Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: Cross over with Locked on Jaguars

Episode Date: September 20, 2018

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

Welcome in to another edition of Locked On Titans. I'm Jimmy Morris. Joining us always by Terry Lambert. Terry, how are you tonight? Pretty good. What's up, man? Not too much. Tonight we're going to talk a little bit about the injury report. A lot of stuff going on there, obviously, with the Titans and their injury situation. So a few things to update there. Then we have a visit with our friends from Locked On Jaguars. Terry talked to them earlier tonight.

Then we have a visit with our friends from Locked On Jaguars. Terry talked to them earlier tonight. And so we'll listen to them, and then we'll talk a little bit about our takeaways from that conversation. Before we get started, I remind you to write for me at seemiracles.com, where we cover the Titans Presby Nation. So you can check out our work there. Tons of good stuff going up there every day. News as it comes out. Film breakdowns, all that kind of stuff.

So check that out. You can subscribe to the podcast, Locked on Titans, wherever you get your podcast. Just search that out, and then you can follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmorrismcm, and Terry is at tlambertfb. Okay, so the Titans were on the practice field today for the first time since the win over the Jaguars. The good news, Taylor LeJuan practiced at least in a limited capacity, basically kind of the final step that he has to clear in the concussion protocol. So he has to go through a practice, go see the independent doctor. Once he clears him, then he should be good to go.

So barring a setback at this point, the Titans should have Taylor LeJuan out there on Sunday. Jack Conklin also practiced. Now, we haven't been given any type of timetable on Conklin. The only, I guess, hint we have at a timetable is that they think it was going to be less than six weeks from when the season started because they didn't put him on the in-season PUP. They counted him against the active 53 so at some point he's going to take the next step forward he's going to practice full all week and he's going to play is it going to be this week i don't know well i'll be interested to see what they list him as tomorrow but i mean you know

going from last week with your starting tackles being Kevin Panfield and Taylor Merritts, back to LaJuan and Conklin this week, if it does happen, is a huge upgrade. And, you know, if it does happen again, quite frankly, couldn't come at a better time than when you're facing, you know, arguably the best defense in the league. Yeah, I need to start by apologizing to Panfield and Merritts because they did a great job. And I don't know if I said that last night. I think you did. But I was really, really concerned about that with the Texans.

They stepped up. Obviously, the scheme was a little different. The game plan was a little different. But they did their job well enough to win. So all that being said, I don't want to go through that again. I'm sure the Titans don't want to either. Positive signs

for Taylor 1. Like you said, we don't really know what's going on with Conklin. It seems like they're really easing him back in. And I don't think Dennis Kelly was there today again. He was not. So, yeah. And all we know about that is an illness, so that's a little strange. But I feel more confident going in than I did this time last week

if those two tackles have to play again. But certainly getting LaJuan and perhaps even Conklin back, I mean, that's a massive boost. And, you know, for those two to get back with the starting five and start building some chemistry going forward, I think that's a big deal too. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, on Dennis Kelly, he was not there today. Listening to Vrabel after practice, I don't know.

He didn't rule him out, but, you know, basically said, we'll get him in here tomorrow and kind of see where he's at. So I would be surprised if Kelly goes. But, you know, again, it's not as big of a drop-off if you've got LeJuan and Conklin, then you're only worried about those guys beating their backups. So we'll kind of see how that plays out. Marcus Mariota, I mean, it's kind of more of the same. He threw during the open part of practice.

