here, but according to Tony Pauline at DraftAnalyst1 on Twitter, that visit was canceled because the Titans believe he'll be gone when they select in round one. Is that weird to you?

It's a little strange because, yeah, you look at Mox and he's going somewhere. And Mox are Mox. They're not the most useful resource. But, you know, you look around, he's going anywhere from 18 to 28, somewhere in there. That's right in the Titans' range. So for them to just totally punt and give the reason of, oh, he's not going to be there. I just don't like speaking in absolutes when it comes to the draft

because you just never know. So I don't think the Titans would do that. I kind of question that report from Pauline myself. Yeah, so anyway, we'll keep an eye on that as well. So that's kind of where we are as far as draft stuff goes. And we'll get a lot more you know heavy in a draft talk over the next couple weeks with the draft coming up at the end of this month um so we'll we'll have a couple more guys on and talk about that kind of stuff but i think

that'll do it for tonight like i said the titans will be you know the majority of the players will be around for the next couple of days as otasTAs get started, but they won't be doing any on-the-field work until a little bit later. So anyway, we'll monitor that. Anything that comes out of that, we'll be sure and talk about. Terry, anything else we need to touch on tonight? No, that's it. All right. So in the meantime, check out museummiracles.com.

We'll have any news that breaks, we'll have that there to talk about. And like I said, you can follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmorrismcm. Terry's at tlambertfb. Any news that breaks, we'll have that there to talk about. And like I said, you can follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmorrismcm. Terry's at tlambertfb. So thank you for listening to Locked on Titans, and we will talk to you again tomorrow.