Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: Day two of camp; New deal for Lewan, Walker extended

Episode Date: July 27, 2018

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Welcome in to another edition of Locked On Titans. I am Jimmy Morris, joined as always by Terry Lambert. Terry, how are you today? Doing pretty good. What's going on, man? Not too much. It's been a pretty good day, if you're a Titans fan. We'll get to some of that stuff coming up here in just a minute. Before we do that, I remind you, we write for MusicCityMiracles.com, covering the Titans for SB Nation. So you can check us out there. Our boy Mike had a good recap of practice yesterday. We'll have the same today. So check out that

whenever you get a chance. You can also follow us on Twitter. I am at jmorsmcm. Terry is at tlimbertfb. You can follow the podcast account at LockedOnTitans. And then subscribe to the podcast wherever it is that you get your podcasts. Leave us a rate and review. That helps us. And if you subscribe, then you get the latest shows as soon as they are available.

All right, so a lot of things have run down today. We've got a new contract for Taylor LeJuan. We got a possible injury to Brian Arakpo. We've got Corey Davis showing out in practice today. And then we've got more discussion around the receivers, where they're going to line up, that kind of stuff, and then some stuff with offense and defense. So those things we're going to hit. So from the top ted o'lewan gets a new deal you know we've been talking about this obviously all off season uh

you know there was a point earlier in the week where we weren't sure exactly how this was going to play out if he's going to show up or not um but then you know it turned into good news you know the night before camp. Sides were talking. Ted Oluwan was here, and then this morning news breaks. I think Kaharski's the one that actually broke the news, but then Schefter gave us the details. Five-year, $80 million extension, $50 million in guaranteed money for Ted Oluwan. Makes him the highest-paid offensive lineman in NFL history.

So a little bit interesting there. I mean, obviously it's just the timing and how all that stuff happens. But regardless, it's really good to see that deal get done and that not to have to be a conversation point going forward. Yeah, could it have gone any better? I mean, yeah, you see the Le'Veon Bell thing playing out with the Steelers that just dragging on for years. John Robinson nips us in the bud and it's done.

So you've got your two biggest camp storylines for us that we talked about. Kevin Dodd, he's gone. No longer a distraction. And then the little Juan deal gets done today. So both of your biggest problems or storylines are taken care of by day two of camp. Again, hats off to John Robinson, hats off to this organization for not letting this drag out, for paying one of your best players, for paying the face of perhaps Nashville for getting that deal done.

You've got the money. Spend it now. Lock up your best player. So great move. Yeah, absolutely. And it's just funny. It's been a while since we've had – you know case you got a deal an extension last year all right rugfall camp started but you know you can count on less than one hand in the last decade really of guys

the titans have drafted have wanted to give a big second contract to um so you know this is obviously that those are good things uh robinson didn't draft head of the one but you know, this is obviously, those are good things. Robinson didn't draft Taylor LeJuan. But, you know, again, having the sense to get all that in front of camp, get all that stuff done, so that they can focus on just, you know, playing football on the field. So that's obviously something that was very important. A bit of bad news, Brian Arakpo left practice early today, appeared to be favoring his shoulder. That was according to A to Z Sports on Twitter.

I don't think he came back out. So just something to keep an eye on there. Nobody really said anything about it after practice, so we'll see if anything comes out here in the next little bit. I think this Titans team is going to be very secretive about injuries. Rashard Matthews still didn't practice today. We still have no idea why he's not practicing. He's not like yesterday, not on the PUP list.

But obviously it's a concern if a rack pose down. It's why you feel a little bit better about it if he is going to have to miss some time. You do have Harold Landry. That was the importance of securing that. But depth is an issue at that position, even with those guys. So important for them to have all those guys there. So hopefully nothing too serious for a rack poe. Yeah, absolutely.

And, you know, to be clear, we haven't heard anything else. We just saw reports of him walking off the field. So don't panic yet. But you do have Harold Landry there if something's happening. You've got that explosive backup pass rusher for this year. So that's certainly, you know, you feel good about that. You're in a good spot there. And don't forget about Aaron Wallace coming back too.

