Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: Don't panic about what you saw against the Steelers

Episode Date: August 27, 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 pretty well. What's up, man? I'm surprised that you're still doing well since the sky is falling and the Titans haven't won any games. Man, there was quite the Twitter reaction to the game yesterday afternoon. We'll get into all that here in just a minute. Before we do, I want to remind you that we write for MutantSeedMiracles.com where we cover the Titans for SB Nation. Check us out there. You can also follow us on Twitter.

I'm Matt J. Morris, MCM. Terry's at TLambertFB. You can find the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Just search out LockedOnTitans and you can find it there.

Yeah, so yesterday, I mean, obviously, you know, not the greatest performance in the world. Not what, you know, necessarily we wanted to see. Hoping the Titans offense

would, you know would play three possessions, score three touchdowns. Defense would get three pick sixes in that same time. End of the second quarter, Titans are up. We don't ask for much. 42 to nothing, and we're all happy, right? Well, that's not how it played out, obviously. And so this has led a lot of people to, you know, it's a disaster.

They better not extend Marcus Mariota's contract and all this kind of stuff that I've seen out there that's just crazy to me. You know, the Browns put 4-0 last preseason, so everybody remember that. And then, obviously, they didn't win a game during the regular season. So it's the preseason. You need to take everything with a grain of salt. Like I said, sure, we would have liked to see some things better. To me, the biggest thing that everybody's freaking out about is the pass that, you know, Mariota short-hopped to Corey Davis.

When you go to Corey Davis, it's wide open, sure. You would love to see him hit that throw, get a big play, whatever. After the game, basically both guys, Mariota and Davis, took the blame for what went wrong. There was miscommunication. It was not just for what went wrong. There was miscommunication. It was not just a bad throw. It was a miscommunication. Davis wasn't where Marcus Mariota thought he should have been. You can read different analysts' stuff on Twitter and try to decide whose fault it was or whatever.

But the bigger point here is that the offense as a whole is not all the way there yet. And again, we've been telling you all along that that was going to be the case, that it was going to take some time with this offense. But some people apparently just saw that one play and have decided the season's over, Moriota's done, Corey Davis is a bust, I mean, everybody's just ready to give up. So maybe we had the added benefit of not watching the game live, so we didn't have Twitter up and following with the mob mentality. So maybe that plays into it.

But I just didn't see it that way. I mean, the offense wasn't good, don't get me wrong. They missed some things. But like Dan Orlovsky told us in the offseason, it's going to take some time. And don't be surprised when it starts slow. So I think we were expecting this. When you throw in the fact that Jack Conklin

is not here yet, Rashard Matthews is not out there, Delaney Walker didn't play, you've got a starting unit that's just not complete. So yes, you want to see the chemistry between 8 and 84.

You want to see that. And, honestly, it should be there. It should be coming along. By all accounts, it's come along in camp, but you didn't see it in that game setting, so everyone's losing their minds. You know, if you're calling Marcus Mariota a bust over that, I don't know what to tell you.

Because if you watch what happened after the play, Mariota comes right over to Davis, takes him under his arm, and says, hey, we're not on the same page. I don't know what he said, but clearly Marcus thought he was going to do one thing and Davis thought another. So I don't think that's a big deal. And Vrabel said it's on him to get them on the same page. But it wasn't a matter of Marcus lacking the talent to get the ball there.

It was just a miscommunication that's going to happen. Yes, it's frustrating because that happened all last season. But it's going to get better. I think the important thing to remember here is all the pieces are not in place yet. So let's wait and see. Yeah, absolutely. And there was another throw that Mariota missed. I can't remember who it was to offhand now.

Maybe Jonu. He just threw it a little bit high. So, I mean, yeah, he missed a couple throws. That stuff's going to happen. I mean, watch Ben Rothenberg on the other side. There was a route down the sideline he threw out of bounds. He had another little screen-type play. Just him and the receiver were on the same page, threw it over his head.

