Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: Jon Robinson preferred Vander Esch? 2019 NFL Draft in Nashville?

Episode Date: May 10, 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 good. What's up, man? Not too much. So tonight we're going to talk a little bit about some draft nuggets that came out from Tony Pauline on draftanalyst.com. A couple of things pertaining to the Titans that are pretty interesting. A couple things pertaining to the Titans that are pretty interesting. And then we'll talk about the chances that Nashville ends up with a draft in the next couple of years, 2018 and 2019. The location for those drafts are going to be decided pretty soon, and Nashville is in the running. So we'll kind of talk about the odds of – what we think the odds are of the Titans getting one here. But before we do that, I remind you, we're right from UCDMiracles.com, so check

us out there. I'm trying to gather ideas to write about during this offseason, so if you have any input or anything there, you can leave a comment on the site, or you can get us on Twitter at LockedOnTitans is the podcast Twitter account. If you have any ideas about things you want us to talk about or whatever,

hit us up there. You can follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmorrismcm. Terry's at tlambertfb. Okay, so Tony Pauline, I guess it was last night, came out with a couple of things that were interesting from the Titans draft. Said that the Titans were targeting Leighton Vander Esch in the first round, but that they went to their contingency plan and selected Rashawn Evans after Vander Esch was scooped up by Dallas. Dallas took Vander Esch at 19.

No surprise there. I mean, they had made it pretty clear to the world that they were interested in him and that we kind of all thought that was the place that he could be going. But interesting that, you know, Pauline says that that was the Titans' first plan. So, you know, it makes you wonder if they called around to see what it would take to move up, maybe in front of Dallas or maybe with Dallas, to get him. And then what the difference in cost would have been to move from where they were, 20-25, right?

Is that what they had initially? To move from there to 18 or 19 versus moving from 25 to 22, which is where they selected Rashawn Evans. So, you know, we talked about the Van Der Eer thing because it was interesting. He was supposed to come here for a visit, and then, you know, they canceled it, and it was reported that, you know, they did that because they thought he'd be off the board at the time. And we said that was kind of weird. But looking back, it sounds like John Robinson was just kind of trying to play some mind games.

Yeah, two main takeaways there. Number one, I think it's pretty clear that the Titans felt like inside linebacker was their number one need. I think they were really comfortable taking Evans or Vander Esch, and they were just going to kind of see which one fell to them. This following report kind of suggests that they may have preferred Vander Esch if it were between the two. The other thing is John Robinson absolutely played the media.

I mean, we've heard that the Titans are one of the toughest nuts to crack in terms of getting information, getting free agent information, getting draft information out. So that's interesting. And, you know, he talked about Evans and how he didn't visit and how that was kind of a designed thing to throw people off. So, you know, frustrating for us who chase all this information throughout the draft season

and just want to get an idea of who they're going to pick. But really cool. You know, they keep things under wraps. They're really tight-lipped. You can trust everybody in the organization to carry out John Robinson's plan. But really, the main takeaway for me is the inside linebacker thing. It's pretty safe to say that that was their number one need. Yeah, and it's funny, too, like you were saying about with the media and stuff,

how many conversations did we have or did we see written about, you know, well, we can assume the Titans are going to draft a player from this list because in John Robinson's first two drafts, he's drafted a guy that visited. I mean, you know, there were just these two or three different tendencies that John Robinson had, we totally talked about that um about how you know he kind of said maybe that was a that was a thing that they they did this year on purpose so that you know that the other teams couldn't look you know next year and say okay well that you know the titans didn't have this guy in for a visit and they've never drafted somebody in the

first round they didn't have him for a visit so we know they're not going to take him so you know just stuff like that that's important uh when it comes to that kind of stuff and yeah like you were saying it seems pretty apparent here that that they were going to come out of the first round with an inside linebacker um and you would assume that they had van der Esch and Evans graded pretty closely. And if you believe this report, that they preferred Van Der Esch. But, I mean, I don't think there's that big of a difference in how they felt between the two. And so once Van Der Esch was gone, he knew he was going to move up to make sure he got one of the two. So not really unlike, and we talked about this a little bit with Mike Keith

and a couple other times last year where he went ahead and took Corey Davis at five where some people were like, oh, that was a reach. They didn't need to take him there. But you knew that the Titans had to come out of that draft with a receiver and a cornerback in the first round. Just back to that draft quickly, there were three receivers. You had Davis, you had Mike Williams from Clemson receivers uh you had you had davis you had um mike williams from clemson and you had john ross from washington those are the three guys that were

