Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: Breaking down the RBs; Which rival do you hate the most?

Episode Date: January 7, 2019

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Welcome in to another edition of Locked On Titans. I'm Joey Morris, joined as always by Terry Lambert. Terry, how are you today? Doing alright. What's up, man? Oh, not a whole lot. A few things to catch up on today. We got one item of Titans news, and then we're going to talk a little bit about the playoff games over the weekend, and then get into the running back position, breaking down the roster, and then we're going to talk a little bit about which team we hate the most. Before we do all that, remind you, we're right from UCMiracles.com. We cover the Titans for SB Nation, so you can check us out there.

You can follow us on Twitter. I am at jmorrismcm. Terry's at tlambertfb. You can also check out the podcast account at LockedOnTitans, and you can get this podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts, just search out LockedOnTitans.

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All right, so first and really only news item we have today, Dean Pease is officially returning to the Titans in 2019 to be the defensive coordinator. Obviously, Mike Vrabel wanted him back. Dean Pease did a great job this year. But, you know, with Dean Pease having retired at the end of the 2017 season and Mike Vrabel kind of having to coax him out of retirement with the health issue that Pease had this year, and it coaxed him out of retirement with the health issue that Pease had this year. There was some, I guess, talk that maybe he would decide to go ahead and actually retire again. But it was announced over the week, or really I think Friday afternoon, that Dean Pease will be back. And we talked about continuity and all those things, and that's important.

But just from on the field, from a play standpoint, good to have Dean Pease back because he did a great job this year. It's a big get, in my opinion, because you think about the Titans' pass rush, or lack thereof, they really had to scheme up a ton of pressure this year. So I'm not sure your run-of-the-mill defensive coordinator can do what he did this year. Titans were way up there in the stats. They really overperformed. You know, bend but don't break, that was kind of the motto.

You know, they gave up yards in between the 20s but really locked down the red zone. Got key stops when they needed them for the most part. Not a lot of big plays, not a lot of splash plays, but I'd argue that the personnel isn't quite there. At least in terms of the front seven, especially at

edge and on the interior. You look at guys like Rashawn Evans, Jalen Brown, this defensive staff really coached them up. We saw big strides there. Talk about continuity, talk about going into 2019 with the same coaching staff. That's just not something you see too much in Nashville. It's exciting.

His days are numbered here, but it's exciting because 2019 just feels like a position where the Titans are just going to go for it and see what happens. Yeah, absolutely. And then I guess the one thing that's kind of still hanging out there, Matt LaFleur had an interview with the Green Bay Packers on Sunday for their head coaching position. So we still don't know the outcome of that. But, you know, I would be surprised if he got that job. I mean, maybe he goes up there and just blows them away.

But I would be a little bit surprised if he got that job. Maybe he goes up there and just blows them away. But I would be a little bit surprised if he got that job. I would assume that we're going to have the whole coaching staff back. But there is still a possibility that LaFleur moves on and you've got a whole other deal looking for all that. Anyway, playoffs over the weekend.

Obviously, there was an AFC South rematch on Saturday afternoon, the first game. The Colts took it to the Texans pretty much. We were talking a little bit before we came on here. The Colts are a really scary team right now. I mean, their offense is firing on all cylinders. Whatever reservations or whatever that Andrew Luck had with his arm,

even at the beginning of the year, all that seems to be gone now. The Colts are a scary team and not a team that I think I would be wanting to face if I were in the playoffs. Absolutely not. You talk about Andrew Luck with the defense, that's terrifying. He's finally got an offensive line. I don't know if the Colts have ever had an offensive line since I've been paying attention to NFL football

that was that's been a problem since the days of Peyton Manning, but Man, Andrew Luck is playing Really lights out right now that defense Has been transformed and really just a year So that's that's frustrating from a Titans perspective You know you talk about going from Peyton Manning to Andrew Luck Now you pair defense, now you pair Frank Reich with Andrew Luck Who looks like an absolute rock star

Now they're going to Kansas City And they're going to be a popular pick to knock off Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs up there It's going to be interesting Because Kansas City does not have much of a defense there. I've got no doubt that they can score with Indy, but, man, it wouldn't surprise me at all to see the Colts go to the Midwest and knock them off. Yeah, absolutely.

That'll be a fun game to watch, if nothing else. Like you said, the Colts defense is definitely playing better, and so you've got that high-powered offense of the Chiefs, so that will be fun to see. And the Chiefs don't have much of a defense, so the Colts should be able to score. So, I mean, it could be a shootout or, you know, if that Colts defense can step up.