He talked after practice. Vrabel talked about him after practice basically the same deal like it's not like he's gotten a little bit better but not all the way there yet still can't completely you know he's still got numbness in a couple of the fingers he was wearing a glove that had you know i guess protection on his his the last two fingers ring finger the pinky finger. You know, the media that saw him throwing during the open portion of practice said anything, you know, really past 10 yards, he was still struggling to be able to, you know, grip it and get it out there. So, you know, they compared it to a guitar string being strummed,

and it has to settle back down. So at this point, we're still kind of in a holding pattern i i mean i think that i've accepted the fact that it's going to be gabbert on sunday um i don't know that for 100 at this point i don't think anybody does i don't think i mean we know variable is you know really tight-lipped on injury stuff anyway but i think with this thing it honestly is a thing where they don't know there's a possibility he could come in tomorrow mario didn't be fine and be ready to go there's a possibility that it could linger for a week or two so at this point it's just kind of a holding

pattern for everybody and obviously you know hope he'd be back out there but can't do anything until he can feel the football again yeah i don't even know if it's something where they can rush him back or something like that. I think it's just going to be one of those things where Marcus just knows. He's just going to know when he's ready to go. So if he's struggling to throw the ball over 10 yards, that's probably a pretty good sign that he's probably not going to go. And, you know, I mean, you talked about this.

It sets up an interesting storyline. Blaine Gabbert starting in Jacksonville. Blaine beat them, beat the Jaguars last year as a Cardinal. He beat the Titans, of course. But that's a little bit different. You know, in Jacksonville playing for a division rival, the team that drafted him, you know, and Blaine Gabbert's such a punchline down there now.

Just looking ahead a little bit, if Blaine Gabbert was to somehow steal a win there, I mean, I think Jacksonville might burn. Oh, it would be, I mean, it would be the greatest. Because, listen, we like the guys from Locked On Jaguars. They're really good. They're like the two exceptions in the entire fan base. I mean, it's the worst.

Their fan base is the worst fan base in the NFL. It's not even close. And so, yes, if Gavri wouldn't go down there and get a win, it would just be so, so awesome. But anyway, we'll hope Mariota can play. But if it is the Blaine Gavri show, then obviously we'll be excited to see him go down there and win.

All right, Kendrick Lewis, who has been injured, I guess, since before the season started, was back on a limited basis today. Safety depth there, so I wouldn't say they've really missed him to this point. Corey Davis not on the injury report after being there last week with a hamstring, so that's obviously good news. Derrick Henry was on the injury report, limited with a back injury, but from what I read, everybody that was there, he participated in the open part of practice, looked fine.

So I don't think there's any concern there. And then a couple other guys, we talked about Dennis Kelly. Luke Stalker has a calf injury but he was limited last week limited to get today so i was expecting to be ready to go and then david fluellen who talked about last night um he has the groin injury they promoted dylan dawkins so i would be surprised if we see fluellen this week so that's kind of where we're at injury wise i mean it's it's still know, there's still a lot of question marks on the offensive line.

But overall, this is the healthiest this team has been trending towards in a couple weeks. You know, there's no Harold Landry on the injury report. There's no Rashawn Evans on the injury report. So if you can get – I mean, I would say it would be a small miracle to get LaJuan, Conklin, andio to all back this week but if you can get two of those three guys back and the guys that have been nursing stuff it seems like they're getting better so it seems like they're at least trending in the right direction from a health

perspective yeah i just need to string some weeks together i mean from the get-go from training camp it's just been one thing after the other you Brian Arakpo got hurt the second day of camp or something like that. It just seemed to snowball from there. Good to see the injury report start to shrink up a little bit. It's looking like Taylor Wan and Conklin are trending in the right direction.

Outside of Mariota, it's just a bunch of little knick-knacks here and there. Excited. We talked about it for the better part of last week. We still haven't seen this team all together yet. You know, we've still yet to see Matt LaFleur's offensive scheme with all the pieces in place. And we're still not going to see it because Delaney Walker,

his season is lost. But you'll get to see most of it together here. It looks like pretty soon pending Marcus Marietta. Yeah, absolutely. All right, so coming up we'll have Terry's conversation with the guys from Locked On Jaguars. Before we go to that, tell you about MyBookie. If you've been listening to this show, we've talked about MyBookie for a long time.