So we'll wait and see before we go too much deeper. But Arakpo is certainly a guy that the Titans don't want to lose. Yeah, so we'll keep an eye on that. Like I said, if there's any updates on that, you can check me at stevemiracles.com. We'll be sure to have those there. Corey Davis had a fantastic day of practice. Everybody was going on and on. I think he dropped a pass early that he probably should have caught on a deep route from Mariota.

But after that, I think I said he caught three touchdown passes, and he was showing up all over the field. So this is not necessarily a huge surprise to those of us who have paid attention to, you know, what Corey Davis was coming out of college and what he was at the beginning of training camp last year and, you know, early in the season and then obviously the end of the playoff game against the Patriots. But it's good to see him get going after kind of an up-and-down day yesterday. You want to see consistency out of out of a wide receiver you want to i mean if he's going to be you know a top 10 guy that position in the league which we you know fully believe that he can be uh consistency is a part of that and so you want to see that out of him um so good to see that and i honestly think i mean i think cory davis is outside

of marcus mariotta which is obviously you know the most important thing to this offense i think you can argue that cory davis is the is the next most important guy because just with the with the lack of depth that they have at receiver um you know they need him to to step up and to play big to play to that fifth overall draft status they need a big year out of him because if they don't get that then he's got a lot of a lot of honestly mediocre guys behind him richard mack is a good player we don't know exactly what we have and taylor we're talking a little bit about in a little while uh you know tajay sharp all those A lot of, honestly, mediocre guys behind him. Richard Matthews is a good player. We don't know exactly what we have in Taewon Taylor. We'll talk a little bit about in a little while. You know, Tajay Sharpa, all those kind of guys.

But, you know, we don't expect any of those guys to be, you know, top 10, even top 15, top 20 caliber receivers in the league. And when you've got a guy who has that ability, you need him to play to that ability. Yeah. I've been beating that Corey Davis drum since, you know, before the Titans drafted him. All the ability is there.

I think fans were impatient with him last year, just considering the amount of training camp the guy missed. And really, when you couple that with really how complex the offense must have been for the receivers. You know, you saw so many mistakes out of that group. So now you're seeing him from day one work from training camp with Marcus Mariota. He's getting inside this new offense. He's learning it.

He's excelling in it. I saw three or four touchdowns today. Every time I refreshed it, it was another Corey Davis touchdown, it seemed like. Really, really good to see. It sounds like they're lining him up all over the field. I think there's a good chance he can step into that true number one role, especially with Rashard Matthews missing time early on in training camp. Again, like you said, the importance of him being there with Rashard out and just that whole group, it's so interesting.

And so coming up after the break, we'll talk a little bit about the rotation with that group and how it might be different than what we initially – Okay, so there was, you know, yesterday – and keep in mind, too, before we get into this, Rashard Matthews is not on the field. So that's going to affect where everybody plays. But yesterday with the first-team offense, Tywon Taylor actually got the most snaps of any receiver with the first-team offense, and all of his snaps were on the outside. Okay, so I think we've all kind of assumed all along that Taylor would be the slot receiver. I mean, you know, that's what you think when you see him, his profile,

all that kind of stuff. That's what he played mainly last year. But, you know, we've talked a lot about this Matt LaFleur offense. We had Dan Orlovsky on. He talked a lot about it. They need a clear-out guy, so to speak, in the offense. And Taylor's the only one that has the speed to be able to do that so I was listening to a podcast with Evan Silva on the way home yesterday and he was saying that

Denar Vlosky has said and something he was listening to that Taylor could play the role that Sammy Watkins played in for the Rams in LA last year and so that's something that we hadn't really thought about but when you look at it it sense. That's where he's been playing. Again, we'll see how it all shapes up when Rashard Matthews comes back. But that's kind of an interesting piece there. He had a long touchdown catch today, apparently a nice one-handed catch. So, I mean, he's a guy that, again, we were high on coming out, hesitant to take too much away from his game based off of what lies with the offense and all that kind of stuff.

