Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: Disaster in the desert

Episode Date: December 11, 2017

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Welcome into Locked on Titans. I am Jimmy Morris, joined as always by Terry Lambert. Terry, I will skip asking how you're doing tonight. Yeah, fired up. Yeah, I mean, we watched the same game. It was a freaking disaster. The offense is broken, and Titans fans are now fighting with each other on Twitter about what the bigger problem is, and trying to claim their victory because they think that Marcus isn't good. And, I mean, it's just a disaster. The funny thing is the team's 8-5.

I can't imagine what it would be like if they were 5-8. But, you know, we've talked a lot about how some of these things that have been happening in these wins are not sustainable. And we kind of saw that come back today defense was good again but got put in too many bad spots the offense just never could do anything and honestly you kind of got that feeling on the first drive when taewon taylor was open for probably what could have been a really long touchdown and for some reason just never saw the ball i you saw everything come to a point today.

Everything we've been talking about on this podcast, we've been a broken record for three, four, five, six weeks now. It all came to a head today, and the Titans made too many mistakes and couldn't recover from it. I said last week, you know, the Cardinals are a decent football team, and you're not going to be able to make the mistakes down the stretch that the Titans have made and still beat this team. And lo and behold, it happened.

So you've got frustration boiling over with the fan base, and understandably so. I mean, I think, to your point, the team's 8-5. But I think that makes it worse because this team is supposed to be a playoff contender. They're supposed to be, you know, not challenging for a Super Bowl game yet. I don't think anybody's to that point. But they're supposed to be looking like a playoff team, and they're just not. So I think if this team was, know five and eight it would be perceived

differently but it's to the point of where all right well this team should look like a playoff team and they just don't so that makes everything worse yeah and i think i mean if they were there are issues that need to be fixed and i feel like that a lot of times the coaching staff i mean i don't know what they do in-house, obviously. We don't know any of that. It's like these people, when Marcus Mario threw the pick, where Rashard Matthews went out, and Mario threw the ball in the middle of the field, and everybody's like, oh, Mario, that's terrible. We don't know what happened there.

It absolutely could have been Mario's fault. I'm not saying that it wasn't 100%. But it also could have been Rashard Matthews' fault. It was, and Richard has mentioned as much already in the press conference. Yeah, well, I need to go on Twitter. But the thing is, we don't know exactly

what they're doing week in and week out to make changes and tweak things. But honestly, it doesn't look like they're doing anything. This offense looks the same every week. It's stagnant. The play calling is just mind-boggling at times. Sometimes they draw something up that works really well. Again, that play on the first drive to Taewon Taylor, it was wide open.

They had it, and for whatever reason, he didn't find the ball. So, you know, I mean, there's all kinds of things, but I think the coaching staff even has a little bit been hiding behind the 8-4 record and saying, well, look, you may not like how it looks. You may not like, you know, watching these games, but we're winning and that's the most important thing. And that is true to a point. But like you said, we knew at some point it was all going to come to a head and that's

what happened today. And I don't know. I mean, I think that part of it's the offense. But again, Marcus Mariota, like you said, I mean, we just talked real quick before he jumped on. But in this offense last year, at times he looked like he could be the MVP of the league. He was that good. Same offense a year later, it's not working out the same way.

Now, I think they need to make some changes in the play calling and that kind of stuff too. But there's something wrong with Marcus. And I don't know exactly what it is. And again, I'm not saying he's bad because I don't think he's bad I think he's good but right now he is playing bad and I'm not trying to sugarcoat that not trying to make any excuses for him he's playing bad he's got to play better or this team I mean heck if they play like they did today they won't make the playoffs and you know we've we've kind of made a foregone conclusion this team's going to be in the playoffs that we've

been talking about for the last month or so but But if they play like they did today, they may be able to beat San Francisco, but they'll lose to the Rams and the Jaguars, and then, you know, 9-7 or, you know, that would be 8-8, right? So 8-8 and see what happens. So, I mean, I don't know. Like, I would say the playoffs are not a foregone conclusion at this point, and I think the coaching staff needs to be a little bit more realistic and look at what's going on and see what they can do to fix it.