They sponsored us last year. They're back again this year. And, again, the point here is who you're betting on is obviously really important whether or not you win but who you bet with is also equally as important because if you do win you want to be able to get paid and my bookie has been around um you know they're they're trusted we know that if you you know their whole thing is you play you you play you win you get paid so that So that's obviously not an issue with them. Kind of a new deal that they've got going on right now. They've been slammed with new bettors, so that's a good thing.

A ton of people are going over there and getting in the action. But they're trying their best to get the best service possible. So if you're willing to deposit after 7 p.m. Eastern time, they'll give you an additional $25 free play on deposits over $100. And so you can do that. And if you deposit $100, they'll match your $100. So you're basically getting $125 for $100. So that's obviously a great deal.

Can't find that anywhere else. To get that, you have to use the promo code LOCKEDON25. It's a little bit different than the promo code we usually give you. So that's LOCKEDON25. code LOCKEDON25. It's a little bit different than the promo code we usually give you. So that's LOCKEDON25 when you sign up for MyBookie and you get the $100 match plus a $25 free pay. So visit MyBookie online today.

That's M-Y-B-O-O-K-I-E. And don't forget to use the promo code LOCKEDON when creating your account. And like I said, they will match your deposit dollar for dollar up to $1,000. So again, if you want to hold out until after 7 p.m., use promo code LOCKEDON25, and you'll get all those bonuses that we just talked about. So MyBookie, you play, you win, you get paid. We are back with the co-host from Locked on Jaguars. Thanks for joining us today, guys.

Appreciate you having us on. Yeah, man. Let's start off with the biggest news of the day. Big injury from last week's game. Cam Robinson is going to be down. How in the world are the Jaguars going to replace such an important player to the offense? With a guy that gave up seven pressures in three quarters.

So the Jaguars are bringing in Josh Wells to be the left tackle for the rest of the year. The team has been vocally supportive of Wells. This is his fifth year with the team after going undrafted and signing in 2014. He's played in, I think, 34 games as a Jag. He's filled in as a reserve a lot as a spot starter. And he's always struggled as a pass protector when he's on an island, when he's taking one-on-one battles, especially against speed rushers. He does not win he he gets lost

but he's a solid run blocker he's a guy that they consider cheap labor he's on like a two-year 1.3 million dollar contract so they know that they can keep him around pay him next to nothing and get a guy that they're comfortable with at this point just because they've had him for so long and developed him so when four net is back out on the field when they're trying to run the ball like wells is going to be totally fine and you're not going to see too much you know drop off from when cam was out there because cam isn't the greatest run blocker but um while he might be better than wells the offensive line as a whole is so good, especially in run blocking, that you won't see too much of a drop-off. And if the offensive line to where the interior is kind of shuffling left

to try and help in pass protection, Wells might be kind of shadowed there a little bit with the help of an Andrew Norwell helping take on some outside guys. But let's say you put Harold Landry one-on-one against Wells, and you've got Landry out there playing pretty much a seven technique going against Wells coming from the outside. Landry might have his breakout game. It very well might be the case.

That offensive line is going to be tasked with protecting Blake Bortles. He's an interesting guy. I mean, just from an outsider, you know, the rap on him is he's terrible. But every time I watch the Jaguars play, he's just making weird plays with his legs and keeping the offense just kind of afloat. How's his development going? Is he developing or is he just kind of what he is right now? going is he developing or is he just kind of what he is right now Blake Bortles is an enigma that I don't think we can ever solve uh rookie year comes in plays half the year because Chad Henney is bad

uh comes in kind of has a an average rookie year I don't know the stats off the top of my head and then 2000 is next year in 2015 really lights it up a lot of people credit the garbage time which is fake news uh a lot of it was actually when the jaguars were within seven points of the lead uh lights it up has 35 touchdowns what 18 interceptions something like that uh And then the next year, he regresses, and he regresses hard. The Jaguars team is abysmal. There's no wins going basically anywhere. I think they end up with like three.

