Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: Big trade for Tannehill; What the Josh Kline cut means

Episode Date: March 18, 2019

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome in to another edition of Locked On Titans. I am Jimmy Morris, joined as always by Terry Lambert. Terry, how are you tonight? Doing good. Doing better now that the Titans have made some of these really good signings. So, got a lot to talk about. Feeling really good about where this team is headed. Yeah, absolutely. It's been a good first wave. I guess first and second wave, maybe even a free agency. John Robinson's done a good job of making it to where they don't have really any desperate needs at this point because there's a little bit of flexibility in what they want to do in the first round, even the first two days of the draft.

So nice job there. We'll talk about all of that before we do. It reminds me right from UCMiracles.com. We're covering Titans for SB Nation, so you can check us out there. You can also follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmorrismcm. Terry's at tlamberttn. You can follow the podcast account at LockedOnTitans. to follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmorrismcm. Terry's at tlamberttn.

You can follow the podcast account at LockedOnTitans. You can also get the podcast or if you get your podcast, just search LockedOnTitans. Subscribe to us there and you will get the newest episodes as soon as they are available. You can also play us on your smart speaker. Just say play podcast LockedOnTitans. We also have a

voicemail line set up where you can call in and leave us a voicemail. Whether you have a question, feedback, whatever it is. 615-787-8762. Leave about a minute long voicemail and we'll get to you on the show. We'll definitely do one of those this week. We've got a couple, but we could use a couple more.

So again, 615-787-8762. Okay, so since we last talked, which was about the middle of last week the titans have traded for ryan tanney hill cut josh klein you know we got a little bit more information on adam humphrey so we're going to kind of talk about all of those three things tonight the biggest thing uh that happened since the last time we talked was the trade for ryan tanney hill and um i mean i was, really surprised to see that.

You know, Tannehill was a guy that, you know, you figured was going to be out in Miami, but he had, you know, just a really ridiculous contract there. So you knew they needed to do something with him. They were going to have some dead cap either way with him. But, you know, remember he'd be cut. But John Robinson goes ahead and gets in there and gets him. The Titans get Tannehill.

They give up a fourth-round pick in 2020 and a seventh-round pick this year. They get back a sixth-round pick in this year's draft, and also Tannehill. They renegotiated his deal. He's getting $7 million this year, but the Dolphins are paying $5 of that.

So Tannehill only counts for $2 million against the Titans cap. Really a brilliant move by John Robinson. When he talked, he had a press conference on Friday. When he talked, they asked him about other guys they evaluated or whatever, and he basically said, yeah, we looked into some other guys, but it was hard to make the numbers work. I mean, you saw what Tyrod Taylor got with the Chargers. They got a lot of money together and be the backup.

We talked about, you know, we've been talking about this really since before Week 17 last year about how the Titans needed to upgrade the backup quarterback position. Listen, Ryan Tannehill is by no means, you know, excellent starter in this league, but he's a definite upgrade over Blaine Gabbert. This is not a quarterback controversy. A lot of people on Twitter have tried to make it that. Tanny Hill is a fine player, but John Robinson made it clear in the press conference that he's already had conversations with Marcus, with Ryan, saying Marcus is a starter.

Tanny Hill is here to push him to compete with him, but with the understanding marcus is a starter so i think it's a great move and again only count two million against the cap not counting much more than blaine gabbert was was scheduled to in 2019 clear upgrade there we if we've noted anything for marcus so far it's that he's going to get hurt he's going to miss at least parts of games maybe whole games well you, whatever it may be. This year, you won't have to make huge changes to the offense when he's out. And you'll feel like this team, if they can play good defense, run the ball,

they're still going to have a chance to win. Yeah, I love the deal. I loved it before we figured out that the Dolphins were paying for most of that contract still. Once you see that, I don't know how you have any opposition to this deal. Like you said, Marcus Mariota is going to miss games. We've seen it time and time again. He's going to miss a start. Tannehill is going to have to come in and finish a game or two here or there.