So, I mean, all that's kind of, you know, like stuff. Let's break down some things that actually happened. One of the problems, and we've been talking about this, again, for as long as we've been doing this show, the offensive line is not good. They're not good. They're not good at run blocking. They're not good at pass blocking. They're not good at pass blocking. Didn't help any, obviously, today that Taylor LeJuan went out,

but it wasn't like the left side of the line was the only problem. The line is not good. They're not playing well this year. I don't know why, but I think that Marcus doesn't feel confident in his protection, and so he, like, I mean, there are times in the pocket where it's like he acts like he's eli manning and he can't move like i don't understand you never see him and when's the

last time you saw him break out and make a big run we saw him do that all the time last year he'll every now and then he'll escape and get a few yards but he doesn't have that same i don't know what it is he just had that same look that he did last he doesn't have that same confidence in the things that are going on in front of him. We should mention that he might have gotten a knee injury earlier in this one. And Malarkey said that he did. But, again, he stayed in the game, so we don't know how serious it was. And it really didn't seem to really affect him. Nothing looked different.

But, like Jimmy said, he didn't really run this game. I think he had one run for 10 yards, but that was it we didn't really see him move so that might have been some of the of the issue today uh and again that can affect mechanics that can affect stephan into throws that can affect loading up on his back leg so we don't we don't know know how serious that injury is. But there's just so many moving parts here. I thought the offensive line actually was playing well today. You know, the Titans ran for about three yards a clip in the first half. They weren't doing anything special or fancy. They were just going right at Arizona and hat on a hat

and blowing guys off the ball, and it was working. It was nothing flashy, but they were moving the football. It seemed, and I don't know if you saw this, but it seemed like their issues started when they tried to get fancy, tried to start pulling guards, tried to do some exotic things, put people in motion. When they ran power and stuff like that, anything that requires a guard to pull or anything kind of complex, it got blown up.

So that's something to watch going forward. That's just something that really stood out to me. I think it was the first play of the game. They tried to pull Josh Klein and Derek Henry got blown up for a loss of five. So maybe it's as simple as making things too difficult. I thought that Lyme played one of their better

games, at least in the first half, really without Taylor LeJuan, which was interesting. Yeah, I guess maybe I'm just thinking about at the end. I don't know. The last couple of drives when they needed to get something. Yeah, the last couple of drives were ugly. He was just kind of running for his life. Like I said, he didn't even run for his life. The last couple of drives when they needed to get something. Yeah, the last couple of drives were ugly. That he was just kind of running for his life.

Or like I said, he didn't even run for his life. He just kind of ducked for his life. But, you know, yeah, I don't get it, man. And we saw him take some shots down the field to Corey Davis today. So that was good. Not much came of it. But that's something that we've been kind of screaming about for a long time here, about asking, you know, why they're not that more of that when you draft this guy fifth overall

i cannot for the life of me understand how on fourth and ten at the end of the game they intend to target the dory jackson um i love seeing him on offense and i love seeing him get the ball in his hands but i i don't i don't know how how in the world you can expect to throw him the ball there and johnny smith the love of god like i i get i know what you're trying to do and i get that your job is to go get in that guy's way so that the guy underneath you in this case adory jackson is open like i understand that that's the play but you have got to be better at doing that without just going out there and flat on blocking him like and that's not the

first time he's done that this year and like you can get away with pick plays and rub plays if you do them correctly but he just goes out there and blocks the guy before the ball zone and it's just ridiculous so i just don't i don't understand um things like that i don't know that's just that's not even that big of a deal i guess because the game i mean you know none of us i don't think had any confidence uh i mean again i think you and i are two of the bigger you know mariotta believers and supporters uh that are left and i had zero confidence the last two times i got the ball there was any way they were gonna go and get a touchdown like i just you could just tell that it just wasn't happening today so So there's so much stuff.