Then last year happens. Jaguars get their defense, finally emerges. Saxonville is born. Guys like Calais Campbell, A.J. Bouye come in and really kind of change things. The Jaguars go all the way to the AFC championship game on the shoulders of Blake Bortles some people are starting and then they lose to the Patriots even though Bortles was phenomenal in December through the playoffs people are wondering was Bortles just riding this defense or is he actually good

nobody knows then this year happens preseason goes, Blake Bortles has a rough preseason, everybody starts to panic, and then Blake Bortles comes out and has the performance of his career against the Patriots week two, passing for four touchdowns, one interception, and for Bortles. Did he hit 400 yards? Yeah, I think he hit hit like just was he just under 300 zach or was he just over four i i i can't remember i think he was like at three i think he's like 388 so almost 400 yards he seems to be trending in the right direction seems to finally be have confidence again so i would like to say that he's trending upward from last year but his whole career has

just been kind of like a roller coaster of emotions. And if you're following the trend, he should be on a down year, but so far he's still going up. So I'm going to stick with that he's improving, but he's such just his confidence, I think, kind of wavers if he starts to do bad. So it's just really, really interesting to watch. Yeah, and his receiving core is actually pretty nice.

Jaguars have a fine in Keelan Cole, who went nuts last week. DeeDee Westbrook is there. Just, you know, we talked about on Locked on Jaguars, the Titans struggling with the deep ball and Malcolm Butler. Are the Jaguars the one to attack deep, or are they giving Cole and DeeDee Westbrook looks deep down the field? I think it'll just really depend on if Hackett wants to be creative, he can be creative, that being the Jaguars offensive coordinator.

If he wants to just pound the ball with Leonard Fournette, then he's going to do that. Both of them can be effective. I don't understand why they can't try to mesh both and kind of synchronize it to keep defenses on their toes because they've shown that when four net isn't able to play that if they want to hit like either take advantage of the underneath game and spread the ball out to guys like austin saverian jenkins dd uh westbrook uh even d Dante Moncrief a little bit, they're able to do it. Or they could hit Keelan Cole deep and make these big plays with a speedster like him

going and making plays down the field. They're showing that they can do it. So it's just a question on whether or not they want to be stubborn in what their play calling and what their philosophy is, or if they're realizing that, hey, Bortles is kind of hot right now uh mix that in with how Fournette was looking before he suffered the hamstring injury and I I truly think this offense needs to start finding ways to be kind of unpredictable with uh when they're going up against opposing defenses and to keep them on their toes because no one at this

point I mean I can't remember the last time that the jaguars were able to make teams respect both the pass and the run it's always been one way or another or quite frankly for a nice amount of time during my fandom it was teams respected neither so so we'll we'll just have to see how they plan to attack it this upcoming week with Fournette back. I say if it isn't broke, don't fix it at this point. So although you're getting Fournette back, I do want to see them continue to utilize the pass game like they did against New England. That was actually my next question. The Titans have been pretty banged up early on, and now Jacksonville is pretty banged up, at least in the backfield.

You said Fournette is probably going to be able to go. What about TJ yeldon going by the injury report he didn't leave the game during the patriots game with injury and he's listed on the injury reports an ankle injury i think it might just be precautionary uh i don't see anything or haven't heard anything leading to believe that he would miss this game so as an early week guess i would say that he's probably good to go. But obviously, the teams can be weird with their injury reports. One day they're kind of limited, and next thing you know, they're out. So right now my gut's telling me that he'll probably play,

but that doesn't mean he can't either hurt it more in practice or the team holds him out for precautionary reasons, with Fournette likely being back. All right, last question. We've got to talk about defense because it's ridiculous. It seems like every time I put on a Jaguars game, that defense is changing the game. I know I saw it on Red Zone, the Giants game.

