Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: Final 53 man roster projection

Episode Date: August 31, 2018

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

Welcome in to another edition of Locked on Titans. I'm Jimmy Morris, joined as always by Terry Lambert. Terry, how are you tonight? I am trying to wake up from what I just watched. Yeah, so the preseason is over, mercifully. The fourth preseason game just ended, so we'll go play-by-play and break that down with Terry. No, we won't. We'll go play-by-play and break that down with Terry. No, we won't. Anyway. Anyway, all right.

So before we do that, museummiracles.com. Terry and I write Covering the Titans for SB Nation, so you can check us out there. You can follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmorrismcm. Terry's at tlambertfb. You can find the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Just search out Locked on Titans. Subscribe to us there.

You'll get the newest episodes as soon as they are available. Alright, so I didn't get to watch much of the final preseason game, so I'm going to kind of kick this to Terry to let him give his thoughts on it. I was watching an 8U baseball game, which I think was probably more exciting than the final preseason game.

Give us your impressions of four quarters of Luke Falk. Not good. He played the whole game tonight. He didn't do anything catastrophically bad, but he never got anything going. He took three or four deep shots that were just not even close. The guy's just bad. He doesn't have it.

He never got it. I don't think he's got a chance at sticking around. Maybe he lands on the practice squad. But, you know, even then, there's probably more capable guys out there that you can get. So, interested to see where he lands, actually. But I know it's not going to be on this 53-man roster. So, starters didn't play any at all. lands, actually, but I know it's not going to be on this 53-man roster. Starters didn't play any at all.

It was Daylon Dawkins getting the bulk of the work for the Titans offense. I think he had 17 carries for 50-something yards. Just not a lot to take away here. Dawkins looked okay. He looked shifty like he always looks. But the offensive line was not very good. They didn't really generate much push off the line of scrimmage. And, you know, you look at these receivers. Cameron Batson made a couple of plays, but they were all kind of handicapped by Luke Falk.

So didn't really get any answers in that way. But, yeah, preseason is over. That's my main takeaway. I'll go ahead and say I don't know why the preseason is four games anymore. You can accomplish this in two or three games. You can have your dress rehearsal in game two and kind of have your preseason week four game move to week three. So there's no reason to put everyone through four weeks of this.

I mean, tonight around the NFL was just brutal. Nobody in the stands. It's just not a good look for the league, who still charges a pretty penny to get into the gates of these games. So I'd like to see that visited pretty soon by Roger Goodell. Yeah, and this year even, so many teams didn't do what you've seen in the past with the third

preseason game. Starters playing into the second half. That kind of was the standard the last few years, but we didn't see that with the Titans. There were some teams that still didn't play their starters. A guy like Todd Gurley didn't play the entire preseason. So, I mean, yeah, I think you're exactly right.

And really, I was here, I can't remember who I was listening to, but they were talking about how teams are doing more of the joint practice things like the Titans did with the Bucs this year, and that a lot of coaches are putting even more weight into that than they are preseason games. So it seems like if you could get one of those, and the Titans have had one, I think, pretty much for the last five or six years, you get one of those, get a couple of preseason games,

I mean, that should be enough. I don't know that that'll happen before the next collective bargaining agreement, whatever that is. I think it's a couple years out still. But, yeah, I mean, I'm with you. I think that's something they definitely need to revisit. And, you know, just a league that has some image problems anyway, I mean, I think that would help them.

Quickly back to Luke Falk. You know, it's just funny, the conversations that we had when they drafted him and whatever. I mean, we never had a lot of hopes for that guy. But, you know, there was just conversations about, hey, he's going to be the backup next year. You know, they won't be able to cut him and sneak him through the practice squad and blah, blah, blah.

And it's just funny we're seeing this play out now. And it's like, I mean, I don't even know if they want, like you said, I don't even know if they want him on the practice squad. It seems like there's other guys that are going to be cut, you know, either tomorrow or Saturday that are going to be better. So I don't think they're going to have to hide him. I don't think they're going to be holding their breath, worried that somebody's going to claim him in the 24 hours

after he gets cut tomorrow. So, yeah, it's over. That's good. On to week one. So that's the biggest takeaway from this game. All right, so what we're going to do next is kind of go through a 53-man roster projection, just kind of as it stands right now. Obviously, the Titans have until Saturday at 3 to get down to 53.