And I don't know. Eric Decker's dropping balls. I'm like, why? What's happening here? Delaney Walker. He had a couple of tough ones. That play right at the end of the game, I can't remember, it was like third down.

It was second down. He got killed on third down and dropped the ball. You can't blame him for that. The second down play, we're like, he almost made a number of people play, and the guy came through and kicked it out of his hand as he was going down. I mean, again, almost made a great play. So you had some tough luck things like that. But overall, man, I just don't. I don't know.

It's broken. And, you know, it's not, you know, there are people that are getting paid a lot of money to figure out why and to try to fix the things that are broken about this offense. But for weeks now, we've kind of seen the same thing over and over, and they haven't come anywhere close to fixing it, at least that I can see. Can we talk about the receivers, blaming the receivers for these interceptions? And, you know, when you watch the tape, it's obvious.

It's on the receivers. Someone's not on the same page. Someone's run a route that he's not supposed to or Marcus threw a ball where he wasn't supposed to. Anyways, something's not working here. Something's not gelling. They haven't been in rhythm all year. That doesn't change week to week, and we see those same issues.

Think about the Pittsburgh game. I think Corey Davis was credited with two of those interceptions because he ran the wrong route or was in the wrong spot. Why does that keep happening? I ask myself this all the time. It seems like the staff, and I don't want to say they're covering for Marcus, but they do tend to side with the receivers. And, you know, the staff doesn't give me a feel like they're going to BS you

or, you know, just go out of their way to cape for their quarterback. But at some point this has to come back to the staff. If you're seeing a mistake made every week out of the same group of receivers why are you not stepping in and either simplifying it or or fixing it so uh it seems like the titans are running a lot of option routes you know if you see this then run this uh and and marcus just is not on the same page with it and it's created countless turnovers really over the past two years because we've heard this excuse for a while now. That's something that they've got to clean up,

and I don't understand why they haven't already. And you say the last two years, but it's so much worse this year. Like, it's happening like a couple times a game this year. Now, granted, the second pick tonight was just ridiculous. I mean, you know, Mariota's got to see that guy dropping into coverage and he quite honestly even if that throw gets past even if that linebacker's not there it wasn't going to be a good throw it was already behind i think it was millennium walker he was throwing too i mean he's just not he doesn't have it right now now again i think that he i think overall he has it but right now he doesn't and i don't know what they can do to

try to get him back somewhere close to the level he was at last year but you know i mean again we just we had such a view of what we thought this team was going to be coming into this year and we thought it was going to be an offensive team that was going to be able to make some explosive plays but definitely be able to sustain drops um but the defense was going to be behind the offense and you know we were hoping the defense could be good enough so this team could win enough games to sneak into the playoffs well you know coming into this week you're in a place where you're in the driver's seat to win your division and it's all because of your defense the offense has let them down time and time again and you saw the same thing today so i'm with you i mean at some point

you can't be stubborn on well this is our offense and this is what we run and we're going to keep doing it no matter what at some point you've got to sit down and look and say okay look this is not working and so we've got to come up with something that will work so that we can you know score points win games that kind of stuff and they're just just, they don't seem to be willing to do that, to look at themselves, to evaluate what's working and what's not. And if these option routes are not working, if Marcus and the receiver can't get on the same page, whoever's fault it is, I don't even care at this point whose fault it is,

if they can't get on the same page in those, you've got to do something different. Because it's obviously, you know, we're what? So we're 14 games into this, or 13 games into this season. Like, what's going to change? Like, do they think it's just going to click next week all of a sudden and everything's going to work like it's supposed to? They've got to figure out something else because they're going to, I mean,

right now they look like they're going to squander away what looked like a really good opportunity to at least get in the playoffs. And I don't know, man. I'm so frustrated right now I can't even hardly think straight. Okay, so look, I've thought about this a lot. What do you think about this team if Deshaun Watson doesn't blow his knee out and if he's still shredding the NFL? What do you think about this team if Andrew Luck is still playing for the Colts right now?

