Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: Breaking down a win over the Texans

Episode Date: December 4, 2017

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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? I'm making it, man. Just still navigating through this coaching search. Yeah? Yeah, so fun times. I think I said on our last pod that Tennessee would have a coach by now. Yeah, I asked you that at the end. They don't. They don't. They got a new AD, so that's fun. New AD, so that's fun. Anyway, all right, so there's that going on.

We had a Titans game today that was really kind of painful to watch. They won. Obviously, that's good. They're 8-4, still in first place in the AFC South. I mean, all good things there. They keep finding ways to win. They keep their record in games that are decided by uh well they ended up getting more than a touchdown with that derrick henry around the end

but you know it was tight until the end um so i mean all those things are good and you know again having experience in these types of games is good for the playoffs it's good for a young team um to build on for the future and all that stuff so all those are still positives but the negative is that they're just not very fun to watch um i will say that i think the at least the the mood in the stadium has changed for this team which that's good um you saw the the three false starts in a row on the texans uh on their second to last drive um everybody was talking about how loud it was in there so that's something that we saw a lot in the early days of the titans we haven't seen in a while um even in a couple of years where they were when they were good it was just the the fans still didn't seem to really

get behind them like they had in the past but that seems to be coming around so that's obviously a really good thing um and again wins are good eight and four is good, first place after week 13 is obviously very good so anything that we talk about that's not good you just have to at least keep a little bit of a mindset that hey even with all this going wrong

you still have a first place team that still has some very winnable games on the schedule and is set up very well to get into the playoffs and even possibly host a playoff game yeah and you talked about the crowd that was that was interesting to me because for a good part of that game the the stands felt dead i you know we weren't there obviously we were we were watching from home but just you could feel the energy kind of kind of went out of the stadium when they got down 10-0. And like you said, it just wasn't a real fun game to watch.

Obviously, they got the win, so who cares if it's fun? But still, to see the crowd in the fourth quarter kind of get a little hostile, that was cool because that's something we haven't seen in a long, long time. And really, I think it was kind of aided by the refs. Multiple questionable calls down the stretch there aided by the refs. Multiple questionable calls down the stretch there, especially in the second half. Spot of the balls, questionable. The non-DPI call on the Decker deep ball.

I think that got the crowd engaged, that got the crowd behind this team and that was needed for a team that kind of lacks some energy, especially offensively. To see that crowd get behind them, that was really cool to see. Yeah, and it's a good point. You know, if you've been in stadiums during football games, I'm sure most of you have, nothing gets fans fired up like a call against their team. And, you know, a lot of times even if it's the 100% right call, fans still get fired up and don't like it and all that stuff.

So, yeah, I mean, I think you're right. I probably did hate it. And just real quick, we can touch on that. I mean, there were two spots the Texans got that were just ridiculous. The first one was a DeAndre Hopkins pass. It was a nine-yard pass. I mean, he wasn't even close to getting to the first down. And, you know, it was one of those things where he got held up and then driven back.

But, like, his forward progress was still a good yard short for the first down marker. And they just gave him the first down. Malarkey didn't challenge that one. And I didn't really blame him because, as we saw later, when he did challenge a spot that absolutely should have been overturned, it's just really hard to get the spot changed in the NFL. You don't see it happen that often. But then, of course, the Texans challenged the one against Delaney Walker.

And, again, they did the right thing. Delaney's knee was down. He was a half-yard short. I mean, that was the absolute right thing. But there were a couple of obvious ones that didn't go the Titans' way. And then that one, they moved back but it was just there were a couple of obvious ones that didn't go the titans way and then that one you know they moved back it was just crazy it's almost like with spot of the ball what's a catch and what's not it's like from week to week it's hard to know like we can watch these plays develop in front of us and be 100 sure of what the outcome is going to be

when they come back from replay and then you're only right you know 50 of the time time. And so I think that there's a lot of talk about frustration with the NFL and ratings are down and that kind of stuff. And, I mean, I know all the other stuff, but I think the inconsistencies and that kind of stuff, I think that's hurting the game as well. Yeah, and can we just talk about DeAndre Hopkins and how he pushes off? I mean, does anybody in the NFL do that as consistently as he does? And he never gets called for it.

You know, we saw it in Houston, obviously a lot more with Watson throwing him the ball. But still, he did it today. Specifically the one time along the sideline, it was a big gain. Just pushed it off of Logan Ryan and caught the ball fairly easily, toe tap. Still a great catch. and caught the ball fairly easily, toe tap. Still a great catch, but still, at what point are you just kind of handing DeAndre Hopkins free passes?