But that's kind of an interesting thing that maybe is a little bit different than kind of what we've been thinking all offseason long. Yeah, it's an interesting thought. And Sammy didn't put up big numbers with the Rams last year. But I think it was pretty valuable. Because if you have that guy that can take the top off of a defense, that can take that safety and force him to one side of the field that's going to open up the middle of the field for intermediate work and that's really where

Mariota excels and that's where I think Corey Davis is going to excel he's not really that deep guy but he's a guy that can really work the middle of the field win some 50-50 balls so that's an interesting thought that we really haven't brought up. And if he's going to be working on the outside, you're going to see Davis working more in the slot. You might even see Matthews out of the slot. So we've talked about versatility with this defense. There might be some versatility with this offense too. And early reports are that Jonu Smith is going to have a decently big role in this offense. I think he's kind of a guy that we've glossed over as well,

maybe playing that little bit of a receiver role more so than a tight end, maybe a move tight end. So that's another guy. I mean, someone's going to have to emerge here. The Titans don't have great numbers at receivers, to emerge here. The Titans don't have great numbers at receivers, so someone else is going to have to emerge outside of Taylor, Davis, Matthews, and Sharp. I think Johnnie Smith could be another guy that maybe we're overlooking a little bit. Yeah, and I think you're right. We probably haven't talked enough about him this year. A lot of the questions around that group is you know about delaney walker how

much longer is he going to hold up you know you you got to figure eventually he's going to fall off that cliff i mean he's a guy that's been in the league for a long time but he has been you know he hasn't done that yet um maybe fell off a little bit last year but not taking that nosedive that you see a lot of guys take um and and so they obviously drafted johnny smith to um to come in and play that role. Now, that was a different scheme and all that stuff they were drafting that for. But you figure the same thing. I mean, he's probably, Johnnie Smith's probably going to be your tight end one next year.

And somebody was talking on Twitter yesterday, I can't remember who it was, but talking about how it's remarkable how similar they look out there, Johnnie Smith and Lenny Walker. Like, they look exactly the same. And he apparently had a good day yesterday He didn't show out as much today. He's a guy that could emerge as a playmaker in this offense. If you're thinking about fantasy football or any of that kind of stuff, I don't think he's a guy that's going to have much value there this year, but you can

see his role evolve as the year goes along, and then you can see him really take off next year and again like you said you've got all these pieces and they talk about being you know multiple and all that stuff on defense but when you've got a receiver group and if you've got you know davis matthews taylor sharp that you can count on that you feel good about even you know thomas campanero in there or whoever else rotate those guys around get the matchups that you want and then you've got guys like johnny smith delaney walker they can also prevent or present matchup problems you've got deon lewis out of the backfield derrick henry all that kind of stuff i don't know i mean this

offense has i think a chance to be to be pretty special now i think that they maybe lack the the top end talent at least i mean you got davis but then after that but i think they can make up for that a little bit with scheme and we haven't seen that in the past i think that's why it's you know we don't really know what to expect because we're not used to having a guy that that gives you a schematic advantage but they should have that this year and so i'm kind of excited to see where it all goes i thought taylor Taylor had a really interesting comment yesterday. He said that there's just more plays in this offensive playbook. He said that after the first practice, there's

more plays. It just sounds like Malarkey had his stuff. He was going to run it, and Terry Robiskie, too, had his stuff. They were going to run that little handful of plays, and if it didn't work, too bad. They were going to run that little handful of plays. And if it didn't work, too bad.

They were going to try it again. So it just sounds like there's more versatility. There's more built-in options here. So, yeah, like you're saying, there's a ton of options. And just remember what Marcus Mariota did year one and year two. I think people forget how good he was, just remembering what they saw last year. So if you can get a guy that is a top-notch mental processor in an offense like this that made Jared Goff go from looking like a bust to potential all-pro, I'm just really excited for this offense.

