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

Episode Date: September 19, 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 well. What's going on, man? Not too much. It's been a minute since we've recorded a show, so we've got a lot to catch up on tonight. Before we do that, I remind you we're right for you at CityMiracles.com, so you can check us out there. A lot of stuff going on there, breakdowns and all that kind of stuff, so check that out. You can follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmorsemcm and Terry's at tlambertfp. You can subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Just search out LockedOnTitans

and you'll find us there. Alright, so Titans got a big win over the Texans on Sunday. A win that, quite honestly, I did not expect them to get. I had very little faith in their ability to go against the Texans with, you know,

I mean, in the beginning we thought it was going to be everybody healthy. We thought they were going to have Clowney, Watt, Merciless, all those guys. Now, Clowney obviously ended up not playing. But, you know, when word came down Saturday afternoon that Dennis Kelly was in the hospital, we already knew Taylor LeJuan was out. Jack Conklin's obviously still out. So you're calling up Taylor Merritts, which is apparently how you say his name, even though it's spelled M-A-R-Z.

We were calling him up off the practice squad, and you're starting Kevin Panfield as your left tackle. You just don't have a very good feeling about how the game's going to go, not to mention the fact that, you know, Blaine Gabbert was going to start instead of Mariota because Mariota still can't grip the football and all that kind of stuff. But you've got to give credit where credit is due. We'll start with the offensive side of the ball.

Matt LaFleur, Mike Vrabel, they came up with a fantastic game plan for this game. By all accounts, they put in the Wildcat stuff on Friday. And it's something that Derrick Henry had done before. They did it a little bit at Alabama, but that's basically what he ran in high school. They just snapped him and he just ran over people. But they put the Wildcats stuff in that they hadn't done before. They took the ball out of Blaine Gabbert's hands. I mean, you know, a lot of short passes, stuff predetermined coming out of the huddle, that kind of stuff.

And so did what they had to do to be able to at least move the ball, score some points behind an offensive line that was down to their fourth and fifth tackle. So, I mean, you know, it wasn't pretty, but you've got to give them a lot of credit for being able to change course that late in the week and come up with something that actually worked. Yeah, if you thought the Titans were going to win that game, you were either a massive homer or just not thinking clearly.

The cards were stacked against them. The injuries had piled up. So, again, hats off. Like you said, Matt LaFleur, I thought the offensive game plan was excellent. Just keeping things short. A lot of trust being placed in Corey Davis in the short passing game. I thought he made a big difference in the game. Taewon Taylor with that quick screen really changed the game. Really that second drive that came out in the Wildcat,

everything came together there and went up 14-0. That was a huge moment because as we saw in the third quarter, things kind of came up dry. They found it again in the fourth quarter. It was a bumpy road on that final drive. You saw the batted pass with

what actually turned out to be a smart play by Gabbert to throw it a second time. A little blip in the NFL's rules allowed for a five-yard penalty there. So that was nice. Ended up getting it done in the end. But overall, it was not a spectacular offensive performance. But all things considered, I think it was just coaching.

Coaching got the Titans over the hump, and it's been a long time since we've been able to say that. You know, I tweeted during the game, the old staff, you know, Mike Malarkey, Terry Hrabisky, they'd be running the same stuff. They'd expect the same results out of their number twos that they did out of their number ones, and that's just not how it works. So credit the staff for adapting to what they had and coming up with what could be a season-saving win.

Let me ask you this. So Blaine Gabbert said after the game that he actually had had a similar scenario play out his rookie year. And so he says that he knew that the second forward pass behind the line of scrimmage was only a five-yard penalty. Do you believe him? I guess I do. I mean, if you've been through that,

I know I was standing up yelling at my TV calling him an idiot, and what are you doing? Because I thought he just pissed away the game because that would have taken the Titans out of field goal range, put them back at the 50, loss of down. It's now a long third down. So, yeah, a key moment there. But I guess heads-up play by Gabbert.

Yeah. And, of course, you know, the smartest play would have been just to knock the ball down when it came back. Right, yeah. But, yeah, after he caught it, yeah, like you said, it's just one of those things that he says that he knew. And it's one of those things that's just funny, too, that, like, you know, everybody's just yelling on Twitter, well, these refs don't know what they're doing, blah, blah, blah. It turns out they made the right call. You know, that was a huge deal.

Also a huge deal was Deion Lewis knocking the ball out of bounds when Corey Davis fumbled. And it was just funny. I mean, he's flailing that ball around, you know. And I said, like, twice before he got hit, put the ball away, put the ball away. And then sure enough, it's like he got looser with it. And then he fumbled. But heads up play by Deion Lewis there.