So that was one frustrating thing for me, and, you know, I guess it's just not going to end. I guess that's just part of his game now. Absolutely. He does it every time. You know, and like you said, you just watch him every single play. It seems like it happens. And they never called against him, so whatever um all right so getting to more specific things that happened the game the offense we were talking before we started here

mario threw for 150 yards and that's a really low number uh in today's nfl it felt like he threw for more than that um i think overall he was better today than he has been i mean obviously he didn't turn the ball over so that helps i mean he only had 23 attempts titans didn't really have the ball very much in this game um you know they had quick drives and the defense couldn't get off the field at times but you know it was good to see him have a game where he took care of the football um hopefully that's something that he can build off of. But there's just not – the passing game is just – there's not a lot of explosiveness. There's not any explosiveness, really.

And, you know, we were wondering about throwing the ball down the field to Corey Davis, to Taewon Taylor. I mean, we don't really see that stuff much. They took a few deep shots today, mainly to Eric Decker, which I'm still confused by the way they used Decker in this offense, throwing him shots like that and throwing him wide receiver screens. Trying another wide receiver screen today, since Corey Davis can't block, Mike Markey puts his boy Harry Douglas out there to block. He gets blown up and the play doesn't work. That play never works.

I don't understand why they keep running it. So the passing game overall is just kind of weird. It's worse than it was last year with better players, and I don't really understand how that's happening. It's like I said, it's all built off the run game. It's all built off play action. That's where all the yardage came last year. But, you know, like you were saying, that screen pass

where they kind of had a swinging gate formation where they had offensive linemen split out, and you had, on the other side, you had Harry Douglas blocking for, who was it that caught that ball? Was that who got blown up? I can't remember. I think it was somebody. Anyways, regardless, you're asking Harry Douglas to block one on one a corner

who's just coming downhill he knows what's coming because the formation is very obvious why? it's part of that exotic package that nobody can stand anymore so it's just frustrating it takes you out of your rhythm I don't understand

another thing on the final drive so it's just frustrating. It takes you out of your rhythm. I don't understand. And then, you know, another thing, on the final drive, where you're literally just trying to hand the ball to Derrick Henry so he can fall down and run the clock out, you run a jet sweep to Taylor, who gets pushed out of bounds. And Taylor should have probably fallen down, but at the same time he didn't have anywhere to run. It was the short side of the field. So the point is, why are you running that?

That's the question. Run the ball, give it to 22, let him fall down, get two yards, and run the clock and give the ball back to Tom Savage so he can throw a pick like he inevitably did. It's just the Titans' offense just really defies all logic for me. It's frustrating to sit there and watch them. And like I told Jimmy before I came on, I'm kind of out on them. I hate to throw in the towel, but we're just not seeing any improvement.

It's the same thing every week. Same issues pop up, and it's really frustrating to watch. Yeah, and like you said, your whole game plan is built on getting to that spot in that game, and you have these two running backs that you're going to hand the ball to, and you're going to melt the clock away. That's been the whole thing they've been all about. And then, I don't know, sometimes they just try to get too cute. And like you said, I mean, yeah, it would have been great for Taylor to slide

as he's going to the sideline there, but they don't really have – I mean, I'm sure he's trying to look for a place to cut it up and then he just didn't have it, so he walked out of bounds. I mean, it's tough in that moment to have all that about you, especially for a guy that's a rookie. He's not used to running the ball. So it's just, to me, they just do a lot of dumb stuff, just play calls that don't make any sense.

And it seems like every week there's a few of those. And, you know, I don't know. The running game was a whole lot better today. You know, we were ready last week to leave DeMarco Murray for dead. He came out with bursts today. So mean i think more virtually than he's shown all year uh i mean it's obviously that's a good thing you know and i still that on one hand it's good because i i think they need both of these guys to be effective

in order to win games um but on the other hand it just i don't know that they're gonna make the switch to derrick hendry being the starter and uh you know lead back this year anyway. But the fact that DeMarco Murray comes out and has a game where he runs well, it just delays that even further. But again, I do still believe that if this team wants to make a playoff run, the run game has to work. That's absolutely true.

But I think they need both guys to be effective in order to make that happen. Yeah, I've pretty much come to the conclusion that we need to stop predicting what's going to happen in the backfield. If you play fantasy football, just stay away from both of them because you just don't know what you're going to get. Murray will look like he needs to retire one week, and he'll look like 2016 Murray the next week. So I don't know.