And they've been really good at limiting deep plays. And, you know, the Chiefs offense is predicated on a lot of that and a lot of the deep passes and stuff. So that will be a fun game to watch, hopefully the Chiefs' offense is predicated on a lot of that, a lot of the deep passes and stuff. So that'll be a fun game to watch. Hopefully the Chiefs win because, I mean, we'll get into this a little bit more with the teams that we hate. I mean, Colts-Texans, it's kind of whatever with that. But, you know, now that the Colts beat the Texans,

I definitely don't want to see them go any further. You know, in the rest of the day, the Cowboys finally got a playoff win, so good for them. They're moving on. On Sunday, you had Ravens. They ended up making it a game against the Chargers. Lamar Jackson was really bad to begin that

game, but it was good in the fourth quarter. Part of that is probably a softer defense that the Chars were playing, I mean the Chargers were playing, based on the circumstances of the game. And then the most exciting game of the day, or really of the weekend, ended up being the last game. The Bears and the Eagles with Cody Parkey banging it off upright in the crossbar.

The Eagles get the win there. And Nick Foles, man, dude, just, you know, he just keeps winning, keeps putting up numbers in his playoff games. You know, there's going to be a lot of buzz about him and what his future is going to be after the season. But, I don't know, any big takeaways for me in the other games for you? Nick Foles has future Jaguars mistake written all over him, doesn't he? I mean, he just seems like that guy that they're going to pay $23 million

to come in and he's going to get them over the hump, and he just seems like that guy that they're gonna pay 23 million dollars to come in and he's gonna get him over the hump and he doesn't do that So I don't know I'm weary of foals and I think what you get him out of Philadelphia I don't think you'll see these results, but man these Eagles They just they seem like a team of destiny again Just watching that field goal and now we've learned that it was partially tipped. But I don't know that I've ever seen a field goal hit the upright, then hit the crossbar, and bounce straight up in the air. You know, a wind gust the other way could have pushed that through.

So that was a wild finish there. Yeah, it was crazy. We were actually out eating dinner with my family, and I couldn't see the TV, but there were a bunch of people watching it over there, and I heard like, oh, you know, and then seeing later what had happened, I was like, wow, yeah, that's wild. You know, everything like that. So you hate that for him because you saw the video of him getting booted.

He's running off the field and all that kind of stuff. Being a kicker in the NFL is not a job that I would want. All right, coming up we will talk about the running back position on the Titans roster. Before we do that, tell you about my bookie. The NFL playoffs are here. It's time to get in the action with my bookie. Don't be that guy with no rooting interest as your relatives or friends that are now watching the games.

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know derrick hindry obviously came on uh especially in the last month of the season turned into a guy that looked like they can build their their offense around going forward obviously we've talked a ton about that over the past few weeks. The biggest disappointment to me on the team is probably Deion Lewis and just the fact that whether it was they couldn't figure out how to use him or he wasn't as effective, it looked like he lost a little juice at the end of the year. There was a screenplay against the Jaguars and you know he was out in open field I think it was Josh Klon that was out there and basically passed up a guy that he could have

blocked to go and block a guy a little bit more upfield which looked like the right decision and then the guy ended up catching Deion Lewis from behind so I don't know just all year it seemed like they really wanted to get him involved I mean there was that point in the middle of the year where you know they really moved to him to De. I mean, there was that point in the middle of the year where, you know, they really moved him to Deion Lewis as a feature back, and it just didn't work out. So, I mean, when you go through and look at, you know, the biggest disappointments of the Titans 2018 season, Deion Lewis has to be pretty high on that list.

Yeah, we were both. That was our answer on the MCM Awards, which you can find at musiccitymiracles.com. We both went with Deion Lewis. And, you know, if you go back to our offseason, we thought Deion Lewis was going to end up being the guy. And there was a point in time where he was the guy. And then, like you said, he just kind of fell off the cliff. And thankfully, Derrick Henry showed up and never really looked back. But I think this position gets interesting now that the season's over with.

Lewis signed a four-year deal. You could get out of it, but you're going to look at, like, $1.6 million in dead cap. So I don't know that they would go down that road. You know, he's kind of expensive for a passing down type player, like he was down the stretch. So it's an interesting conversation whether or not they would move on from him. for a passing down type player like he was down the stretch. So it's an interesting conversation whether or not they would move on from him.

I don't think they will. I think it's pretty much understood that this is Derrick Henry's backfield now, and Lewis is a simple compliment. But I do think they need to add depth. I think they've been pretty fortunate that they haven't had more injuries at this position. You go back to last year, you had DeMarco Murray go down. But after that, it was Derrick Henry and what, David Flewellen. So it's just they don't have a lot of depth. It seems like you see three or four capable backs on any NFL roster.