It's a great deal. We said the Titans had to get in the higher end of the quarterback, backup quarterback market. You saw Tyra come off the board. It sounds like Ryan Fitzpatrick wanted to play somewhere. He ends up with the Dolphins. Tannehill is the most logical answer after that. So part ways with the fourth round pick, not a big deal.

Once you get past the third round in the NFL draft, it's really, really a crapshoot and as much as John Robinson moves around You can probably count on him Making another move and potentially getting that one back as he did with the six round pick he picked up here So Titans add a draft pick there get their six round rounder back I love the move. We said it from the end of the season, from the middle of the season. Blaine Gabbert just wasn't good enough to come back.

The team has released Gabbert now. So two-man show there, and you're a lot better after this move. Yeah, absolutely. And like you said, with the pick, I mean, that's I think the biggest opposition I've seen so far in the deal is when they give them a fourth-round pick. Well, one, it's not a fourth-round pick in this draft. So, you know, we talked about how the Titans needed picks this year after

only, you know, basically netting three players in last year's draft. Didn't have to give up one for this year. Fourth-round picks, whatever, man. I mean, it's fine. I don't – I used to be more on the, you know, you've got to stock probably his picks and that kind of stuff. But like you said, I mean, he's going to make a move here or there to either get that back or, you know, get another one this year or whatever.

I mean, I think there's a good chance he moves back from 19 this year. So no big deal there. You're talking about a two-year contract for Tyrod Taylor with $11 million. So I think that's what, when John Robinson said on Friday that, you know, we looked at some of these other guys, it was hard to make the numbers work. I think one of the best things about this deal is if, let's say, Marcus gets hurt again, Ryan Tannehill comes in and he's terrible, or, you know, he's not good, whatever.

If that's what happens, you can go into 2020 and you have no money tied up in quarterbacks. So that's obviously not a great place to be because you've got to find a quarterback, but you're not on the hook for something, for a bunch of money, for a guy that can't play. And we've seen so many of these deals. I mean, look at the deal that Nick Foles got this year from the Jaguars. I mean, we've seen so many of these mid-level guys get ridiculous money,

and it hurts your overall team because you have so much of your cap tied up in those guys. If neither one of these guys can play, again, I think Marcus can play, but the injury stuff, whatever. If it plays out the same this year as it has the last couple of years, you move on to 2020, you've got a clean slate. They can sign a veteran, draft a guy, whatever it is they want to do. So, I mean, I really like it from that standpoint as well.

They didn't absorb a lot of the contract that Tannehill had signed before because he still had a lot of money left on that deal. So, again, this is just another one of these moves from John Robinson that, I mean, he has ups and downs. We're going to get in the next segment, we're going to get into the whole Josh Klein thing. That was a terrible contract. We'll talk about that. But here he's just shown another way where he sees something that a team has

that's kind of holding them up. And he says, all right, this is a place we can move in, we can make a deal. I mean, similar to the DeMarco Murray thing. I mean, hopefully Tannehill doesn't have to have the impact that DeMarco Murray did a couple of years ago. But he's a team that's kind of cap strapped or has a guy on the contract that doesn't really work for them, is able to make a move, get him here.

And again, listen, I was going to be fine with them paying him $7 million. I mean, I know that's not ideal. Then you would have had $27 million tied up in the quarterback position and two guys, and we don't know if either one of them are going to be any good. But once you found out that the Titans are just on the hook for $2 million, I mean, again, fourth-round pick next year, who cares? They need to try to win this year. You've got so much talent there.