That kind of stuff's going to happen. Would we like to see Mariota look better? Sure. Would we like to see him make the throws that are there? Absolutely. But, you know, again, this is not the end of the world. That game didn't count. Everybody seems to have forgotten that.

the end of the world. That game didn't count. Everybody seems to have forgotten that. So, and this is, I mean, if you want to look at it this way, that's the first game that the first team has lost. I mean, if you look back at just the ones versus ones in the first three games, I think the Titans and the Packers both got a touchdown

with their ones, and the Titans were they didn't give up a touchdown. The defensive ones didn't give up a touchdown in that game, and the offense scored one. So, I mean, let's just thereby calm down. It's going to be all right. The bigger thing to me was the offensive line did not look good across the board.

You know, there were a few busted coverages. There was a miscommunication on one with Josh Klon, Derek Henry, whatever. Derek Henry missed the block on the first sack on marcus mariota um so i mean that that's a good defensive line it's a good defense all that kind of stuff but still the titans offensive line is supposed to be you know one of the best in the league and they didn't show up very well yesterday the run game couldn't get a whole lot going. So to me, I mean, if we're ranking concerns, I'm a little bit more concerned about that than I am Mariota's actual performance. Yeah, what I will say I'm concerned about is Derrick Henry in pass protection.

I know it's not a – I don't have a lot of examples to show here, but I believe it was the first Mariota sack. It was on play action. Henry came in and was supposed to get a, I think it was a linebacker, coming up a gap. And Henry's effort just didn't look great there. You know, it looked like the effort he gave in Kansas City. He made contact this time, but still let his guy by,

and Marcus was sacked immediately. That's just kind of disheartening to see. That's a clear area of weakness for Derek Henry. It's something he's been working on. We've seen examples in training camp with the Twitter clips and all this, but it only counts in the game. So that was frustrating for me, and that's why I really think Deion Lewis is going to be,

as the season goes on, I think he's going to turn into the guy here in this backfield. I have big concerns with Derrick Henry being able to protect Marcus. I mean, Derrick Henry's issues in pass protection, we've seen them before. Hopefully that's something he can get figured out. But if he can't, like you said, Deion Lewis is going to get a lot of run in this offense. I mean, I think he's going to get a lot of run anyway. But he's going to get a lot more if Derrick Henry can't protect the quarterback.

So that'll be something to watch. And then, like you said a few minutes ago, you don't have Rashard Matthews out there. You don't have Delaney Walker out there. You know, all that stuff takes its toll. And so, you know, when you're operating not at 100%, and I mean, I know, you know, on one hand, it sounds like we're making excuses here. But I'm just telling you, when you're when you're operating not at 100 percent and i mean i know it you know on one hand it sounds like we're making excuses here but i'm just telling you when you when you

don't have your your top weapons out there uh it's going to handicap any offense so all that stuff combined to me is just like okay no it wasn't what we wanted to see we hoped that it would play out better than that but let let's just not worry about it now. Let's see how things continue to develop. Let's worry about week one in Miami because I don't think we're going to see many of these guys in the fourth preseason game. So, I don't know, no reason to freak out. We'll kind of just take that with a grain of salt,

take that performance with a grain of salt, and, again, hope that things improve in practice each day. We're not really going to know. But they're going to continue to get more work in, get on the same page and all that stuff. And as the seasons go along, it will get better. So I think we can take heart in that. All right, so we're really excited that MyBookie is back on as a sponsor of the show this year. You know, you heard us talk about them last year.

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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 to claim the bonus. You play, you win, you get paid. All right, shifting to the defensive side of the ball. You know, you've got injuries on that side as well. No Arakpo, no Morgan, no Malcolm Butler in this game. Harold Landry ended up getting injured in the game.

He's got an ankle injury. We don't know how serious it is. So that'll be something to kind of keep an eye on. But, I mean, the biggest thing to me watching the game was they really weren't able to get any pressure on Ben Roethlisberger. I really think they only pressured him twice. And both times it was Logan Ryan on a corner blitz. So, you know, a bit of a concern, sure.

But again, when you look at the guys that weren't out there, when you don't have your rotation of pass rushers, when you're missing, you know, maybe one of your top corners, you're not going to see them perform the way that they can when at full capability. So, I mean, listen, the most concerning thing to me that I've seen this entire preseason was giving up a touchdown pass to Justin Hunter. Yeah, Justin Hunter, of course. It had to be Justin Hunter, didn't it?

