Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: Injuries and where the Titans go from here

Episode Date: September 11, 2018

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Two, one. 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 all right. Recovering from the wild day yesterday. Yeah, we're a day out, so I had a little bit of time to heal from what happened yesterday. So we'll get into Mike Vrabel's Monday press conference. I almost called him Mike Malarkey.

Mike Vrabel's Monday press conference. I almost called him Mike Malarkey. Mike Vrabel's Monday press conference. Kind of some news and notes from that. And then we'll talk a little bit about Delaney Walker, what they're going to do to replace him. And then just kind of looking forward at what the offense may or may not look like without him out there.

Before we do that, I remind you to write for MusicCityMiracles.com where we cover the Titans for SB Nation. And you can follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmorrismcm. Terry is at tlambertfb. You can follow the podcast account at LockedOnTitans. You can subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Just search us out

and you'll find us there. So obviously Mike Vrabel had his regular Monday press conference today. Was a little bit more honest about Mark's Mariota than I think both of us were expecting him to be. Basically saying that, you know, hopefully we'll get him back. It's important we have everybody healthy, you know, so we can move forward with him as our quarterback. So to me, I mean, that just seems like a deal. I don't know what the exact extent of the injury was or what it's going –

if we'll ever hear an official diagnosis. I mean, we talked a little bit about it last night. But, you know, just something that he got hit wrong, I guess, on his hand, elbow, whatever it was, and couldn't feel the football. And that's obviously a problem for a quarterback. You know, as we were recording last night, the Bears and the Packers were playing, and Aaron Rodgers got hurt in the first half of that game, came back on one leg, and, you know, brought the Packers a little way back, and they won.

They were down, what, 20 to nothing, and came back and won. And so I saw some people today, you know, saying, look what Aaron Rodgers has got. You know, he comes out there on one leg, and Marcus hurt his elbow and couldn't play or whatever. I mean, not to say that the thought didn't cross my mind, but at the same time, if you're a quarterback and you can't feel the football, you are hurting your team more by being out there

than being the, quote, tough guy and staying in the game. Yeah, there's a big difference in a leg injury. Rodgers was hobbled, obviously um but that's different he can still grip the football uh the way marcus was talking he literally couldn't get a grip on the football uh and that would kind of explain the interception then i just i hate to constantly sound like i'm making excuses for him but that does add up right there. But at some point, it's all got to come together. You know, the injuries, the excuses, the different offenses,

the miscommunications, at some point it's got to all come together. I'm still confident we'll get there. It's just frustrating to sit here and wait seemingly years now on that to happen. But I saw a picture of him with delaney walker you know in a in a wheelchair uh you know at the hospital and he didn't look like he had a sling on or anything like that so it sounded like it was just a stinger uh it sounded like he's getting over it pretty quick so i'd fully expect marcus mario to play next week, and obviously that's a good thing. I mean, we know that if this team is going to be good, that it's got to be with Marcus Mario under center.

We talked a little bit about Blaine Gabbert last night. I mean, Blaine Gabbert is what he is. That's why he's a backup in this league. He's not going to consistently win you football games. So they've got to have Marcus if they're going to reach what we hope that they can reach. And so we'll kind of see how that plays out. Taylor LeJuan, the concussion protocol, no surprise there. Saw, you know, obviously what happened there.

That's another frustrating part about that game and the officiating. And to Mike Vrabel's credit, I mean, he basically said today, like, look, the officiating didn't lose us that game. We need to move on and think about other things. I mean, I like that he's taking that stance. I like that he's not trying to use excuses and that kind of stuff. But when you watch how that whole play went down, and we were talking about this a little bit before we got started,

Fox cut to Dean Blandino while they were sorting all that out for the brawl, and he's saying, well, they're going to get a penalty for this, and the guy that hit LaJuan might get tossed, and blah, blah, blah, the illegal crackback or whatever was what they were saying was going to happen. And then they come back, and there's two penalties on the Titans. I guess there was a penalty on the Dolphins too because they offset, but none of the penalties that the rules official that Fox has,

the ones that he said they were going to call, they didn't call any of those. So it kind of adds to the frustration of the day. But the end result there, Taylor LeJuan got a concussion. He's in the concussion protocol. So we'll just kind of see how he progresses through that throughout the week. Well, you know, you add the LeJuan thing, and then you add Tajay Sharp touching Rashad Jones after the interception. And then you add in the Delaney Walker phantom hold

where Delaney was literally getting ripped to the ground by his face mask. So, yeah, that adds up to a frustrating day. And I'm not going to sit here and say if those calls don't go against the Titans that they can't win that game. I mean, those were huge calls, especially that hold on Delaney Walker. It could have totally altered the game so i understand you're going to get those but it it really seems like the titans are always on the wrong end of those and especially against the dolphins you know it's two years in a row uh