Titans have really rolled with two since John Robinson has been in town. So I'm interested to see if they take a shot at a third, fourth, fifth round pick, someone to bring a little more juice to the backfield. Because as we've seen, you can't really roll with just one back in the NFL these days. So like I said, it's Derrick Henry's show. But looking forward, you know, his contract is up after the 2019 season. So that becomes a really interesting dilemma there. Obviously, that's going to be determined by how he plays in 2019.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we thought going all the way back to training camp, Akron Wadley was a guy, they brought in as an undrafted free agent, a guy that most people that were doing 53-man roster projections, we were projecting him to make the roster just because of, like you said, a guy that brought some juice, a guy that could catch the ball out of the backfield, thought you would need a guy that could play the Deion Lewis role if Deion Lewis were to get hurt. Heading into the season, we didn't think there would necessarily be a feature back.

We thought there would be some Derrick Henry games and some Deion Lewis games. Well, I mean, that didn't necessarily turn out to be true. I mean, we saw Derrick Henry games, obviously, at the end of the year. But if you go through and look at Deion Lewis' game logs, I mean, he had two games, back-to-back games against the Cowboys on Monday night where he had 62 yards rushing, 60 yards receiving, and a touchdown. Against the Chargers, he had 91 yards rushing and 64 yards receiving. But those are the only two games on the entire season where he had over 100 yards from scrimmage.

And, you know, if you had asked me before the season started, I would have said six, seven, eight, you know, something like that would have been a reasonable number. And we can go through and look at, you know, different matchups, something like that would have been a reasonable number. We can go through and look at different matchups and stuff like that. There were quite a few times where you thought, this is the game they're going to try to really get him involved. This is a place where he can really thrive.

It just didn't really play out that way. Like you said, they don't have anything behind them. I know there's a section of the fan base that loves David Flewellen. We fall in love with the craziest backup running backs here. And receiver, just backup offensive players. But, you know, Flewellen's whatever.

I mean, he's a guy that can come in and be fine. Listen, he was going to get carries, and he got hurt and ended up on IR. But they were going to give him carries at least on par with what they were going to give Derrick Henry, if not even more than at that one point in the season. It ended up working out because Fulhane got hurt, which ended up being a blessing for the Titans, because then you found out what you had in Derrick Henry. So, yeah, it does get interesting, like you're saying, after 2018. I think Henry and Lewis are both back in 2018.

Lewis is expensive. I can't see them taking the cap that they would have to take to move on from him at this point. But you can move on from him after the season. And like you said, Derrick Henry, who knows? If he comes out and plays like he did the last third of this year, I guess somebody's probably going to give him a bunch of money. I don't want the Titans to be that team because I think you can find running backs, and I don't think that you need to tie up a bunch of money in that position.

So this could be a thing to where, like you said, you see a mid-round pick this year, and then it could be a completely different backfield when you get to the 2020 season. That's what's interesting, the running back position these days. I mean, the best one in the league sat out this year because he couldn't get paid, because you get the same production out of James Conner. So it's a really interesting debate.

I don't think Derrick Henry is anywhere close to Le'Veon Bell. But, you know, if you stretch out the last month of the season, he was on pace for nearly 2,000 yards. So it's a matter of him doing it again, which, let's be real, how confident are you in that happening? We've seen these flashes before. Granted, this one was much more consistent. He did it over a month I get up get all that

But he could very easily revert back to the old Derrick Henry who didn't have any confidence It was averaging three yards per carry was bouncing everything outside So I just kind of need to see it You know if he produces again, we can talk about it. But yeah, I'm with you. You can find running backs anywhere. Alvin Kamara, Kareem Hunt, all those guys are mid-round picks. It just seems like other teams hit on running backs on day two, early day three of the draft. The Titans really haven't done it.

They really haven't tried outside of David Cobb or somebody like that. But, yeah, I think this backfield could stand to add another body because I'm just not sure you can count on Deion Lewis for any sort of role in 2019. Yeah, absolutely. So it'll be interesting. And, you know, both those guys will be playing for contracts, so to speak, next year. So that will be at least some extra motivation there. All right, coming up we will conclude the episode with the teams that we hate the most in the NFL. So I don't really know how this got started, but it got into something interesting on Twitter

where Titans fans talking about the team that they hate the most. And I think that for me it's always going to be the Ravens. And I'll tell you why. Because when the Titans first came here in 99, that first year, everybody remembers that. Second year, they were better than they were the first year.