It's going to be something that we haven't seen in some time, maybe ever, in Nashville, honestly. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, back to the Malarkey-Robiski thing, they pretty much said that last year. Like, we go into the game with stuff that we're going to run, and we're going to run it whether it works or not. And we're going to run it until basically we try to make it work.

And I think it's pretty clear that this is going to be a this is going to be a much different offense this is going to be a much different philosophy and you know you you look at what like what's successful right you look the rams offense last year the eagles offense and just doing different things and exploiting matchups and i guess that's not how football was played. However, 30 years ago, the last time Terry Rubisky was an offensive coordinator, it was about, hey, we're going to do our stuff, or we're going to execute it.

It doesn't matter what you do. We're going to do us. We're going to execute it, and so we're going to be successful that way. That's not really how it works anymore. It's really fun to have an offensive staff that understands that and is here now. Again, with Marcus Mariotta, all the stuff that they have there, it's understands that and is here now. And, again, with Marcus Mariotta, all the stuff that they have there.

So it's going to be fun to watch. The offense looked better today from all reports. You know, there was a little bit, I think, concern yesterday afternoon when he was talking about it. The offense kind of sputtered yesterday. The defense looked like they were pretty far ahead. And I wrote about this a little bit this morning on Museum City Miracles. But, you know, I don't think that should be a concern.

We've heard from multiple people that are familiar with this offense that it's going to take everybody a while to pick it up. But once they pick it up, you know, it's going to take off really quickly. So, you know, I think I remember Dan Orlovsky saying, you know, give it a couple weeks in camp before you really make any judgments on how everybody looks in it because that's how long it's going to take for them to all grasp the concepts because it's so much different than what they've done before.

And, you know, defensively, they're not doing anything that much differently than what they did with LeBeau. I mean, sure, things are going to be different. But when you think about the defense, you've upgraded talent. And, you know, your guys that are starting over there, your upgrades are veteran guys. I mean, you bring in Malcolm Butler. So he's not going to have an acclimation period to get up to speed.

You know, right now you've had Will Compton running at least even or ahead of Rashawn Evans. That will, you know, hopefully change as camp goes along. But, I mean, it's a more that side of the ball, a lot more veterans over there. So I think you should expect to see them be ahead early on. You know, and the offense missing one of their biggest playmakers in Rashard Matthews. So, you know, I was hearing some concerns, seeing it on Twitter, hearing it on the radio yesterday with where the offense is.

I don't think it's anything to worry about at this point. Yeah, I'm with you, and I think I said the same thing yesterday. You know, as much talent as this defense has, particularly in the secondary, they're supposed to be ahead. You know, you want them to be ahead. That's what they're paid to do. So you're talking about Malcolm Butler, Dory Jackson, and Logan Ryan, Kevin Byard being ahead of guys like Corey Davis and Taewon Taylor.

That should happen. So I was honestly surprised to see the offense do what they did today, to see Corey Davis making big plays, to see Taewon Taylor reeling in big catches. I think he even saw Michael Campanaro win on a deep route. So that's good news for me, seeing the passing game come along in a 7-on-7 setting or something like that. I think it's a fantastic point.

We should be more concerned if the defense was behind at this point. That would be a bigger issue. seven setting or something like that i think it's a fantastic point that like you should we should be more concerned if the defense was behind right at this point that would yeah that would be a bigger issue than where the offense is i think that's a really good point and you know again honestly i think that for the first time in i mean i don't i couldn't tell you how long like the early you know mcnair and you know greg williams jim Schwartz days, this team has a chance to be really good on both sides of the ball. And I don't know, whatever. But I think you have a chance this year for both sides of the ball to be really good. And that hasn't been the case here.