they've gone to miami and really gotten screwed by the officials yeah and i wonder i don't know if you saw the part about when they asked you know they're asking what the hit on mariota when he hurt his hand or elbow whatever it was and you know basically saying they hit him low and the jerome boger explained it as well he was a runner at that point he's not a not a quarterback anymore and so ray bull said he went to dean peas and said all right look if that's what they're going to call them we need to be doing the same thing so i thought that was a little bit more honesty uh than you'll typically get from an nfl head coach but you know i mean he's not wrong and thinking that way so i think you know they'll

just kind of have to keep an eye on that and and see see how that plays out um was there anything else that we should touch on from today well one quick thought on the one you know i there's no telling if he's going to be able to play. They're going to take it slow and easy. But you look across the line of scrimmage next week, you're facing J.J. Watt, Jadeveon Clowney with a banged-up Marcus Mariota. Potentially LeJuan out. You don't know if Jack Conklin's going to play. That's bad news.

So you can't rush LeJuan along. But also Kevin Panfield, Dennis Kelly against those two, that's going to be brutal. So LeJuan's situation is huge to follow this week. Yeah, because we all remember the Will Spietek game, right? Yes. Three or four years ago, whatever it was, J.J. Watt had, I don't know, eight, ten sacks in that game.

Yeah, you don't want to see a repeat of that. So hopefully you'll be able to progress through. And maybe we can get Jack Conklin back and we'll just have to see kind of how that plays out. I guess we'll have to keep an eye on practice reports when they become available. I think it was encouraging that Conklin was able to do some work last week, but I still think he's probably a pretty long shot to play in either of these next two games. I think maybe in the fourth game he might be. But who knows? That may ramp him up this weekend.

He may be ready to go. All right, the Titans added a tight end to replace Delaney Walker. We'll talk a little bit about that here in just a second. Before we do that, we're going to talk about my bookie. If you've gambled on sports before, you know that part of the issue that you run into when you're trying to figure out where you're going to bet is, can you get paid?

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practice squad to replace Delaney Walker on the active roster. You know, this is kind of another deal where you got these conspiracy people that say, well, you know, they're is kind of another deal uh where you got these you know conspiracy people that say well you know they're just just signing him to get intel um and i don't think that you know this to me makes more sense than the dolphin signing luke falk right but um you know i'm not sure that mike burrell spent last year with the texans so i'm sure he's got enough there

but this is the guy that he's familiar with. It'll be interesting to see, one, how quick Pruitt can get up to speed and to see what kind of role, if any, he'll play in this offense. I mean, now you've got Walker and Jono Smith as your top two tight ends. You've got to bump everybody up a spot now. So you've got Jono Smith. You've got Luke Stocker. We talked a little bit about that last night. But then you've got to have some depth there.

You've got Ferkser, but I'm not sure what he brings as a blocker. So I don't know. I mean, this is just, to me, it's a necessary move. We talked about how maybe they would bring Cunningham back, just kind of because of his familiarity after being here for a couple weeks in camp. But Pruitt's a guy that's been on some teams and made some plays in the NFL. And I think you were saying he made the Texans, and they cut him a couple days later, but then signed him back to the practice squad.

So it'll just be interesting to see how quickly he works up to speed. Yeah, I don't know much about him, not expecting really anything out of him either. But I think it does say that the Titans are going to stick to their two-Titan formation, which we saw a ton of, you know, on Sunday against the Dolphins. So the question I have is if Jonu Smith is in those formations because, you know, can he be an in-line blocker? Can he seal that edge?

Or are they going to be more reliant on Anthony Fergster? So that's an interesting dynamic to me. Suddenly it's pretty thin and, you know, don't have a lot of talent, proven talent, that is, at the tight end spot. So a ton of unknowns, and i think the whole offense shifts you know delaney walker's such a big part of this offense uh mr reliable a guy that can do it all uh so i'm really fascinated to see how matt with flora adjusts this offense yeah and you know this is really gonna put the spotlight on john spotlight on Jonathan Smith because the thing that we heard when he was drafted was he's a carbon copy of Delaney Walker.

And we kind of assumed that they brought him in to replace Delaney Walker. Now, the Titans gave Walker an extension during training camp, so I don't necessarily think they were thinking that way. But if you've got two guys that can do all the things that Blaine Walker can do, I mean, you're obviously better off for having that. I'm not sure that John O. Smith has really played out the way that they hoped it would. I don't think he's done as much from a blocking perspective as they hoped that he would do. So maybe this puts the pressure on him.