But, yeah, to the Corey Davis point real quick, I mean, what he ended up, five catches, 50 yards, something like that. I don't know exactly what it was. But that was one of the things I noticed when I went back and watched the game again on Monday. Every time they needed, you know, 10, 8, 5 yards, whatever it was, they went to Corey Davis and he was able to get it. He obviously had the big play early in the game where he stiff-armed a guy

and threw him down like Marcus did to Barry Church last year. But it was obvious in that game that Corey Davis is transitioning into that role of the guy that when they need something, they're going to him. And, you know, we know we've been over a million times how important it is for him to be able to play that role, fifth pick up, blah, blah, blah, Delaney being out. I mean, all those things are really important. But I thought he started to step into that role in this game.

And I think a lot of times that, you know, they came out determined they were going to get him the ball, and he made the catch. He got up the field, got first downs. i mean i i just that that was impressive and again the stat line where you just look at the box score 551 you're not going to get too excited about that but i think if you watch the game and understood you know what they were doing and what percentage of the passing game he was um just really encouraging there um yeah like you said the screen at Taylor, they need to continue to manufacture ways to get the ball in his hands because he's a dynamic playmaker.

They don't have a whole lot of those, but he's a guy that if you can get him the ball out there, I mean, you saw the move he put on, I think it was Honey Badger. He's really special with the ball in his hands. And if they can get him that and get him a little bit of space, I mean, I think you can see him make, you know, a handful of those plays. But, I mean, that's really all it takes to really impact the season. And going back to Corey Davis real quick, Gabbard only threw for 117 yards.

So, Corey Davis went for 55. That's almost half the passing game going through him. You know, and a lot of it, another chunk of it came on that Taylor touchdown. So a huge part of the offense there. And I'll just say it. It's a little frustrating that he had that chemistry with Blaine Gabbert. Why can't you see that with Marcus Mariota? And look, that's not necessarily a knock on Marcus Mariota

because you won't find bigger Mariota fans than us. But at some point, the light's got to come on for both of those together. And I just saw Gabbert throwing 10-yard outs. He was throwing the ball before Corey Davis broke. And it just seems when Marcus does that, Corey Davis runs the other way or something like that happens. So those two have to get on the same page, and it seemed like Gabbert and Davis were already on the same page.

So that was kind of odd to me. Yeah, it's been a thing with Mario and Davis, especially this preseason. So hopefully you can see that same kind of stuff. The other thing I wanted to comment on the offense, I thought Derrick Henry, you know, Derrick Henry's a funny running back. We've talked about this. Just for a guy that's his size, he's not what you would think. He's not Brandon Jacobs.

You know, he's not a guy that's going to go out there and just run over people. He likes to run around people. He's a, I mean, you said it, I think, on Twitter. He's a 265-pound home run hitter, which is just not something that you see every day. But I thought he did a better job in this game of getting the ball, attacking the line, getting what was the error. He tends to dance too much sometimes, and it's funny. He said it after Miami that he wasn't happy with the way he ran the ball.

You remember last year, he wasn't happy with himself. He came out and said it after the Week 17 game against the Jaguars. And then you saw him the next week against Kansas City, attacked the line of scrimmage, had a huge day. You saw him on Sunday, attacked the line of scrimmage. He didn't have as huge of a day, but I just thought he looked more effective running, and I thought he ran more like he needs to run in this game than he did in Week 1.

Yeah, 18 carries for 56 yards, that's not impressive just looking at it. But considering the fact that the Texans knew that that's all the Titans had, they knew every time he was in the backfield, he was probably coming right at them, that is impressive. And, yeah, I've been impressed with how he's come at the line of scrimmage. You know, last year the story on him was he bounced, you know, bounced outside every single run. He hadn't done that, so he's been better in short yardage.

Third and two, he'll start to bounce outside, cut back in, and get three yards. The little stuff like that, those are the plays that he doesn't make last year. So I think you're starting to see him turn the corner just as a runner. I think you're starting to see those instincts really pop for him. Yeah, absolutely. We're going to talk a little bit about the injury situation at the end here, but hopefully they can get at least some people back this week so that you're not going to Jacksonville with as limited of a game plan.

All right, so coming up we'll comment a little bit on the defense from the Texas game. Before we do that, I'll tell you about MyBookie. You've heard us talk about them before. If you're betting online, it's the place to do it. They have a site that is really easy to use. Their mobile site is just as easy to use as the desktop slash laptop site. When you go there, you don't have to download an app. You can just use it.