The inconsistencies all around on this team kill me. But I think you saw some interesting things with the run game. That touchdown from Mariota on the ground, we've seen that play run a ton. It's a little read option that Mariota goes around the edge, and it usually works. So I'd like to see more of that. You know, it's risky getting your quarterback involved in the run game. We've seen where that can lead us. But still, he's such a weapon, and the run game is struggling so much.

I'd really like to see them incorporate him more. And then on that last drive, the big run from Henry, it was a little – they kind of faked a power look and pulled some guards and then pitched it to Henry going around the other side. It was really unique and it was creative. And that's the stuff that I can get on with Hrabiski. And it's just – it seems like he can't rein himself in like he can't just just take a simple misdirection he's got to go all in with a Eric Decker pass to

set up a long third down or or a you know a jet sweep to Taylor and a in a spot where you just need to run the clock out so uh if he could ever rein himself in, I think he's got the creativity to him. But, again, it's a consistency thing. Yeah, and on that last Titans play where Derrick Henry scored the touchdown, it's interesting. Apparently Taylor LeJuan was the one that was lobbying for that play. And he and Derrick Henry both talked about after the game how they had seen the Ravens run a very similar play on Monday night against the Texans and how effective it had been.

So that was where they got the idea to try that. And, you know, it makes sense that Terry Urbiski didn't come up with that play call on his own because, you know, that would have just been weird to be in the right look. But, you know, again, this offense is just not there. And I don't know that it's going to ever get there this year. I don't know long-term what a Terry Hrabisky offense. I'm just not sure about all that. We had last year, and Marcus Mario looked great.

The run game was great. The offensive line was great. For whatever reason this year, it just is not coming together. For a while, we had the excuse of, well, you know, these guys are hurt. They haven't played together. Chemistry, you know, blah, blah, whatever it was. But at this point, everybody's been on the field for long enough together

that we should start to see some type of difference, and we just haven't seen it yet. So I don't know that it's going to click this year. And so then that the question then becomes you know with uh with the offense in the current state that it is can they win enough games to get in the playoffs i think the answer there is yes when you look at where they are at eight and four with the teams behind them in the remaining schedule all that stuff can they make a run the playoffs with this offense and I think you have to say that the answer is no.

Yeah, and everything goes back, to me, it goes back to the start of the game. Why can't the Titans start a football game? It blows my mind. It seems like they're playing out of a hole every week. No matter who they're playing, they come out flat. It takes them a whole half of football, really, to get started. So, again, we saw that today. I think they got going kind of late in the second quarter,

scoring that touchdown and coming back and scoring and hitting the field goal to tie it. But still, you play any good team, you're going to be put away. They did that in Houston the first time, and they got put away. So they've got to figure that part out. They've got a tough road trip next week to Arizona, and if they come out flat like they did, they'll get put away. Yeah, and like you said, that first Texans game is the perfect example of that.

When you play a team with a high-powered offense like that you can't afford to do that um and you know luckily that you're facing tom savage to the deshaun watson and so you can hang around long enough to to make those plays at the end and get there but yeah that that's the concern um and i don't get it i don't know what the deal is i don't know why they come out flat i don't know why they can't start i mean i don't i don't know any of the answers and obviously the coaching staff doesn't either or they come out flat. I don't know why they can't start. I mean, I don't know any of the answers. And obviously the coaching staff doesn't either, or they would have at least tried to address it at this point. But anyway, so, I mean, we're kind of taking it week to week.

And like you said, I mean, you've got these next two games, I mean, are games that on paper look like games the Titans should win, and they're games that they're going to be favored in. But, you know, the Cardinals are playing okay. It's tough going out west. We see all that kind of stuff all the time. So, you know, I would like to say that they're going to win both games. But I don't know.

It's going to be interesting to watch, and hopefully that's something that they're ready to talk about. There's a line on one side. The Titans are a three-point favorite against the Cardinals. So that basically, with home-field advantage, everything puts them about even. So I don't know. That's going to be interesting. But I think that, like I said, 8-4.

But I still have a lot of concerns about the offense. The defense was kind of up and down today. So coming up, we'll talk a little bit about their day. Okay, so if you pull up the box score and you don't look at the final score, you just look at the stats that guys put up, then you're going to want to throw up a little bit because Tom Savage threw for 365 yards. Now, that is i mean really

unbelievable the the more unbelievable part about it is when you look at how the game how the game went the fact that at the end the only healthy receiver they had was the andre hopkins and so i'll tell you that and you don't know what hopkins did in the game and i tell you tom savage threw for 365 at the end of the game the andrere Hopkins was the only healthy receiver they had I mean if you told me that my guess would be that DeAndre Hopkins had you know 15 catches for 200 yards uh DeAndre Hopkins didn't have that great of a day I mean 8 for 80 no touchdowns obviously had the one that was really close um but didn't get his right foot down he you know Savage targeted him 14, which is not surprising. That's what he does pretty much every week. But the Titans actually did a pretty good job on him.