You've got a defense that should be really good again. I mean, I really like it, and I just think at the end of the day, we talked about they have got to upgrade the back-up quarterback position, and they've done that and didn't put themselves in trouble with the cap in years to come. Yeah, pretty creative deal. Hats off to John Robinson. I think what you said, not getting tied up beyond this year,

you can break clean, not owing anybody anymore. That's a big deal because we were talking before we went on about some of these teams that the Giants have $43 million in dead cap, and Dolphins have all this dead cap, and Tannehill's a part of that. John Robinson's not going to have that. I hope we get some sort of solution uh to this quarterback dilemma going into next year um but he's at least set himself up to have a clean slate at the start of next season uh if he wants it which i think is a big deal

yeah absolutely all right so coming up we'll talk about the release of Josh Klein and what that means for this offensive line. All right, so maybe even more surprising than the news they were trading for Ryan Tannehill was Friday morning that the Titans had cut Josh Klein. We all watched him play. He wasn't good. We knew that. But, you know, after the contract they gave him last year, the amount – I mean, they saved $3.5 million, but you've got like $3.2 million

or whatever it is in dead money for Klein this year. So I really thought that they would keep him. I think it's the other way around. They saved $3.2 million, but they have $3.5 million in dead money. But I really thought he was going to be here for another year. They were committed to him last year for whatever reason. look we we did story or we did shows uh a few weeks back about john robinson the the contracts that he's done draft picks all that kind of stuff and there's been a lot of good there has been some bad as well you have to put the contract they signed josh klein

to last year on the bad list it never made any any sense. They gave him a bunch of money. After a year, it wasn't necessarily good. But I guess the thought was he can move, so he's going to work in this new offensive system. But it still seems like they could have gotten him for a lot less. But for the flip side of that, you have to give John Robinson credit, and he's willing to move on. We saw Kevin Dodd before, and he stood up in front of the media and said, look, I missed on this guy.

It was a mistake. I can't do that. Similar deal here with Josh Klein. You've got a contract. You've got a guy that's scheduled to make a bunch of money. Like I said, the cap savings versus the dead money, that kind of stuff, a lot of times GMs are not willing to admit the mistake there.

They want to keep that guy on the roster. Robinson moved on here, so you've got to give him credit for that. It does leave a hole in your entire offensive line. We talked last week that obviously they signed Roger Saffold. You've got him, but now you've got – I mean, Ben Jones is back at center. Apparently they're going to keep him, but now you don't have anybody at the other guard spot. And I think this means that they're going to take an interior offensive lineman

in the first two days of the draft. I think this means that if Garrett Bradbury is there at 19, I think he's pretty obviously the selection. Then you've got a guy that can play center. Maybe you kick Jones to guard at that point. We saw them do that in the game last year where they benched Spain, kind of reshuffled things there. Corey Levin came in and play center. Maybe you kick Jones to guard at that point. We saw them do that in the game last year where they benched Spain, kind of reshuffled things there. Corey Levin came in and played center.

You've got Levin in the mix. You've got a couple other guys. They re-signed Kevin Panfield. So you've got some options there, but I still think this move clearly points to they're looking to make a serious upgrade. And to me that says a day one or day two pick in the draft. It's just so interesting, the arc of this offensive line.

We thought Josh Klein was the weak link all along, and then it seems like they're not interested in Quentin Spain. Spain, you know, is still a free agent. Now Josh Klein gets released. So it's just we didn't see this coming. We talked a lot about just kind of accepting that Klein was going to be a part of this off the bomb formula in one way or another. It's really interesting now because now you've got to make a move.

You've got Kevin Panfield there as a little bit of added insurance. I'm not sure you bring in another vet there. I think the draft plan is clear. I think the big takeaway here is they're going to take an offensive lineman, interior guy in the first two picks there. Whether it's Garrett Bradbury or not, we'll see. But I think we've got a clear front runner for the first time, and that's why we didn't spend a lot of time on draft stuff

because this stuff changes so much. But that was kind of one of the first players that Titans Twitter kind of fell in love with. It's Garrett Bradbury, and just the thought of adding an athletic center into the mix in this zone blocking scheme, you know, blocking for Derrick Henry. mix in this zone blocking scheme, you know, blocking for Derrick Henry. It sounds like, and it's certainly setting up for Titans fans getting their shot to see that. Yeah, and you mentioned there about, you know, draft stuff and needs and all that kind of stuff. And I think this is probably a pretty good point to kind of double back on that and reset the needs thing. And, look, we've said all along, all along, coming into this offseason,

you had needs on the injury offensive line, wide receiver, edge, defensive line. Not necessarily in that order, because it's really hard to prioritize those needs. Those are the four places that they really needed to get better.