Maybe he can step up his game in this. But, yeah, I don't know. It's going to be interesting to watch and interesting to see just the way that things change now with Walker being out and these other guys being involved. And, you know, we talked a lot about heading up into roster cutdowns, about four running backs or four tight ends. We kind of thought they would go with the four running backs.

They ended up going with four tight ends. That seems to be a smart move at this point. I mean, I don't know that they couldn't have gotten Ferkser back here had they cut him. But, you know, I don't know. Like you said, it's going to be interesting to see what they want to do. And, again, ultimately they want somebody out there who can – who doesn't tip what's going on.

When you've got Delaney Walker out there, he doesn't tip if it's going to be a run or a pass. He's not just playing third downs. They're not just bringing him in on passing downs or anything like that. He can do both, and so that puts that stress, that pressure on the defense. I'm not sure that they have that other guy there. I think they want John New to be it, but I'm just not sure that he's there yet. I'm not sure that they have that other guy there.

I think they want John New to be it, but I'm just not sure that he's there yet. And it might be something where you don't see the two tight ends set as extensively as we saw last week. Maybe you roll with more three-receiver set. Maybe you see more Taewon Taylor, who didn't play a lot after that touchdown drop. So maybe you shift the offense in the short term as you work in Pruitt, as you get Fergster more comfortable, as you work in Johnnie Smith as kind of that tight end number one in the offense. So I think it's going to be an adjustment period.

It just goes to what we've been saying for three weeks now. It's just don't have any chemistry. So now you don't have any chemistry with Delaney Walker. Now you're working in new chemistry with another tight end, and now Johnnie Smith in that role. So it's just a moving target right now. Hopefully everything settles down so Marcus Marino can kind of settle in, get some chemistry, and get comfortable in this offense.

Yeah, and I think, you know, we talk about Delaneyer being that security blanket that you know you have there and now like you said he's not there they've already got chemistry issues yeah i don't know yeah i think it's a really good point something i hadn't necessarily thought about but yeah it is a moving target and i don't know i mean it just doesn't if this this first little this first quarter of the season here is shaping up to be quite the challenge because, again, the Dolphins looked like probably the worst team of the first four they were going to play.

Now you're looking at Houston, Jacksonville, Philadelphia, with all these moving parts and all this stuff going on. I don't know. I hope that they can find something in there, and we're going to talk a little bit about maybe what will change in the offense as a whole. But I don't know. It's just, like you said, the chemistry has been an issue,

and we've seen it crop up time and time again, and now you're just looking further from that. So I don't know. Yeah, it'll be interesting to watch. All right, coming up we're going to talk a little bit about just kind of the offense overall and what we think will change and kind of who may benefits from walker being out so it kind of it kind of sucks to say or like to talk about somebody benefiting from delaney walker being out but del Delaney Walker was a huge part of this offense he was a huge percentage of the target share for this team that those balls have got to go to somebody so how

do you how do you kind of see that playing out well I think you got to look at Corey Davis um look how they used him at least in that first quarter a lot of short targets. Just pop passes, will dump out in the flats, not really attacking down the field, but more short and in the intermediate. So that makes sense to me. Also, I think Deion Lewis benefits from this. You saw him kind of service that security bucket,

which Marcus Marriott has not had in his entire career. So that helps. And then, you know, I think you bring a receiver along. Vrabel talked about getting Taewon Taylor more involved. I'm not sure why he didn't play. I really don't. For as much as we heard about him in training camp and, you know, the positive things he was doing, he did not play very much outside of that first quarter.

So I don't know if it was just formation-based or what, but now you're not going to have Delaney Walker. You might be going to more three-receiver sets, so maybe he slides into the slot, maybe he plays that outside role more, but I think those three guys

specifically are going to benefit from Walker being out. Yeah, I don't know. The thing with Taewon has just been so weird because, you know, at the beginning of camp, he was working in that X role. We talked about that all the time and how many snaps he's given the first team and all that stuff. And then all of a sudden, it just completely flip-flopped between him and Tajay Sharp.

And so now I wonder, I mean do they consider taylor the fourth receiver and i i know that like tajay sharp is probably a better route runner or maybe a more consistent route runner i'll say um but that just taylor gives you so much more he gives you so much more of the ceiling there's so much more of the defenses to think about when he's on the field so you would think they would be looking for ways to get him out there like you said i don't know what it was that they got him bumped down on sunday um whether it was gameplay i mean whatever whatever it might have been but you know they were i mean an eyelash away from hitting him for a for a big touchdown and if he catches that it it really changes the complexion of the game.