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So the defense was good enough. Again, if you go look at the box score, both Hopkins and Fuller ended up over 100 yards. Deshaun Watson ended up throwing for 310 yards, I think, whatever it was. So those numbers don't look great. But they did a good job of kind of the whole bend-but-don't-break thing for the most part. Gave a couple big plays. Malcolm Butler continues to struggle with getting beat over the top.

They've got to find a way to not get him matched up on guys like Kenny Stills, guys like Will Fuller. He does better with the bigger physical guys. They've got a Dory that can run with those speed guys. They need to start figuring out a way to get those matchups right because we've already seen twice in two weeks, and we saw it in the first preseason game when Devontae Adams got Malcolm Butler deep. It's just an issue. It's a thing in his game that he struggles with.

But overall, I thought the defense was good. The pass rush was good. It was good to see Harold Landry out there. Harold Landry was everything that we hoped he would be. He's not going to show up in your box score. But if you go back and watch that game, and Mike did a post on our site, and you see miracles about it, he affected the game. He's not going to show up in your box score. But if you go back and watch that game, and Mike did a post on our site, and we've seen miracles about it, he affected the game.

He was getting pressure. Jarrell Casey was all over the place. So, I mean, overall, I think from a pass rush standpoint, things looked really good. They've still got some things they need to clean up in the secondary. Is it too soon to take our victory lap on Harold Landry? Absolutely not. I mean, the dude impacted the game from the get-go. I mean, the very first play he was on the field, it was third down.

He came off the left side and just totally collapsed the pocket, forced Watson up, and I think Casey ended up finishing that sack off. But the sack was because of Harold Landry, and that is something the Titans have not had. I couldn't tell you. Vandenbosch, maybe? Yeah, Vandenbosch. So, yeah.

Brian Arakpo, Derek Morgan, they're fine players. They're not game changers. Harold Landry is a game changer. I feel totally comfortable saying that. If he can stay healthy uh titans have such a steal i don't understand how he how he fell to the second round but john robinson will take it mike rebel will take it so uh just so good to see him impacting the game good to see him healthy uh good to see that that ankle injury uh did not linger um Secondary, Malcolm Butler, man.

You talk about a guy that looked great in practice and then showed up to the games. Everything has gone wrong. Just beating deep, that's a thing. I think that's his third time beating deep, including the preseason with Devonta Adams, like you said. I feel like it might be time to start shadowing with Adore Jackson, who's coming into his own. The interception he had was really awesome going up to get the ball.

I think that's your best cover corner there. And I don't know what the issue is with Butler, but it's pretty disappointing considering the Titans never pay people, and they paid Malcolm Butler, and this is kind of what they've got right now. So I don't think it's time to panic by any means, but it's a concern for sure. Yeah, and, you know, the Kenny Stills ball, I can – you know, he was there, and just Kenny Stills made a nice catch. Butler wasn't able to break it up.

But the Will Fuller play, I mean, Deshaun Watts actually under-fuelled the ball, and if he hadn't of, I mean, Fuller would have just walked into the end zone. The only reason that Butler kind of got back into play was because Fuller had to slow down the way for the ball. So, yeah, I mean, it is a thing. That's why I'm thinking, I mean, they just got to find a way. You know, when you get to the Colts game, you need to make sure that a Dory is matched up on T.Y. Hilton, not Malcolm Butler, right? I mean, that's something that they're going to have to figure out how to do because it just makes sense. Overall, the run defense has actually struggled.

It's funny, and you and I talked about this. We play a lot on DraftKings and stuff, and we've talked about how the last couple of years everybody respected the Titans' run defense because they didn't give up many yards. But what people failed to really notice was teams were able to get yards through the air so easily that they didn't have to run the ball. There wasn't a whole lot of rushing attempts going on.

This year, at least through the first couple weeks, they've run the ball a little bit more. And the Titans' run defense has been a little suspect. It wasn't great in this game. Old man Frank Gore was out there slashing them in the in the first game um you know so i mean that's a kind of an issue and again they're missing some pieces right i mean rashaun evans still hasn't played a defensive snap he was active on on sunday but i think played one special team snap didn't play any on defense uh you know they've been you know derrick morgan's been limited. Harold Landry's been out. They've been just not

at full strength as far as that's concerned. I'm a little bit concerned at this point about the run defense. I don't think that anybody's really talking about that just with everything else that's going on. I don't think it's a linebacker problem either. Me and you identified this in the

preseason. The defensive line is and you kind of identified this in the preseason the defensive line is quietly just kind of a need um you know you got casey there which casey is a slasher so at times he's gonna try and shoot the gap he might shoot the wrong gap or open up another gap or something like that uh but then you've got daquan jones uh Logan, Austin Johnson. None of those guys are real difference makers. They're just kind of out there and eating up space. So the Titans need somebody on the defensive line pretty quick in the next couple years for sure to really help out Jarrell Casey because there's just not much there.