And backup quarterbacks. We'll throw that in as kind of the fifth need there. So far through these first couple ways of free agency, you've got an edge guy. Now, it's not a long-term solution. They could still absolutely pick that at 19. There's a guy that they love. You've got at least one interior offensive lineman,

so you're not desperate for that guy. You've got your backup quarterback taken care of. You've got a wide receiver in Adam Humphrey. Still need a speed guy probably, but you're not, again, desperate for that. You've got your backup quarterback taken care of. You've got a wide receiver in Adam Humphreys. Still need a speed guy probably, but you're not, again, desperate for that. You've got your backup quarterback. So I really think John Robinson has done a nice job of not pigeonholing himself into anything that he has to do at 19. You don't have to reach for a player here.

You've got three or four places that you could absolutely go, and if there's a guy there that you love, you take that guy. If there's not, if there's a guy there that you love you take that guy if there's not if there's a pool of you know five or six players if there's somebody wanting to move up for you know for whatever it is that a guy that still may be there you've got those options and that's really the most important thing i think is going into a draft with with several options because if you're desperate for an edge guy and there's a run on those players before you get there that's when you get into a place where you're reaching and i really think he's done a nice job here of there's not anything

he desperately desperately needs there are still some places they need help they still got some holes but there's nothing that they have to pick here so i don't think he has to reach on a player now that doesn't mean he won't miss or whatever but i just think that he's done a really nice job of saying, okay, I've got three or four options here. If there's a guy that we're still in love with that's on the board, then we can take that guy, but we don't have to reach for a certain position. Absolutely.

So you look at what could be in play now. They still haven't addressed defensive line. You mentioned edge. We've talked about offensive line on the interior. I still think they need a receiver. So I'm kind of creeping back towards the thought of them taking a receiver at 19. Don't know what's going to be left on the board, but when you look at these receivers,

is there a guy left out there that really gets your blood pumping, that can come in and be your number two. I mean, we're talking about Michael Crabtree, Demarius Thomas, Jermaine Curse, Pierre Garcon, guys like that, just kind of bottom-end starters in the league now. So I think it's still pretty open. I think we've narrowed it down a little bit. Pretty open. I think we've narrowed it down a little bit. If I had to rank them, I'd probably go offensive line followed by defensive line and then receiver.

But I just want to see them do something more at receiver. I love the Adam Humphrey signing. We're going to talk about him in a minute. But I just think you need something on that outside because right now you're putting a lot of trust in Taewon Taylor, and I just don't want to go down that road again. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that's, like you say, you still have a starting position open right now on the offensive line. They haven't done anything on the defensive line yet. But your receiver, I mean, we talked a lot, and, you know, my whole thing was I needed to get two guys in free agency, and I really wanted to get two guys in free agency,

and I really wanted to get an Adam Humphreys, a Golden Tate. We talked about that level of player, or a slot receiver. And then talking about a speed guy, a Tyrell Williams, a John Brown. Obviously, they didn't get either one of those guys. So I think you still do have a need there because I'm terrified of counting on Taewon after what we've seen from him so far. But, yes, you've still got some needs there, but there's just not that desperate need that you had before. So, I don't know, it sets up really well for him there. And so, like I said, I think there are definitely some places that you can criticize John Robinson,

but overall he's done a really nice job with his roster. He's done a really nice job of setting himself up in free agency to go into drafts, not being desperate for a place he's done that again. So, I don't know. I really like what he's done so far. It's just funny, like halfway through Monday, the legal tampering period, people were killing him for not doing enough. And then we're sitting here less than a week later