So the Titans have had the softest schedule, I think, in the NFL. The Jaguars have had it pretty easy too. But still, I mean, you've had this schedule handed to you on a silver platter, and you're 8-4, and it looks like you should be a lot worse. So, you know, you kind of think about this team going forward. Well, it's about to get a lot harder with two of the best quarterbacks in the NFL coming back to the division. So it's really hard to get excited for this team long term.

And that's not to say that Marcus can't be fixed. He can totally be fixed. But you kind of got to look at it from a big-picture point of view in that this was the easiest year, the easiest path to get to the playoffs. And, you know, the Titans might actually not do it. So it's kind of shocking. There's big, big problems there. And it's just Titans fans have every right to be frustrated.

And, you know, you've seen it. They were 8-4, and this is still one of the most negative fan bases out there. You know, anyone with a brain and eyes could see what was coming. This has been a flawed team, and you just kind of saw it all come to a point today. Yeah, and, you know, I mean, I've been – everybody's been, you know, on the Jaguars about how good they are and all that stuff. And I'm like, yeah, Blake Bortles is their quarterback. Sounds like good.

Listen, that team's good. They're really good. And I was wrong there. I mean, I don't know. I guess they went on and won the day. I kind of shut everything down after the Titans game. I know the Seahawks kind of made it close to the end. But, you know, yeah, like you're saying, I mean,

this has been the year they should have been able to take advantage of. And what happens? Yeah, I mean, what happens if Andrew Luck and Deshaun Watson are playing this year? I mean, I don't think Titans are going to beat the Texans with Deshaun Watson the second time. You would got to think you would at least split with the Colts if Andrew Luck's out there. So, I mean, you know, when you put all that into perspective,

I mean, none of that really matters for this year. But like you said, something to think about going forward and how we evaluate this team in this offseason and stuff. But, man, I don't know. Like, they got to do something. They got to figure out something on offense to get things moving. I mean, they just look like the worst offense in the league right now i mean you know there are teams that have like legitimately like not nfl quarterbacks on that running their offenses that look a lot better right now than this team does and and so i mean

i don't i don't know but they they got to figure out something uh to be able to fix it and where does it start i mean it starts up front starts running game, but we've been saying that for weeks. I'll give DeMarco Murray credit. You know, we killed him for weeks on this podcast, and everybody that had eyes and was watching the games, he didn't look good. The last two games, he's looked really good. Now, I don't understand why, you know, I don't know.

I feel like they still should get Derrick Henry more involved, but today it was just like they didn't have the ball. It was just one of those games where it's just like they just could never do anything, so they weren't able to settle into any kind of rhythm. But, I mean, if you want a bright spot from this, I feel like the last two weeks, DeMarco Murray has looked like

at least a serviceable NFL back. I'm not going to say he's at the level he was at last year, because you made a point on Twitter about how long it took him to cut back on that one run. There's clearly some issues there. But at least going forward right now, he looks like he could hit a hole and get yards when they're there. And three weeks ago, he didn't look like that. Yeah, and even still, you're talking about three yards a carry.

Right. There's just not a lot there. So you're talking about going on the road. Titans are going to stay out west. Going on the road to face San Francisco, who suddenly looks like a different team with Jimmy Garoppolo. They beat the Texans on the road by 10. So that's a tough game.

And then you come home to face the Rams and the Jaguars. So suddenly, and not to go full negative on this, but 8-8 looks, if not probable. I mean, you know, it's kind of crazy to think. But the Titans are going to be in a dogfight with the 49ers last week. They're going to have to find a way to put the pieces back together. They're just going to have to manufacture some sort of offense. But we have no reason to believe that, you know,

Hrabisky and Malarco are going to wave a wand and everything's going to get better. It's been a steady decline really since that Pittsburgh game. And I'm not sure there's a way out of it with this season, you know, kind of still going on. There's no way to go add a piece to the puzzle. You're going to have to scheme something up. And we've seen no ability out of the staff to make changes.