You know, no first cut anymore. But last year we did see John Robinson let some guys go on Friday, and then the rest on Saturday. So we'll see if that's how it plays out again this year. But we'll kind of give you our thoughts. Before we do that, we're going to talk about my bookie. We've talked about my bookie a lot. Great place to go if you're the betting type, if you want to wager on sports.

They got everything you could want there. They got good lines. They got lines before games, in-game lines, everything. College football obviously starts this weekend. If you want to get in on that action with the NFL kicking off next week, there's no better time to do it. And, again, the biggest thing with them is if you win, you get paid. You know, sometimes they'll give you the runaround,

trying to get your money and all that kind of stuff. But that's not the case at MyBookie. So MyBookie.ag, check them out. The other thing that we talk about a lot their mobile site is awesome it's so easy to use you don't have to download an app you just go to their mobile site everything that you need is right there it's just like it would be if you were on a

laptop or desktop if you join mybookie now they will match your deposit dollar for dollar if you use the promo code locked on that's how you activate the offer again that's promo code locked on visit mybookie online today that's m- activate the offer. Again, that's promo code LOCKEDON. 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, so looking at the offensive side of the ball. And Terry and I kind of talked through this a little bit before we came on, but obviously with our prior conversation, I think that it's safe to say that they're going to only keep two quarterbacks. Those quarterbacks will be Marcus Mariota and Blaine Gabbert. That's the plan all along for that to be how this played out. Then it was just a matter of could Luke Falk push enough

that they had to keep him on the active roster and not be able to put him on the practice squad. I don't think they have any problem getting him there now. So I don't think that that position warrants a lot of discussion. Any disagreement there? No. Two quarterbacks for me. All right.

Moving to running back, this is where it does get a little bit interesting because they could just keep three derrick henry john lewis david flu and are all making this roster um but when you've got henry and lewis as your you know 1a 1b starter um you've got flu ellen who i mean i think if they needed him to carry the ball 10 or 15 times in a game could be fine if if derrick henry went down you know full ellen could step in and at least be a serviceable back the problem is if you just keep three if deon lewis gets hurt so much of what they want to do on offense is going to be centered around what deon lewis can do if he gets hurt neither derrick henry nor david flanagan fill that role that's why i

think they end up with four running backs, and I think Akram Wadley is the fourth back. I agree 100% with everything you said. I don't like the idea of keeping three, simply because if Lewis goes down and you're stuck with Henry and Fleming, I don't like where that leaves you. So I think you've got to make your decision, and I guess it's Wadley or Daylon Dawkins.

I just, I don't know. I get the feeling that we've heard more out of Wadley. I know Dawkins got more work tonight in the fourth preseason game, but I don't know how much that means. So I'm going to go with who I think is the more talented guy in Akron-Wadley. Did Tillery do anything tonight? I don't think he did. Okay.

Because that's a guy that, I mean, again, not a guy that you want to be counting on or anything, but a guy that was with Matt LaFleur last year. So some familiarity with the system. Could be a guy they want to get on the practice squad just in case anything happened. But I don't think he's a guy that's going to make the active roster, but I wouldn't be surprised if he sticks around just kind of as a little bit more insurance at the running back position because we know how often those guys get hurt. All right, moving on to wide receiver.

You've got your four locks there, Corey Davis, Rashard matthews taewon taylor tajay sharp you know it's funny there was there was talk at the beginning of camp that tajay sharp could be a guy that doesn't make this team uh i don't think there's any doubt at this point that tajay sharp is going to be on this team and obviously you know just circumstantial things but um with really nobody behind him stepping up um with richard matthews missing as much camp as he did you know tajay's been out there the whole time he's the only i mean i guess taewon taewon and tajay the only receivers that have been after the whole time cory davis was down for a little bit again we don't know if it was injury or rest or whatever but you know taewon and and tajay were

the guys that were consistently out there so there there's your four. They're going to keep five or six. I think right now I would lean toward them keeping six, but what they do with the next two is going to be interesting. In my opinion, before Nick Williams got hurt last week against the Steelers, before his injury I thought he was a pretty easy shot to make this roster. Not because necessarily of anything that he's done great, but he seemed to be the guy that's been in the right place, has done some good things, did some good things in that first preseason game.