So, yeah, defense is weird. Really, projecting this team based off preseason is weird because you don't have your pieces in place. You don't have your pass rusher. You don't have Morgan or Akpo. Now you might not have Harold Landry. So it's just really hard to get a feel. Malcolm Butler's missed the last two preseason games.

So, again, it's just hard to get a feel for where this group's at. Everything on paper looks great. But then you've also got Dean Pease saying that they haven't game planned in the slightest for preseason, so keep that in mind. So you're still getting very vanilla looks. It was disappointing to see no pressure get to Ben. I think you said Logan Ryan led the team with two pressures. So that's kind of embarrassing.

That tells me that Dean Pease had to dial some stuff up, and he felt like he wasn't getting enough pressure there. But overall, I thought Dory Jackson, outside of that Justin Hunter play, made that nice play on Juju Smith-Schuster on a drag route that really stopped the drive. So he continues to impress but yeah it's hard to ignore that justin hunter uh touchdown catch i think he pushed off just a little bit but it would have been really nice to see that a little bit in tennessee wouldn't it yeah i was gonna say i don't know what he he learned to push off to do things that receivers do.

Yeah, it would have been nice if he could have done that here. But, yeah, there's not that much, like you said, that you can take away here. You're playing vanilla coverages. I've been impressed with Adoree Jackson. I mean, overall, you saw him make, like you were saying, a couple plays yesterday. He gave up the touchdown there, but they were okay. He knocked one away from Juju, and then he had another one where he stopped.

I think it was Juju on the other one, too, where he stopped him short on the third down route. So, I mean, I've been encouraged a little bit by his play. What we've seen from a healthy Harold Landry has been impressive. So that's obviously a good thing. Still haven't seen Rashawn evans you know so i'm seeing a rack poe in games because he hurt himself before they played the first preseason game like i said malcolm both missed the last two so yeah it's just it's weird and i mean you know

they've got all these injuries i think that there's at least a reasonable chance with everybody that we've mentioned so far those guys will be available week one. So, I mean, with the exception of Jonathan Cipri and, you know, Terrence ACL, they haven't lost that front-line starter. So, I mean, you have to be happy with that. I mean, that's really the biggest thing for preseason is everybody emerging healthy. So that's a good thing, but it would be nice for them to be able to have some of these guys on the field together to get that continuity, just coming into a good thing, but it would be nice for them to be able to have some of these guys on the field together to get that continuity just coming into a different system, obviously, offensively and defensively.

So that's just something we're not going to have the advantage of seeing in the preseason. And like I said earlier, I mean, we just kind of hope it all comes together when they go to Miami. Yeah, I wish we had more to talk about defensively as a whole. But you're right. I mean, Rashawn Evans, people forget about the first-round pick, and that's just crazy. More to talk about defensively as a whole. But you're right. I mean, Rashawn Evans, people forget about the first-round pick, and that's just crazy. But practiced – well, he didn't practice.

He warmed up this week and then went back inside, said he didn't feel great. So who knows there. But, yeah, just so many pieces missing within this front seven. And then they're holding Malcolm Butler out. So it feels strange, but I just, I want to believe in the unit, but we're not going to get to see that unit until Miami, I guess. Right. And like you said, I mean, you want to believe in it. You know the names.

There have been different points where they've been productive throughout training camp and all that kind of stuff so again i'm just gonna hold out hope for that kind of stuff until we get different something different until we know what's going on i'm just gonna bet on the talent there and and keep my optimism based off of what they've got on both sides of the ball and again we'll just kind of have to see how it all plays out. All right, coming up, we'll talk a little bit about some injuries, new stuff that happened today, and just a couple of roster moves that were made.

So the biggest news of the day was that Richard Matthews, this was on Sunday, was activated off of PUP. So he should be at practice this week. day was activated off of PUP. So he should be at practice this week. You know, Paul Karski reported last week that it was a meniscus issue that he had a procedure done back early summer, late spring. And that's why he's been out this long. But obviously he's healthy enough now to be back. So they'll bring him on.