They needed a play, and they get a big defensive touchdown. Just talk a little bit about how that defense operates and how clutch they've been over the past year or so. I mean, if Chris wants to add anything to this, he can. People have already started to wonder where the sacks are because at this point last year, I think they had 10 sacks the first game, and I think they had four in their second. So they're at 14 sacks through two games, and this year they're at four.

However, unless you have pro football focus premium stats, you wouldn't know that they have 38 pressures on 65 dropbacks. So they're putting pressure on the quarterback and that's something that isn't going to stop and what's most impressive about that is they really don't have they don't use too many packages where they're blitzing they genuinely send four man packages like on the majority of their pass rush snaps that's just how they operate because they've got the guys there to where that they don't need to send more teams need to respect

just the four they have up front because they know they're going to find a way to get to the quarterback. And one thing that I've always kind of found myself, you know, talking about with this Jaguars pass defense is that the secondary and pass rush really can kind of bounce off of each other the pass rush can either get in there and make a play to the point where a quarterback will be forced into throwing and what could end up being an interception or a big play by the secondary because they were panicked into throwing something that they normally wouldn't need to but this pass rush got there so quickly or the secondary can cause a coverage sack like it can go either way just depending on what Todd Walsh has lined up the personnel he

puts out there he they truly can scheme things to where it can go one way or the other that's just how talented as a whole that this pass rush this pass defense is and I think the Jaguars kind of really get home with their sacks i mean it's only they only have four throughout the year but i tell you what when they have a corner blitz with dj hayden i feel like they've always been pretty successful uh last year when they had colvin he would kind of get home every once in a while but the jags like zach was saying don't seem to send a whole lot of blitzing packages they They kind of just run with those four. And then sometimes Todd Walsh, the defensive coordinator,

will throw in a quick corner blitz, and usually DJ Hayden gets there or has enough pressure on the quarterback to force a play. So we saw it last week against Tom Brady. DJ Hayden was able to collect a sack. So I think really if you're going to look for sacks outside of just the standard four-man pressure, look for a corner blitz. All right, guys, good stuff.

Great insight. Titans to Jaguars is always fun. Sunday should be no different. So thanks for joining me. Pleasure to be on. All right, coming up, Jimmy and I will wrap up the show. Coming up, we'll get Terry's takeaways from the conversation. Before we do that, we're get Terry's takeaways from the conversation.

Before we do that, we're going to tell you about a brand-new sponsor of the podcast, Swap.com. Swap.com is the world's largest online consignment and thrift store. With Swap.com, you can save up to 90% off of retail price on your favorite brands like Carters, Nike, J.Crew, and Gap. Look, if you buy clothes, especially if you've got kids, you go and you spend all the money on clothes for them and then two weeks later they can't wear them. If you use Swap.com, you're getting great prices on name brand stuff. Like I said, not spending the money that you would if you go

buy at the store. There's quality hand-inspected items added daily. If something doesn't fit, you have hassle-free returns for the first 30 days. Swap.com is offering a special offer to our listeners. You get 35% off of select items in your first order with the promo code LOCKEDON. And they've got new deals popping up every day on their homepage.

So go to swap.com, check them out. Again, use promo code LOCKEDON, and you'll get 35% off of select items. All right, so Terry, you had a chance to talk to those guys. What were your biggest takeaways from that conversation? Yeah, the biggest thing was just the concern with Cam Robinson. That's a guy that was drafted a couple years ago and really stabilized the offensive line there. Anytime you lose your starting left tackle, it's a big deal.

Now you've got the Titans with this new pass rush coming. You had Harold Landry just crush it last week. Now he's getting another winnable matchup there. So you might see him more on passing downs. He got like five pressures in 30-something plays. So that's a really good ratio there. So you've got a clear weak point for Dean Pease to attack on that offensive line. So I'm interested to see what they do there.