With Michael Campanaro going on injured reserve, I think that just opened up a spot. So if Nick Williams is in a spot where he's going to be healthy and able to help them in week one or maybe even, you know, if they think week two, I think Nick Williams gets that fifth spot. After that, you've got a mess of Darius Jennings, Deontay Burnett, Devin Ross. I mean, Cameron Batson is a guy that's done a name you've seen in preseason games. I think if they keep six, Darius Jennings is probably the sixth,

but I wouldn't be willing to lay down a bunch of money on that. Yeah, just going back to the first preseason game, Darius Jennings started that game. Right. So that tells me something. The Nick Williams thing is fascinating, though, because he's totally benefited from the Campanaro injury. Essentially, they're the same player, a guy that can play out of the slot,

and that's just about all they can do, maybe give you something in the return game. So, yeah, Williams was having a nice camp before that injury. So if he's healthy, if he misses, what, a week or two, I could see him sticking around. It's just all going to depend on that injury information, which you know we don't have access to. Yeah, we're not going to get anything on that except for Wednesday we'll get an amount of practice that he was able to participate in.

So we'll kind of see how that goes. All right, but right now we're at six, so we'll kind of keep a running total. We've got two quarterbacks. We've got four running backs. We've got six receivers. I think if we're going to do a 53-man roster projection, we probably should end up with 53 guys. All right, so moving to tight ends.

This is another spot that there could be a conversation about a fourth guy, but at this point I would be kind of surprised. I think they break camp or end up on Sunday, Saturday, whatever, with Delaney Walker, John O. Smith, and Luke Stocker. That's it. I think they like Anthony Ferkser. I think they'll try to bring him back to the practice squad, but I don't know that he's done enough.

And we talked to Hutton the other night, and he talked about the importance of a guy being able to be an in-line blocker. I'm not sure that Ferkser has shown enough that he's good enough at that. They feel like they're going to have to keep him on the active 53. Yeah, it's Walker and Stalker, your two blockers there. And then you've got Johnnie Smith there as your kind of move tight end. So, yeah, I think three makes sense. I can't justify keeping any more.

I just don't know. Ferkser's done some decent things. I don't know if he's done enough to crack the 53, and really nobody else under him has really challenged him. So, three for me. I'd rather have a sixth receiver or a fourth running back. Yeah, absolutely. So moving on to the offensive line,

the only thing I think that is an interesting conversation here is whether or not they're going to start Jack Conklin on PUP. We haven't seen him do anything. I don't think he's going to play in week one. But the question is how close is he to being able to come back? Because if you put him on PUP, he can't practice with the team for six weeks, right? Yeah, exactly. And then you've got a couple of weeks after that where you can before you have to activate him um i i don't feel like he's six weeks away from being able to play

and so i think that if that's the case if he's three weeks away from being able to play you don't put him on pvp because then you've got three weeks where he's healthy where you can't use him so i think that he starts on the active roster but i think it's probably at least two weeks maybe a third week before he's able to play just so we haven't seen him do anything practice-wise he's been out there he's done some stuff on the side um but again you know with us having zero information on this stuff um we don't really know but for the purposes of this we've agreed we're gonna we're gonna include him in the number and so i think we we talked to this we both agreed eight offensive linemen um with conklin dennis kelly josh kline ben jones quinn spain taylor the one uh kevin panfield and

cory levin and you know the interesting thing there so if you look at injury stuff, I think Pam Field is your swing guy. If Dennis Kelly were to go down while Conklin was still out, I think Pam Field would fill in for him at right tackle. If Taylor LeJuan got hurt, I don't know what they would do as far as with Kelly and Pam Field who would play right and who would play left. But I think Pam Field also probably fills in at both guard spots. He's kind of that swing guy. And then you've got Corey Levin who can play center

if something happens with Ben Jones. So I think eight's a good number when you've got a couple of guys in there that are pretty versatile. Yeah, you basically shared my thoughts. We're going to get an injury update one way or another with Conklin, whether or not they shut him down or go ahead and activate him. So that should tell us how close he is. And, look, the Titans need Jack Conklin.

I think that's been glossed over when you talk about this preseason performance. If you've got Dennis Kelly right there in right tackle, that's not good because he's going to give up pressure. He's not very good. You see Harold Landry beating him daily in practice. That's pressure in the face of Marcus Mariota. That's something he can see that's interrupting his progression. That's hurting him going through his read.

Jack Conklin is a big key to this team. The quicker he can come back, the better. That gets us with 23 offensive players i think that's right you got two quarterbacks four running backs six receivers three tight ends eight offensive linemen um so 23 players and then coming up after this we will talk about the defensive side of the ball. Alright, so on the defensive line I think you've obviously got Daquan,

Benny Logan, Jarrell Casey, Austin Johnson. So that's four guys there that are all absolutely locks to make the team. They probably end up with two more. It's probably Wormsley and King after that. But this is kind of a place where I could see them going a couple different ways,

but I think they end up with that number. Yeah, this is a spot where they keep King on Saturday. Maybe they cut King on Sunday to sign somebody. So I just, you know, King on Sunday to sign somebody. We've talked about it before. This defensive line isn't very deep. I know Wormsley has really performed this preseason, but David King doesn't do much for me. But they seem to like him, so I've got him on my list.