I would doubt he plays in the preseason game, in the fourth preseason game, but I expect him to be a full go for week one. So that's the biggest thing. That's the guy we've kind of been monitoring the most all along. It'll be interesting to watch Jack Conklin now. Will they bring him off of PUP? Will he be ready to go in week one? I don't know.

We'll just have to kind of watch and see how that plays out. Michael Campanaro was a guy that a lot of people assumed was going to make this roster. They signed him to fill a role. He went on IR today. It's been a couple weeks since we've seen him. So kind of a little bit more clarity at the receiver position. Now, Nick Williams injured his hamstring in the game on Saturday. Don't know how severe that is yet.

But I don't know. It just seems like all along we've been with whoever this fifth and or sixth receiver is going to be. It's just kind of fluctuated up and down based off of, you know, sometimes performance, sometimes injuries. And now it's kind of your guess is as good as mine because we're not going to get the severity of these injuries. So who knows what's going to end up there.

I mean, we're not going to get any updates there. But the biggest thing for me is Harold Landry injuring the ankle because the whole draft process was tied to his ankle. 16 and a half sacks in 2016, then he comes in 2017 and he hurts his ankle and he's not the same player so that's concerning to me of course Vrabel's not going to tell us how how bad of an injury that is but that seemed to really alter his game at Boston College and I would really hate for that to affect his rookie season because it had started out so well yeah that's going to be the biggest injury I guess of all this to watch

is you know and again all we're going to know is if he practiced or not that's all we're going to get until we get an injury report the good news is we're only what a little bit over a week away from having an injury report I guess a week and a half because the wednesday before miami will be the first time they have to give that so at that point we'll get some type of indication of at least the amount of you know practice they were able to participate in um so i don't know like you said rashaun evans we haven't seen him besides the brief period uh last week will he be back and all that kind of stuff we'll continue to watch that i i don't know and we have no idea how long these guys are going to play if at all on thursday uh when the times

for their fourth preseason game so it'll just be kind of a wait and see type approach i would be surprised to see rashawn evans to see richard matthews i guys haven't played in the preseason at all to see them play in this game but who knows uh they might feel like they need to be out there and get some reps so we'll kind of keep an eye on that as the week goes along. Anything else we need to hit tonight? Yeah, I don't think Evans is going to play, but I think you can be encouraged with him at least getting warmed up last week. I don't see any scenario where he doesn't at least practice this week.

So I think we can look forward to that. And at least he'll be ready to go be healthy for week one. i don't know how much he'll play or any of that stuff after you know missing basically the entire preseason with with this injury whatever we still don't know what it is um besides it was heat related but right um so i i don't know how much we can expect him to play early early in the season but to have him out there and available is obviously a good thing. A very talented player. It would just be a matter of him being able to get up to speed, obviously conditioning-wise and with the defense and all that kind of stuff.

Anyway, just a few things to watch as we go through practice this week. And then, obviously, the big roster cut down. It doesn't have to happen until Saturday the 31st. That's the day that they – no september 1st is saturday so saturday september 1st is when they have to go from 90 to 53 last year they did make an initial round of cuts after that fourth preseason game i can't remember how many guys they cut they cut 10 or 15 guys the next day if you remember the past they used to go from 90 to 75 and then from 75 to 53 they don't do that anymore now they only have to do they only have to go from 90 to 53 so uh we'll

keep an eye obviously talk about that as that as that goes on this week again in the meantime check us out museummiracles.com uh we'll have a lot of stuff going up as news becomes available we're going to have jonathan hutton uh later later in the week to get his impressions of the third preseason game and just, you know, can't preseason as a whole. Obviously, a guy that's very plugged in, Titans radio, silent report, all that kind of stuff. So we're going to have him on later this week, and then we're going to have Mike

Keith before leading up to week one. So next week, we'll have Mike Keith on. So just a couple things to check out. Again, follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmorrismcm. Terry's at tlambertfb. Podcast account, Locked on Titans. You can follow us there.

You can also subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. Again, just search out Locked on Titans. For Terry, this is Jimmy saying thanks for listening, and we will talk again later this week.