And, again, I think that if you didn't know everything that happened and you just saw Savage's line, you would think that DeAndre Hopkins had to have had a huge day. Yeah, I thought Logan Ryan did a pretty good job on Hopkins. And then after Ryan left with the injury, I thought Sims played a really good job on Hopkins. So between the two of them, they were physical with him, jamming him off the line of scrimmage.

Eight for 80, you'll take that. Obviously, that's a good day for most receivers, but not really for Hopkins considering what he's done to the Titans and considering the fact that he was pretty much the only weapon the Texans had today. So, again, Hopkins was physical and he pushed it off and whatever. But I was pleasantly surprised with Ryan's play, and especially with Sims, he had that diving interception. That interception was great.

So it was encouraging for me to see no Bryce McCain on DeAndre Hopkins like we saw in Houston for whatever reason. So I think that's a step in the right direction. One interesting thing was the Titans kept Adore Jackson totally away from Hopkins. I don't know why. Jackson's kind of proven to me that he can hang with most people in the league to this point. Maybe they didn't feel comfortable with Hopkins' physicality.

That's the only thing I can really point to, but I at least thought that was interesting. And I wonder if that was kind of game plan specific. They shadowed Hopkins, at least it felt like with Logan Ryan. Again, that kind of stuff is hard to tell before you can go back and actually watch the coach's tape. But, you know, we talked about that last week, about the success that Logan Ryan had had against DeAndre Hopkins when Ryan was with the Patriots. Logan Ryan had had against DeAndre Hopkins when Ryan was with the Patriots.

And they did not shadow – they didn't shadow Hopkins with Ryan in the first matchup. And so we talked about how we hoped that that would be an adjustment that they would make. And so I wonder if maybe, you know, that was the plan, and for whatever reason it was just easier once he went out to not try to switch a dory up if they didn't need to. Yeah, the interception by Sims, I mean, that's a great – I mean, you'd love to see a dory up if they didn't need to um yeah that the interception by sims i mean that's like that's a great i mean you'd love to see a receiver make that play you know the ball falling away from him gets his hands under it you know keeps it keeps it from hitting the ground um the little stuff we've seen with catch and no catch and all that stuff but that one was clear

i mean he kept his hands on it the whole time so you know you're encouraged by what you've seen there. You know, the secondary, I think, overall has been better than I thought they would be, just to be considered the issues that they've had with the pass rush. And today wasn't really much different with that. Daquan Jones had another sack, which was just, you know, I don't know where he's come from all of a sudden. But he was in the backfield again today. They actually credit him with one and a half sacks. So, you know, good to see him out there getting a little bit of a pass rush.

Arakpo had a sack. Austin Johnson had a sack. So, I mean, the pass rush I thought today was about what it's been all year. You know, they only had, what, four sacks on Savage's 53 dropbacks. Wow, Savage dropped back 53 times today. That's crazy. 49 attempts in the fourth sack. I mean, yeah, that's crazy.

And it's crazy that they were only able to get one interception on 53 dropbacks from Tom Savage. But anyway, so the defense, it's just funny. When you look at the numbers that were piled up against them, obviously giving up 365 to Tom Savage is not great. But it was one of those deals where they kind of kept it between the

20s, and they shorted it up once they got inside the 20s. Helped that the Texans' kicker was just that one field goal. It was one of the worst kickers I've ever seen in my life. It helped that he had a little bit of the shanks today. But I don't know. I mean, this defense is – I mean, obviously they're playing better than we all thought they were.

Because, again, if you go back to the beginning of the season, we thought it was going to be the offense winning games and having to score enough points to outpace what the defense was giving up. And right now it's been kind of the opposite. It's been the defense keeping teams down and letting the offense get just enough points to win games. So, like I said, I mean, 365 Savage is not ideal, but all things considered, at the end of the day,

they only get 13 points. You know, you get a win. So, I don't know. I mean, I don't think this defense is great. I still think he'd have passed rush in the offseason. I still think that'll be where the majority of the money is spent. The draft picks are invested in the offseason.

You can't have too many complaints about what this defense is doing at this point. No, they were kind of bend but don't break, I felt. Pass rush wasn't great today. A lot of their sacks came from the interior. I didn't think Arakpo and Morgan had particularly good days.