Best record in the AFC. There was no reason that that team shouldn't have won the Super Bowl. And then the Ravens come to Nashville on Divisional Round weekend, and Aldo Greco can't kick a field goal. Everything that could possibly go wrong does. Ray Lewis rips the ball away from Eddie George. I mean, just the whole thing was, it's still to this day

the most devastated I've been about a sporting event. And just Brian Billick, if you remember all that stuff and all the stuff that he said, and they played it all with Jumbotron during the game, to get the crowd fired up. You got that. You obviously have the 2008 playoff game where they bent Chris Johnson over backwards.

Just that. There's the, I can't remember what year it was, I should have looked it up, but the McNair sneak at the goal line. They got in and then they called a penalty or the refs weren't set or something. They had to do the play over.

McNair didn't get in. The Ravens won. Just all that. That stuff, I can't get past that stuff. Ray Lewis, probably the most trash person in the NFL ever. He kills people, but then goes on to call himself God's linebacker. I don't really know if he killed anybody, so don't get me for liable or anything like that.

But just all of that stuff, I will never let go of that hatred that I have for the Ravens, even though all those people are long gone at this point. But I mean, I get it. A lot of people, I think a lot of newer fans probably have that hatred feeling towards the Colts. And to me, that's a fact of the fact that the Titans can't beat them. The Titans can't beat Andrew Luck. But I don't know that I necessarily hate any of the personalities in our team.

I don't like Andrew Luck. I think he looks goofy and he acts goofy, and I don't understand how he's so good. But there's not that person on that team that I hate like I did Ray Lewis or some of the other people that were on those Ravens teams. I hate the Colts just because they went from Peyton freaking Manning to Andrew Luck. I mean, who does that outside of them and the Packers, you know going from Brett Favre to Aaron Rodgers

So they don't really know hurt like we do Just the laundry list of quarterbacks that the Titans have been through Drafted shown a little bit of potential and then just totally fizzled out They don't they don't understand that they've just had a franchise quarterback for 20 years, and it's absolutely mind-blowing to me how lucky they've been. So that's where I'm at with the Colts. I'm like you. I don't really hate anyone on their team.

Not a fan of Andrew Luck and his book club, and he's just a weirdo. So I don't like him. I don't like the Jaguars. Jalen Ramsey is probably the most hateable person in the league. Just his antics. It doesn't matter if he gets beat on the field or not. He still pops up talking trash, acting like he's the best player in the league. So that rubs me the wrong way.

And then you've got, of course, Jaguars Twitter, which is just the worst place on earth. So you can throw the Texans in there. I don't know. I don't hate the Texans like some do. But I certainly get your argument for the Ravens. I would just lean Colts because they just don't understand what hurting really is. Yeah, Jags Twitter, definitely.

We talk about fan bases that we hate. I mean, the Jaguars take that one uh pretty far and away um I'm like you at Texas and I think there is there's obviously going to be a certain like segment of this fan base that's going to hate the Texas because they live in Texas they live in Houston because they were Oilers fans and so it's like people I mean probably no I'm an Alabamaabama fan and i at this point i mean i feel i feel bad for carrying all the tennessee fans but when you know when i was when i was growing up i hated tennessee so much more than i hated auburn just because i was around

their people all the time their fans all the time um so it was just it was kind of a i just that that meant more that game meant more to me than the alabama auburn game did whereas you know people live in live in Alabama obviously feel differently. So I think that there's the Texas part of this fan base that probably hates the Texans more. But right now, I put a poll up on Twitter. You can see it at jmorsmcm. And right now it's 39% Colts, 18% Jaguars, 29% Ravens, 14% Texans.

So a little bit surprised there. The Colts are running away from the Ravens in that poll. But, again, I think a lot of it means, listen, if you were a fan of this team, even 10 years ago, right around the Chris Johnson years, you remember the one game against the Ravens, but you don't remember the one going all the way back. So I think we don't play – when know, when the Titans first came here, they were in the AFC Central, and so they played the Ravens twice a year.

They played the Steelers twice a year. So, I mean, there's still some holdover from that. People that are just familiar with the AFC South days don't necessarily have those same experiences. So I just thought it was interesting. Like I said, I don't even remember what got it started, but it might have been Two-Tone Blue Nation said something about it on Twitter, and it just kind of sparked my interest. I was just curious there how other fans feel about that.

So again, if that's something you want to leave us feedback on, 615-787-8762. Call and leave us a message. We'll get you on the show, all that good stuff. So that'll do it for today's episode. We'll be back tomorrow. Look at the wide receiver position. A lot of conversation obviously to be had there. Between now and then,

you can check out our work there and you can follow us on Twitter. I'm at jwargsmcm and Terry's at tlambertfb. This is Jimmy saying thanks for listening to Locked on Titans and we'll talk to you again tomorrow.