Obviously, he didn't, so you have to point that out. But I don't know. It seems like they would try to work him in more, but for whatever reason, it seems as if anything, his usage has gone down from where it was at the beginning of camp. Yeah, it seemed like in that dress rehearsal game, the sign was there. Taewon played deep, I think into the third quarter and then you saw tajay sharp playing with the ones and he didn't play anymore so i don't know what happened there it was really strange because you know at

the beginning of camp it seemed like tajay sharp was you know on the roster bubble hey there was something there was a disconnect there they didn't really seem to care for Tajay, and now suddenly he's ahead. So I don't know. The two don't really compare to me. Tajay is just that you're run-of-the-mill number four receiver in the NFL. Taewon at least has some juice. You talked about him in the Sammy Watkins role.

Maybe not contributing statistics-wise, but taking the top of the defense, making them pay attention. Just didn't see that much. But, you know, we saw him get behind the defense on the one snap that he really impacted the game. Titans need more than that. They need to move those safeties, open up the intermediate. That's where Marcus eats.

So I'm hoping that they can work more of that in. There's no reason for him not to be on the intermediate, that's where Marcus eats. So I'm hoping that they can work more of that in. There's no reason for him not to be on the field, unless he just doesn't get the offense, which unfortunately is a reality. But, you know, working in the first year of another new offense. So I don't know. We'll see. I'm still excited about Taewon, but it would be dumb not to be concerned about you know him grasping this offense but going

back to your original point i mean i think it is it's got to be cory davis cory davis has got to become the focal point of this passing game we saw it looked like they were making a conscious effort early in that game on sunday to make that happen and he has you know there was the weird thing with him sitting out a couple days or whatever early in camp. But he was the most consistent, I think, of the receivers as they went through camp. And that's a good sign. And, again, you know, took him number five overall two years ago. Just didn't get to have the production you would want as a rookie just because of the injury. I mean, there was really nothing else that was an issue.

It didn't seem like – there have been some chemistry things with him and Mariotaota but i mean that's okay that's that's part of learning to play with each other but the just uh i don't know just the fact that they were doing what they did early in that game and just standing up and throwing the ball basically getting the ball in his hands letting him try to make some plays so that's encouraging and i think that you know if he can step up and be the guy they drafted him to be, it makes the loss of Delaney hurt a little bit less. And then if everybody else can just kind of collectively step up and fill in their roles and just raise their game a little bit, then maybe you don't have the huge gaping hole

that we all feel right now with Delaney Walker being out. And we talked about this last night, but that's the biggest thing. now with Delaney Walker being out. We talked about this last night, but that's the biggest thing. That was the most bizarre game that you're ever going to see in the NFL. You've never seen anything like it before. You're never going to see anything like it again.

If the Titans go down there and lose that game 27-20, everybody comes away healthy. It sucks, and we don't want to lose week one. I'm sure there's some other issues cropping around, but you're still at full strength. You've got a division game.

You win that one, the conversation changes. But it was just the loss of Delaney that really hurt so badly. So, again, it's just going to be on everybody else to step up, and I think you're right. I think that's what's important. Well, and what hurt the most for me about that game is just the next three weeks. You've got Houston, Jacksonville, and Philadelphia. That's rough.

That's three really good teams. That's three potential playoff teams. It took Houston a while to get going, but once they did, they were in the game late with the New England Patriots. They looked pretty stout. They got all the pieces back on defense. England Patriots. They look pretty stout. They got all the pieces back on defense. You're going to

have to figure this out on the fly against three really good football teams. That is really, really scary. If you start the year 0-4 stats say, you're probably not making the playoffs. 1-3 isn't great, but

I think this kind of sucks to say, but if the Titans are going to steal one here the next three, I think that's a success. Absolutely. I'd be thrilled at one and three, depending on how they look along the way. But, yeah, when you talk about three, I mean, three really, really good defenses too.

You know, that's the thing. I mean, you've got an offense that's in flux here. So, anyway, we'll see how it goes. That'll do it for tonight. We're going to have Dave McGinnis tomorrow night, so that'll be awesome. If you've heard him, you know he's great. He loves to talk ball, and I'm sure he'll be really good with us. We'll talk to him about their experiences going through that delay because he and Mike Keith were on the radio for a really long time on Sunday.

So we'll talk to them about that and just kind of get his opinion on how they replaced Danny Walker and all that kind of stuff. Obviously a guy that's been in the NFL for a long time, so has a lot of good insight. Between now and then, you can check us out at musicmiracles.com. We'll have a lot of stuff up there, so you can check that out. Again, you can follow us on Twitter. I'm at jimwarrismcm.

Terry's at tlambertfb. So for Terry, this is Jimmy saying thanks for listening to Locked on Titans, and we will talk to you again tomorrow.