But there and receiver are really two spots where i can see john robinson making a move yeah yeah i wouldn't be surprised to see a little a little wiggle in there so um so we got five right there i've got up with i've got six that's right yeah yeah and austin john okay yeah so six guys there daquan uh benny Logan, Jarrell Casey, Austin Johnson, Wormsley, and King. All right, so that's six there. When we go to outside linebacker, obviously Derek Morgan, Brian Rakpo, Harold Landry are your guys, your locks to make the team.

Correa, they traded for him a week ago. So I think he's here. That's a lot, yeah. Yeah, and then Sharif Finch, I think he's done enough that I think he's pretty solidly on this roster. And then you're keeping one of Aaron Wallace and Josh Carraway. Who you got there? I've got Wallace. I don't have much to back that up on.

Admittedly, I haven't gone back and watched the preseason games, but Wallace is the guy that I've seen do more in the past. I think he's the more talented pass rusher. Was really coming on before he got hurt last year. So I'll keep six with Wallace being my sixth. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense there. That is another spot I think that John Robinson will be looking at. Players cut are in the league. I think there's some wiggle room there with that last spot.

Moving to inside linebacker, you've got Rashawn Evans, Wesley Woodyard, Jayon Brown, Will Compton, Darren Bates. I'm in five there. You good with that? That's pretty straightforward. I don't really see any way that changes. I know Robert Spillane made some plays, but I don't think he's good enough to be on the spot.

All right, moving on to the cornerbacks. It's kind of an interesting spot. The Titans have lost some depth there with Ty Smith and Kalen Reed going to IR. I think you've got your top four locked in. Obviously

Butler, Jackson, Ryan, and Sims. Fifth guy is interesting. They've got a couple of names back there most educated guest I can make there is Demontre Hurst, a guy that made a couple of plays tonight and a guy that seems to be ahead of everyone else

at least at the corner spot underneath him so I think they keep five there, I think that's a corner spot underneath him. So I think they keep five there. I think that's a decently easy decision there. Safety is straightforward for me too as well. You've got Bayard Vaccaro, Crookshank, and Brendan Trawick, who's a special teams ace. I think you keep Kendrick Lewis.

I think they like his veteran presence there. But it's interesting. I think having a conversation about Damon Webb is a thing that will happen. Webb offers, obviously, a little more upside than Lewis would. Really, probably, I want room for one there. But I think at the end of the day, it goes to Lewis. We are. So, like I said, they've got until 3 o'clock on Saturday 3 o'clock central time to get down

to 53 if last year is any indication we'll see some cuts on Friday and then the rest to get to Saturday and then like I said you got the 24 hours between when the 3 o'clock deadline on Saturday for guys to clear waivers.

Titans can put their claims in. It's the same order as the draft, right? The waiver order is, I think. So they won't have – there's a couple years they obviously had some pretty prime spots there. Not as high this year. But we'll just kind of see how that plays out. There'll be a couple guys. I don't think it's going to be you know five guys i think two or three would be the number that i would be looking at like i said just defensive line receiver um maybe corner uh just

some of the spots edge guy if they thought they found something that that they could help them there so that's kind of what i think they'll be looking at. So anyway, we'll be back. We'll kind of get on what will be our normal schedule next week. We'll do a podcast Sunday night because the roster and practice squad will be finalized pretty much for week one at that point. So we'll be back Sunday night. So you'll have a show that's too many more on their way in. And then we'll do like four nights a week starting next week. And we'll have previews with other locked-on hosts for the different shows

and that kind of stuff. We'll get all that stuff rolling once we head into week one. So thank you for making it through the offseason with us. We're excited that we now have football to talk about, and we appreciate people listening as much as they have over the last couple weeks. So like I said, going forward, we'll be here pretty much every day People are listening as much as they have over the last couple weeks. So like I said, going forward, we'll be here pretty much every day getting you ready for the game the Titans have on Sunday. So thanks for listening.

Again, check us out at museummiracles.com. Follow us on Twitter at jmorrismcm, at TLambertFB, and subscribe to the podcast Locked on Titans. For Terry, this is Jimmy saying thanks.