So I'm interested to see how this defense changes. Once Rashawn Evans is okay, I think he played one snap. He's just not ready to play quite yet, which is understandable. Interested to see how they kind of mix up what the front seven looks like. I think you're going to see that all year long because I don't think you can solve that with the pieces that you have up front. They only kept what was a five defensive lineman there. So interesting decisions there, and I just don't think they're all that great anymore up front.

Yeah, it does seem like they've just got some guys up there they don't have. Outside of Jarrell Casey, they don't have outside of Jarrell Casey. They don't have anybody that really impacts the game. And, you know, I mean, we like Daquan Jones, right? I mean, he's a fine player, but he's not really a difference maker. You know, Austin Johnson hasn't translated into a guy that you would hope that he would be based on where he was drafted. So I think that is going to be something they're going to have to address, you know, in these next couple of drafts. And, I mean, hopefully they've, you know, you got your edge rusher now

and Harold Landry, again, that's a means they have that kind of stuff. So you don't have as big of a need there. So that could be something they're looking to. But, yeah, it'll just be interesting to see how this defense comes together. You know, like I said, we've spent so much time, so much of the focus has been on the offense and on the game plan and all that kind of stuff in this game, and with good reason. But I think there's a few

causes for concern on the defensive side of the ball. Like I said, we started off with Butler and just not being the guy that we really thought he was going to be in camp. And again, like I said, it's not time to press the panic button or anything like that, but they've just got to figure out a way to maximize the talent that they have

and make sure they get those guys put in the right situations to be successful. That's obviously what they've been doing with the offensive side of the ball. And so I think we'll see them do a little bit more of that as it goes along. But, you know, they obviously, I mean, they along. They only gave up 17 points. They played well enough to win, so you're happy from that standpoint. There are just a few things that are kind of concerning that...I mean, obviously the deep ball to Stills is the difference in that week one game against the Dolphins, but

I think there's a few things that are kind of causes for concern that you know maybe people aren't really looking at yet because so much of the focus has been on marcus mariotta being hurt all that kind of stuff and one thing and maybe this is just a scheme thing and maybe it was just dialing up a bunch of blitzes uh titan's corner for playing too far off for me. Starting 10 yards off the ball, how many times did you see DeAndre Hopkins or Will Fuller catch a ball and nobody is within 10 yards? It seems like they had that curl route open all day. So that's something that I'm going to watch going forward.

The Titans have been through so many defensive coordinators, I forget who it was, going forward. The Titans have been through so many defensive coordinators, I forget who it was. But somebody recently used to play the corners off the ball like that, and it drove me nuts. So I hope that's not a trend going forward,

because I think the Titans are good enough to press man a bunch of teams. So that was a little frustrating for me. I thought they were really aggressive with their blitzing, but maybe not so aggressive in coverage. So maybe they were just trying not to get beat, but they gave up a ton of 10- and 15-yard throws in the process. I feel like there was a Jerry Gray thing. Yeah, that sounds right. Like you said, there's been so many different guys.

It's hard to keep them straight at this point. But, yeah. So anyway, they've got plenty of talent on that side of the ball. So, I feel like they're going to figure it out. But just a couple of things that we notice and, like I said, we'll keep an eye on as we go forward. All right, so coming up we're going to talk about the injury situation, which is hopefully going to be clearing up a little bit as we go throughout the week here.

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into the game was all the injuries um taylor the one you know it became clear as the week went on you know obviously they cut him out on Friday, but even Wednesday, Thursday, it was pretty obvious that he was still in stage one of the concussion protocol, the fact that he wasn't even able to be outside for practice. But Mike Brable said on Monday that LeJuan is doing better. He can't completely clear the protocol until he practices and then responds well to that. So I think he'll probably be out there at practice on Wednesday and hopefully we'll get a good report from that and be back for this game

because as good as we think the Texans defense is, the Jaguars defense is even better. So they're going to need to be as close to full strength as they possibly can. We didn't really get an update on Dennis Kelly. He had some kind of virus that had him in the hospital. As of Monday, he was out of the hospital, so that's obviously good. So hopefully he can get his strength back and be ready to go. I don't think we see Conklin this week.