and feeling pretty good about where they are. So, again, patience and all that kind of stuff, but people don't have that during free agency. All right, coming up, we'll tie up a few loose ends, talk about some things with Adam Humphreys and just some other things around the league. All right, so kind of a cool story with Adam Humphreys. He had agreed in principle to a deal with the Titans,

the four-year $36 million deal that he ended up signing here. But as we saw, I guess Anthony Barr really was the guy from this period where he was reporting he was going to the Jets, kind of agreed to a deal there, changed his mind, went back to the Vikings. So these deals they agreed to in those first two days, they're not official. Nothing's official until you sign. You can't sign until Wednesday. Started on Monday.

All that kind of stuff. Apparently the Patriots came back to Adam Humphreys after he had agreed to the deal with the Titans and offered him more money per year, more guaranteed money, all that stuff. And he decided to stick with the Titans. He was asked about that at his introductory press conference this week

and basically said, you know, look, I'm a man of my word. I had agreed to a deal with the Titans, and so I stuck to that. Really cool to see because you just don't see that very often. We talk a lot of times about how it's all about the money for these guys. But cool to see a guy agree to a deal and then stick with it, especially when you've got an organization like the Patriots. The opportunity to play with Tom Brady had to be very enticing, but Humphreys decided to stick here.

And so I think that immediately makes him a fan favorite. And I do think it made some people that were kind of out on that signing a little bit, I think it made them feel a little bit better. The Pagers were pushing so hard to sign him. Yeah, and this legal tampering stuff, it's still relatively new to us. So I feel like we learned a lesson here. Like you said with Anthony Barr, I was writing a post for Anthony, for Humphrey signing with Titans,

and it just kind of occurred to me that he hadn't signed yet and he can still technically change his mind because it was still Monday. So you gotta be careful with that. But yeah, I mean, it was cool to see Humphrey's picks Titans over the Patriots. You know what he would go do up in new England. I mean, that would be Tom Brady's new best friend. He would be the next Wes Welker and Julian Edelman. They just have success with those quick slot receivers.

So kind of a bit of a surprise, honestly, to see Humphreys say he was a man of his word and to come here. But here he's got a chance to kind of be the guy. You know, we're hoping Corey Davis is going to be the guy, but I think Humphreys is going to see just as much hoping Corey Davis is going to be the guy, but I think Humphreys is going to see just as much volume as Davis is going to see. So yeah, like you said, really cool story, really fun to beat the Patriots out on a player like that and not have to steal from them. Yeah, and then one thing, I mean, we talked about Humphreys or Golden Tate, but the contract that Golden Tate got with the Giants was crazy. I mean, I talked about Humphries or Golden Tate. The contract that Golden Tate got with the Giants was crazy.

I mean, I saw the report, I guess, from Shepard or whoever, that he was signing with the Giants, and I was like, why would he do that? And then I saw the contract, and I was like, oh, that's why. You know, I mean, it's just nuts. They gave him four years, $37.5 million, $23 million guaranteed. So, I mean, he's a good player and, you know, a guy that we would have liked to have here with the Titans. But, you know, you compare that four years, $36 million, $19 million guaranteed

for Adam Humphreys. Adam Humphreys is a little bit younger. You know, I feel like the Titans kind of came out on the better end of that deal. We talked a lot about Golden Tate, about him being an option. But, you know, I think the Giants realized after they traded Odell Beckham away, they needed to have somebody out there to play wide receiver. So Golden Tate does that. Talk about a franchise that's a mess.

You've got that there. But good for him getting all that money. But I was really surprised that he got that much. And like I said, it made sense at that point why he agreed to sign with the Giants. Yeah, Giants, man. I don't get what the plan is there. So it kind of seems like they were trying to be bad, and then they make this signing for Golden Tate,

and now they mess up their comp picks. They give a comp pick to the Eagles. It just sets off a chain of events that doesn't seem to paint them in the greatest light. You give up Odell Beckham to... Dave Gettleman, man. I don't understand how his seat is not on fire.