Yeah, absolutely. It's frustrating. But, you know, it's, I guess, funny how much things can change. But like you said, just in a loss, it finally, like, it finally highlights everything that has been an issue but then just kind of keeps getting swept under the rug because they're winning. So it's like they don't even have to address those types of things. Coming up in a sec, we'll talk about the defense and what they were able to do today.

And if you're going to find something positive from this game, it was that unit. Okay, so again, the offense was terrible. No doubt about that. No way around it. The defense, however, kept this team in the game. You had two interceptions from Mariota. Now, one of them was pretty deep, so it's not like they put the defense in a bad spot there.

But the second interception was you know midfield ish um you had the fake punt which which i still i like whatever i mean it's a it's a stupid time to do that um it's a stupid whatever but like i still cannot understand how they overturned that you can't the the call the call was probably like they probably they probably got it right when they came back and moved it back and gave the Cardinals the ball. That was probably correct.

But on all the stuff that they were showing, you cannot definitively see where the ball is. I don't understand how they're going to return that, but whatever. It's a dumb call. Positivity was the best. The defense holds up there. They give a big play, like I think the first play of that drive, but they held the Cardinals to the field. The Cardinals didn't get a touchdown today the the defense was was on all day long they were getting pressure on blaine gabbert um you know that the defense has been

they've been pretty good all year but they've been even better you know in the last month if you don't include the pittsburgh game about getting pressure on the quarterback and that kind of stuff so i mean you see that and it's a shame, again, that you're wasting it. Like, Wesley Woodyard is having an unbelievable year. I mean, that hit he put on Blaine Gabbert today, like Gabbert will feel that for three weeks. I mean, he's literally shot out of a cannon. I mean, it's literally like he could have broken his ribs how hard he hit him there.

He's been playing great. So, I mean, you know, there's some encouraging things there. They did a good job on Larry Fitzgerald. You know, that was one of the things that we were really kind of afraid of. We talked about how it would be better with Logan Ryan things there, they did a good job on Larry Fitzgerald. That was one of the things that we were really kind of afraid of. We talked about how it would be better with Logan Ryan out there, but we were afraid of what he was going to be able to do. So, I mean, there's positives on that side of the ball, and it's just a shame that when we thought about how good we thought the offense

was going to be and how much the defense was going to struggle, if you had told me nothing about the offense but told me the defense was going to be playing as well as they are, then I would have thought this team would be really in the mix for something. But the offense just hasn't held up their end of the bargain. Yeah, the defense got put in bad situation after bad situation and just stood tall time and time again. I had buried the Titans three different occasions, and the defense just kept them in it.

You know, forced four field goals. They missed the fifth. So 12 points. Yeah, if your defense holds the opponent at 12 points and you don't win a game, you've got big-time offensive issues. So they started out, they had something like six sacks in the first half. So they couldn't protect Blaine Gabbert at all. Kerwin Williams, 20 carries, 73 yards.

That's about three yards a carry. I thought Austin Johnson was pretty good in replacement of Daquan Jones, so we'll have to go back and look at that tape a little more. Larry Fitzgerald was pretty good today. I thought he had a wide open touchdown. Gabbert just missed. It could have been a little worse today. But overall, just a really solid outing.

We saw the pass rush step up with Derek Morgan out. Dick LeBeau did some exotic things, had plenty of blitzes up his sleeve today. They deserve to win, and it's pretty disheartening to see them get a loss. Yeah, and like you said, I mean, if your defense holds the opponent at 12 points, you should win every time, especially with an offense that is supposed to have as many weapons as this one is supposed to have. You know, 12 points shouldn't be a problem, but obviously it is. And, yeah, I mean, credit to where, obviously it is credit to Dick LeBeau

he's got this unit playing well if you want to sit down and look at it with quite a bit less talent than what it's supposed to be on the offensive side of the ball hats off to him I think the run defense