In winnable matchups, again, with the Texans being so beat up. So that was a little bit of a surprise to me. But, again, very happy with this secondary. Kevin Byard just keeps making plays just everywhere. Whatever they need him to do, he's making plays in the run game uh had that key stop uh to force the fourth and four which ended up being fourth and 19 after the three straight fall starts uh but that was a big moment in the game where the texans actually had a chance to win uh the score doesn't reflect that but but yeah savage had Savage had a shot to win.

I think he had about 25 yards left to get into the end zone. Houston would have won this game. That's more of an indictment on the offense more than anything to me. I thought this defense played about as well as they could. I was really surprised to see

Savage with 360 yards. It didn't really feel like that. He hit a big play to Braxton Miller over the middle. It looked like Adore Jackson got lost there. We'll have to go back and see what happened. CBS wasn't great with their replays today. But, yeah, you didn't hear much out of Jackson. You didn't see much.

He wasn't targeted simply because I think Hopkins had 15 targets. Something like that. About as good as you can ask them to play. Especially considering that they didn't get too much help from the offense.

Yeah, the 48 targets. Hopkins had 14 and Steven Anderson had 12 was that was kind of interesting he had 579 obviously he had touchdown and it was about all they had left yeah and the big the big fourth and 19 conversion which was you know at the time was really really i just felt like a dagger that maybe at that point like we were talking about before we went on i mean i felt like the whole game, you know, at 10-0 Texans I was a little bit worried because we hadn't seen anything yet.

But then, like, tied it up 10-10 going into halftime. I felt like the Titans were going to win the game the whole time. But then when they pick up the 4th and 19, you know, like I said, after the – it just seemed like all the momentum to stop and then the three false starts. And then they give that it felt like oh crap this is gonna we're reverting back to those old titans that find a way to do something stupid at the end of the game and lose um and you know obviously that wasn't the case they ended up making plays when they had to so i mean again that all of that stuff is encouraging um it's it's it it's good it's good to have an 8-4 team it's good to see

them you know they they've been the the they've been really really good in the fourth quarter this year um you know the games they've lost it hasn't been because of the fourth quarter um you know obviously they weren't making weren't able to make enough plays that went at miami but that was with matt castle so but other than that i mean they've been a really good fourth quarter team and again those things are important when you get in close ball games in December, in January, in the playoffs. So, I mean, all that experience that they're getting in these games is good. But, man, it would be really nice to see them take a bad team

and just, you know, stomp them out early and not have to worry about that. Yeah, credit where credit is due. They can close. But, again, it's exactly like you said. Go beat a bad team. Go beat them into the ground. I feel like we talked about that a lot last week. This is a spot where they could and they just didn't.

So, we complain about it a lot, but at the end of the day, they're still winning football games. And, you know, it's like we said last week. That can all change with this West Coast road trip. I think it's going to be harder to play how they're playing away from home, to do what they're doing on the West Coast against what's a decent Cardinals team. The 49ers are bad. But we'll see how next week goes.

team. The 49ers are bad. But we'll see how next week goes. Of the next two games, definitely more worried about the Cardinals. Blaine Gabbert is playing actually okay football, which I'd say that defense is still

pretty good going to their house. I don't know. I don't know how to feel going into that one, but it feels like, I don't know that I've said this all year, but that one kind of feels like a must win when you consider Jacksonville and the Rams coming to Nashville to finish the season. Yeah, sure. And, you know, just personally,

I gave the Jags so much credit for losing to the Cardinals last week. So I can't imagine what's going to show up on my timeline if the Titans got there and lose. But we'll talk a lot more about that game throughout the week. So that'll pretty much, I think, do it for what we've got tonight. We'll watch the game again tomorrow and have, I'm sure, a couple more points to make tomorrow night. Mike Malarkey will have his press conference tomorrow afternoon, and so we'll get any kind of injury updates or anything. But I mean, I think

they, again, emerged pretty healthy from this one. Logan Ryan will, I'm sure, be in the concussion protocol, so that'll be something to keep an eye on. But other than that, I mean, it looks like they ended the game pretty healthy, so obviously that's a good thing going forward. So anyway, stay with us this week, and we'll, again, kind of put a bow on this game tomorrow

and then start to look forward to the Cardinals. Terry, anything else before we get out tonight? I think that covers it. All right, that'll do us. I appreciate you listening. Again, you can follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmorrismcm. Terry is at tlambertfb.

We write on municemiracles.com, and we'll have plenty more about this game, about the playoff race and all that stuff over the next couple of days. So for Terry, this is Jimmy saying thanks for listening to Locked on Titans, and we will talk to you again tomorrow.