And then the second thing was just their overall kind of frustration with the offense. I don't know if you saw the stat, but the Jaguars are a lot better when Leonard Fournette doesn't play. It's a proven fact. So it seems like the offense gets opened up when Fournette is not on the field. They went and beat the Patriots without Fournette. So, like they said, when Fournette comes back, they turn back to their old ways and become ground and pound and kind of smash their heads into a wall.

As Titans fans, we know what that's like. So I'm interested to see if the offense goes back in that direction because I think they've got a winnable matchup with some speed on the perimeter with Keelan Cole, DeeDee Westbrook. Like we said, Malcolm Butler's struggling with speed early. I think that's a matchup they can exploit, but maybe they won't now that Leonard Fournette is back in the lineup.

It's kind of an interesting thing because I watched a lot of that game, Jaguars-Patriots on Sunday. On one hand, you think anytime they're going to put the ball in Blake Bortles' hands more, that's a good thing for the opposition right because there's

more chances for him to do something dumb and you know throw a pick six or whatever it may be but he looked he looked better uh on Sunday than I've seen him look in a while and again it doesn't like scare me it's like all this stuff you know a lot of people are going crazy about Ryan Fitzpatrick and it started the season but like these guys over over time, they're going to go back to who they are. You know, the old line from what Dennis Gray, they are who we thought they were, right? So I'll still take my chances with Blake Bortles throwing the football. I mean, I still would rather them do that than hand it to Leonard Fournette a bunch,

especially with the way that the Titans run defense has struggled early in the season. But you can't deny the numbers, how much better their offense has been with Fournette out of the game. And we talked about this. I don't know if we ever talked about this on air or not. But the Fournette pick was even baffling at times. The dude's a good running back. I mean, there's no doubt about that.

But he's not a franchise-changing, transcendent talent. And, you know, they just really, whenever he's out there, they want to hitch their game plan to him. And, I mean, again, it's one of these weird things, right? Because on one hand it makes sense because that takes the ball out of Blake Bortles' hands. But it just doesn't seem like the most efficient way to run an NFL offense because he's not a guy that's going to go out there and do something really special. I mean, if it's blocked, he's going to get it.

But I don't know. I would just – I go back and forth on this, like I said, because I don't think he's that good. But I also want Bortles throwing the ball because that creates more problems, you know, potentially for their offense, more opportunities for Titans defense to make a play. So their offense is so weird. Yeah, Blake is weird.

You know, it's like you said, he looked great. Threw for nearly 400 yards against the Patriots and beat the Patriots. So, you know, you see these big games from Blake. You saw it down the stretch last season. There was a portion of last season where he actually got hot and looked like an all right quarterback. But like you said, these guys are who they are, and they always come back down to earth.

So I think Blake is just a really inconsistent player. I think you're going to see these big games in these spots. Then you're going to see the next week him turn around and throw four picks. I think he's just a high variance guy. I'm absolutely shocked that the Jaguars

just went ahead and paid him all that money. I think we talked about this yesterday. They had a chance to go get a guy like Alex Smith who makes a lot more him all that money. I think we talked about this yesterday. They had a chance to go get a guy like Alex Smith, who makes a lot more sense for that offense. But Bortles is going to have those big games, and he's going to have those terrible games, and the Jaguars are going to live and die by it. Yeah, absolutely.

And we'll get into more specific matchups and stuff tomorrow night, kind of bringing on this game. But good to catch up with the Locked On Jaguars guys. They always do a really good job, so glad to have them on. Anyway, so that'll wrap up for tonight. Again, remind you, go check out MuseumMiracles.com. We'll have a ton of stuff going up there tomorrow.

You know, still wrapping up the Texans game and looking forward to the Jaguars game. Follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmortzmcm. Terry's at tlambertfb. Subscribe to the podcast or read your podcast. Just search out Locked on Titans. For Terry, this is Jimmy saying thanks for listening, and we will talk to you again tomorrow.