you could see some holes there today that haven't been there in the past part of that you know i think daquan jones being out part of that zary morgan being out um so there were some issues there but at the end of the day the numbers weren't that bad and again they played plenty well enough to win so you know i don't know just another kind of frustrating game all the way around. And like you said, I mean, at this point, what gives us any confidence that they're going to be able to fix these things going forward? And then when you look at, like, the way the Rams are playing right now, the way the Jaguars are playing right now, you know, I mean,

if you ask me to pick the three remaining games right now, I'm going to say they go to San Francisco and win just because I think they're the more talented team. Now, obviously, yes, Jimmy garoppolo has come in and he's played well um so that does give me a little bit of pause but i think that the titans can win that game but then you come home for those last two against what i mean you know you have to say it what right now is two of the better teams in the entire nfl what what faith what sense do we have that they can win either one of those games? When we looked at it, we started this four-game stretch

that started with Colts, Texans, Cardinals, 49ers. I thought they had a good chance to win all four of those. Then if you can split the last two, then you're in the playoffs. You may not win the division, but you're definitely in as a wild card. But now you've dropped this one. You've got to go in next week. And then if you split the last two, you probably get in. But at the same time, like, again, what faith do we have

that they can win any of those last two games? Yeah, I've got nothing. I mean, I don't have any solution. I just don't know what to say. As a Titans fan, I don't have much to cling to right now. So you just kind of hope that the defense can keep playing at a high level and you just – you hope that Mariota can limit the turnovers and Derrick Henry in the offensive line

and DeMarco Murray can get going a little bit. But, you know, we've been saying that for weeks, and it's just kind of the same game. Every Titans game is the same. They just didn't come out on top. They didn't make the plays at the end. That was the only difference today. Yeah, and you can't play with that slim of a margin for that long.

And expect to win all the time. Really expect to be better than 500 if you're if you're going to play like that um and the titans have obviously been on the good side of variance and when it comes to that stuff so far this year and it just kind of came back this week so yeah i mean that's that's the thing and i mean i'm worried about marcus now because i just don't know i don't know what it is um I mean, obviously, his confidence is not there. I don't know how he gets it back. But, you know, week in and week out, it just kind of looks the same.

I keep, like, I don't know. I keep expecting him to, like, do something to snap out of it. But at this point, man, I mean, I don't know. I don't know that that's going to happen. Yeah, I keep thinking back to that picture of the dude holding the stick, poking the ground saying, do something. You know, we're just waiting on him to do something, to come out of it, to be the Marcus of old, and it's just not happening.

So I don't know what to tell you at this point. But, you know, draft season is just around the corner. So we're teetering dangerously close to to that so get ready for the mock drafts yeah that's quite the swinging thing now if you still want to um which i mean i still have to make the playoffs i mean that's that's still fun and and you know that all that that should always still be the goal um you know as far as that goes uh you need the students to beat the ravens on sunday night um obviously you may not be listening to this on Monday morning, so you'll know the outcome of that game.

We're recording a little bit before it tonight. And then kind of check where you are as far as the wild card goes and all that stuff. But, man, now you've got to look at those teams in the West that are getting back above.500 and all that stuff. We'll talk a little bit more about that as the week goes along. But any final thoughts before we get out of this one? No, I think we pretty much wrapped it up.

We'll have to kind of decompress and take a look back and come back with a little more tempered take tomorrow night. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. This is like a couple hours after the game, so we're still kind of reeling a little bit. But we thought it would be good to go ahead and jump in and kind of get it. Because, I mean, I'm sure that Titans fans that are listening to this are feeling the same frustrations that we are. All right, so like I said from the top, I'm Jimmy Morris at jmorrismcm on Twitter.

Follow the site, musiccitymiracles.com. Terry and I both write for that site. You can follow Terry on Twitter at TLambertFB. Thanks for listening to Locked on Titans, and we will hit you with another episode tomorrow.