We've had a lot of years where the defense carried and the offense wasn't as good. You've had a few years where the offense was good and the defense was terrible. And then, quite frankly, you've had a lot of years where both were terrible. So it's just really fun to see a team that you know has the ability to be good on both sides of the ball and and again i just i don't know everybody's optimistic right now everybody's excited but this is this is probably the most excited i've been about titan season in a really long time yeah i totally agree and you just have to pray that number eight and number 84 stay healthy because i think they're the two linchpins

that could set this whole thing off I think the run game is going to be good regardless but if you can get a full season from Corey Davis a full season from Marcus Mariota when he's right and in an actual offense that will let him flourish in the passing game is going to be a thing of beauty. You've just got to hope they can stay healthy and put a full season together. Right, yeah, and that's the thing. I mean, that's the number one thing, right, is Marcus's health. I mean, that's the thing that we all secretly worry about a little bit, but, you know, hopefully in this offense they can protect him a little bit better

and all that kind of stuff. So we'll see how that plays out. That'll be it for us this week. Hang on, we've got breaking news. Delaney Walker signing a contract extension. Really? How about that? There you go.

All right, well. A little live news for you. That is interesting. Okay. Did I have... This is fun. Yeah. That's surprising.

Yeah, so – Yeah, he was on – it's hilarious. I heard him on the day 180 before we came on here. And he said, oh, you know, whatever, we're not worried about it, blah, blah, blah. We've got a two-year extension. He's 33 years old and will be here for two more seasons at least. So all of those draft analysts that say we need a tight end have to hold off for at least two more seasons. I forgot about all that fun.

Well, there you go. It's been a big day. It's been a big day for John Robinson. Well, that's cool. It'll be interesting to see the numbers there. Is it two years on, like, three total seasons? That's a good question. We'll sort all that out.

But, yeah, so let's see what Delaney said. He said, I always feel like a kid. Even though they shut Toys R Us down, I am still a Toys R Us kid. I play football. I play kids' sports. I don't think I'll ever change. I'll be this way forever. There you go.

So that's awesome. I mean, you know, he's a guy that has been here through some lean times. I mean, when he came in, things were not good. he was a guy that talked about uh they needed to change the culture in the locker room and that wasn't that wasn't that group of people that were here then they didn't say those types of things and you know that was something delaney walker was pretty up front about and so you know he's about the right things and that's that's the good thing i mean when you when you're giving guys extensions when you're giving guys a bunch of money, you want to feel good about how much they love to play the game of football.

And with LaJuan, you know that that's the case for him. It's the same thing for Delaney Walker. I mean, this is awesome. I think he can help this team for a couple more years for sure. Yeah, two-year extension, so that's on top of what he already has. So he's going to be here for this season and then two more. So sign through the 2020 season, if I'm reading that right. So, yeah, a guy that came in,

and we talk about Taylor LeJuan being the face of Nashville, but this dude came in and just really took ownership of the Titans and has become one of the faces of the franchise. So awesome, awesome news. J-Rob getting the job done, keeping the Titans' talent in Nashville. This was something that I thought would get done. I really didn't think Delaney would leave after this season. He's not slowing down that much.

He's still a huge part of the offense. So Delaney Walker, John Lewis Smith, maybe they can become that two-headed monster that you hear about at the tight end position. Yeah, absolutely. All right, cool. Like I said, it's been a good day. As long as the Brian Arakpo thing is not serious, then this has been one of the best days I can remember for Titans fans in recent memory.

All right, we'll check that out. We'll get the terms of that deal. We'll get them up on Museum Miracles so you can check that out there. We'll be back next week, probably three or four episodes, so be ready for that. I'm going to try to get it practiced once or twice over the weekend, so hopefully I'll get to see it with my own eyes for the first time this year. It's a good time to be a Titans fan.

So between now and then, again, meet and see miracles.com. Follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmorrismcm. Terry's at tlambertfb. And subscribe to the podcast Locked on Titans wherever you get your podcasts. So for Terry, this is Jimmy saying thanks for listening

and we will talk to you next week.