Vrabel said on Monday that he'll probably do a little bit more, but I still think we're at least a week or two away from seeing Jack Conklin. But, you know, you feel a lot better with LeJuan and Kelly out there than you do with Panfield and Merritts, obviously. So good news there. The report on Mariota is a little bit more mixed. On Monday at the press conference, Mike Rabel said that basically Mariota was the same as he was the end of the week.

And then tonight on the radio show, he said he's a little bit better today. But I don't know. I mean, I think, Terry, you've been hearing kind of the same things that I have. He's got a thing here that is probably going to take a couple weeks before it's gone with the pinched nerve and whatever else is going on with that. So, I mean, I think I'd be surprised if we see Mariota this week. Yeah, it doesn't sound like there's a set timetable for recovery. It's just kind of on an individual basis there.

So, you know, they kept him active on Sunday. They said he was ready to back up. I don't know how much throwing they would have done with him, but I think that does say something, that they didn't go ahead and sign Logan Woodside or something like that. So I think it's encouraging, but I don't know that you can expect him to be out there against the Jaguars. So, man, it's going to be tough to beat Jacksonville

with the game plan that you had last week. Like you were saying, Texas defense is good. Jacksonville is probably double that, if not more. So, really need Marcus Mariota out there. But overall, more than anything, you need that nerve to heal. You need him for the regular season for the rest of the regular season. So I don't mind them playing it safe, especially now that you're on the board and in the win column.

You go 0-2, maybe there's some pressure there to play Mariota. You're 1-1 now. Maybe there's not as much pressure to play Marks Mariota. And quite honestly, I mean, if they split these next two, I think, especially if Mariota isn't able to go, I think you've got to be thrilled with the start to the season they've had and then up 2-2 in that group when you've got Jacksonville on the road this week and then the Eagles coming here next week.

So, yeah, I think, I mean, obviously they're going to play safe with him and do the best they can. But it is, like you said, it's a good thing they haven't – they made a few roster moves today, but none of them included a quarterback. So, you know, if nothing else, I think they're confident that if he's not well enough to start, if something did happen to Gabbert, he could at least come in there and play. Speaking of roster moves, they promoted Daylon Dawkins from the practice squad today.

David Flewellen had a groin injury in the game on Sunday, so I think that tells us that he's probably not going to be ready to go this week. We know they only have three running backs on the roster before they brought Dawkins up. I think that's probably a pretty good indication that Floyd Allen's not going to be ready. They let Aaron Wallace go when they brought Dawkins up. Then yesterday, on Monday,

they signed Nick Williams back to the 53-man roster and waived Ferkser and Batson. So, you know, I know our friend Mike, he was really sad that Ferkser's gone. They did sign him back to the practice squad today, so at least he's still in the organization. But Batson, a guy that just, you know, we were a little bit blown away that he made still in the organization. But Pat's in a guy that just, you know, we were a little bit blown away that he made it out of camp, and then, you know, he was inactive this past week. So I guess they were just kind of waiting on Nick Williams to be healthy enough

because we all thought, you know, before his hamstring injury, we thought he was going to make the team anyway. So I guess they were just waiting for him to be healthy enough. They brought him back. I mean, I don't expect to see any huge contribution out of him, but he was a guy that definitely, with his play in camp and preseason, earned a spot on this roster. Yeah, and Batson was the weirdest keep on the entire roster to me.

And, you know, it tells you how tight-lipped this organization is. Mike Keith told us that he was going to be the return man. And, you know, he had every reason to think that. He handled all the return duties in preseason. And then they kept him, and then he didn't even return the football. So that was strange. He wasn't even active on game day. So, yeah, that's strange.

Nick Williams was obviously who they wanted all along. It was just the injury that kind of clouded that initial bringing him onto the roster. So I think you'll see that. And I don't know. I think he can be an interesting depth piece. I don't think he's anything special or anything like that. But a guy that can work out of the slot and maybe take some reps off of Taewon Taylor if the Titans choose to open up their passing game more down the road.

Yeah, absolutely. So that's kind of where they're at. They'll be back on the practice field tomorrow. So, like I said, hopefully we'll get a little bit of clarification on LeJuan, maybe on Mariota. We'll see. But, you know, last week we were pretty optimistic on Wednesday night that Mariota was going to play.

And then, obviously, it just didn't – I guess it didn't heal up any as the week went along. So we'll just kind of see how all that plays out. But anyway, that'll do it for tonight. We appreciate you listening. Again, if you want to subscribe to the show, just search out Locked on Titans wherever you get your podcasts. You can find us there.

You can follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmorrismcm. Terry's at tlambertfb. So for Terry, this is Jimmy saying thanks for listening to Locked on Titans, and we'll talk to you again tomorrow.