Maybe it is, but a directionless franchise with Golden Tate is pretty clear. He was looking to get paid. It just kind of surprised me that that never got traction with him being from Nashville.

I really thought we'd hear something about Golden Tate coming to the Titans. Yeah, I did too. But apparently Adam Humphries was their guy. And that made sense too with John Robinson being on the Buccaneers staff in their front office when they signed Humphreys as an undrafted guy in Tampa

out of Clemson. So it made sense for that there. But, again, you have a guy $4.5 million less in guaranteed money, a guy who's four to five years younger than that guy. So, again, I like what John Robinson's done here. I'm trying to think. I don't think there's any other huge things that have happened, at least in free agency, you know, since we last talked.

I think Justin Houston's still the guy that's out there that is probably the most, you know, intriguing. But John Robinson said on Friday the Titans don't have anything in the cooker, to quote him. So I don't have anything in the cooker, to quote him. So I don't expect anything like that to happen. I would imagine they're done with guys that are going to come in and, you know, push to be starters.

You'll see a few more moves, probably another interior offensive lineman, maybe another receiver or whatever. But at this point, I don't think there's much left out there. A guy that's going to come in, I think, is going to make a huge impact on this team. Yeah, you just look at who's left. Justin Houston, Dominick Nsou, Ezekiel Ansa, guys like that. Eric Berry got released by the Chiefs. That was big news.

Chiefs have kind of imploded that whole defensive roster there. So that's going to be interesting. You've got this Tyreek Hill situation ongoing. I don't know how he returns to the Chiefs, to be quite honest. So I think you're going to see a much different-looking Chiefs team, and that might shape the picture of the AFC. It's funny how quickly things change in the NFL. You watch the Chiefs last year,

especially in the middle of the year when they got Kareem Hunt, Tyreek Hill, Patrick Mahomes, obviously, all those guys running around out there, and now you're talking about it might just be Mahomes left. So it's crazy how quickly things change in the NFL. And, again, it just speaks to how hard it is to build a consistent winner. So, hopefully, that's what John Robinson is in the process of doing. And, again, I think we both agree that we like what he's done so far and just setting himself up to not have to reach for anything in the draft.

So, that'll do it for tonight. Again, I think we're pretty much done with huge moves at this point. Like I said, you mentioned Ndamukong Su. I'll just circle back to that real quick. I mean, the Titans were in on him last year, kind of down to the Titans and the Rams at the end. But I think Kaharski tweeted that the Titans have kind of moved on from that at this point.

So I don't really expect anything to happen there. I guess if you get to a point to where the price gets low enough. And Su said he wanted to stay on the West Coast. So I don't think you'll see anything happen there unless it gets on Deep Red or Free Agency. Sue's not getting the number he thinks he should. But other than that,

I think they're pretty much done with that kind of stuff. So now we'll move really into the draft phase because you have a better idea of the needs and what they'll be looking at. So we'll move into that. We'll start to have some of these draft guys on. I'm we'll be able to get john ledyard on and we had him last year he's really good part of our network and does the draft network as well we'll have to get him to explain the the cornerback saying yeah yeah that's right he was he was one of those guys that gave

the titans a corner in his first mock so we'll get him on uh let him talk about that but anyway uh subscribe to the podcast like i said we'll be we'll get him on, let him talk about that. But anyway, subscribe to the podcast. Like I said, we'll still be doing these a couple, three times a week, especially leading up to the draft. We'll have a lot of good stuff going on there. Check us out. You'll see miracles between podcasts. We'll have a lot of information there.

So thank you so much for listening. Again, subscribe to the show. You can search out Locked on Titans, play on our smart speaker, play podcasts, Locked on Titans. Follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmoresmcm. Terry's at tlambert, T-N.

So thanks so much for listening, and we'll talk to you later this week.