they were first-round picks that you know everybody had first-round grades on um you know i don't know how he felt about the other two guys but i think robinson realized that none of those three were going to be there at 18 so he went ahead and picked this guy at five um so i mean i just i'm just really amazed at his overall sense of how the draft is falling how it's playing out and the ability to you know start a run if that's what he thinks needs to be done or wait it out and then move up to get a guy like he did with evans this year so i mean it just seems like and again we're all of this is a lot of speculation on our part, but it seems like for being such a young guy, young GM,

he just has a really good sense for how the first round of the draft is going to play out. Yeah, with Vander Esch, you knew he was heavily connected to the Cowboys. So you had Seattle at 18, but you had Green Bay come up and get Jair Alexander. You had the Chargers at 17, take you had Green Bay come up and get Jair Alexander. You had the Chargers at 17 take Derwin James. You'd probably be hard-pressed to move them off of that pick. You had the Bills come up and trade with Baltimore and get Tremaine Edwards. So that's three spots that were probably hard to get in front of Dallas at 19, and if they loved Vander Esch as much as they said they did, they certainly weren't moving down either.

So I would guess that John Robinson at least made a phone call to, you know, Seattle and Baltimore and Los Angeles and said, hey, what would it take to get up there? So I think you're right, though. I think they were close, close enough on the board to where he was okay with as long as they got one and and and sort of filled that need uh the immediate need going into the 2018 season yeah so um and then another note just from that the pauline thing talking about harold landry said that at least according to pauline the part

of the reason he fell one was the injury stuff and then two was that he did not come across very well during interviews now this is the only place that i've heard that um i don't picture john robinson as being a guy that is going to you know spend as much as he did to come and get landry if he's a guy he doesn't feel comfortable with that who knows what he didn't come off very well interviews means um and pauline also said there's some concern about him playing the run, which, I mean, you know, I guess that's fine. And I think those concerns are warranted. But the Titans need a guy to come in and get for the passer.

That's really the only thing they needed, in my opinion, out of this draft. And, you know, you can do other to to work with that if he's not a great run defender so you know if those are the reasons as long as the injury stuff ends up you know being clear um he doesn't have anything that's going to be a chronic thing that's gonna you know limit his nfl career or that's gonna bother him um you know why he's with the titans you know i don't know i'm not overly concerned about his ability to hold up against the run at this point yeah it's something that i personally think is overblown with these pass rushers uh you heard the same thing about vic beasley being 235 pounds

or whatever uh if dude can go out and get 15 sacks, you know, who cares? That is the most important defensive position, most important position outside of quarterback. So if you can go get after the passer, I don't – as long as you're just not giving up on every play against the run, it doesn't really matter to me. So that was a big knock with Landry. And, you know, again, if he puts up the production coming off the edge for the Titans, I'm not going to care too much about how he

plays the run. Exactly, yeah. If he's getting double-digit sacks, like I said, they can do other things. He doesn't have to be in there on early days. There's a lot of things they can do if he really is that bad against a run. Again, we'll just see. We don't really know what the answer is to that

and we won't know until we see him on an nfl field um i think that is pretty much all from that that we want to hit on again terry wrote a post on that on music miracles.com last night if you wanted to see that i mean he pauline had good things to say about crook shank and luke falk um a guy that apparently he's pretty high on. You know, Santa, he was surprised he was there in the sixth round, and obviously we did an episode on him, if you missed that last week with Mark Schoenfeld, about Falk and his ability, and he's high on him too, probably. I think it's safe to say he was higher on him than either one of us were,

which is probably a good thing because we've been talking about how when you get draft picks in and then you get this gap now between when they're drafted and when they're on the field, we start to watch highlight videos and buy into some things. Not that we're saying he's going to push Marcus Mariota, but you can easily convince yourself that Luke Falk has a chance to be an NFL starter, that they've got three of these undrafted free agents they still haven't confirmed, which is weird. easily convince yourself that Luke Falk has a chance to be an NFL starter, that they've got three of these undrafted free agents.

They still haven't confirmed, which is weird. But three of these undrafted free agents, they're going to be pro bowlers. I mean, we get into all that stuff this time of year. But it was good to have a guy from the outside to have some good things. Falken obviously had a project and whatever. But I don't know. That made me feel a little bit better about that pick. Yeah, every fan base has those people that will absolutely trash a pick on Thursday night and then Friday morning they're tweeting off GIFs

and saying, hey, there might be something here. So it's different once you've got that guy in hand and you're kind of forced to live with him. So you can do a lot of talking yourself into guys. So with Falk, I just can't get out of my head how he was benched at Washington State. That seems odd to me, such a prolific passer that would get so cold to the point of where Mike Leach would have to put him on the bench. But, I mean, he's not going to play.

He's not going to play early. Developmental guy. And, you know, he's got two or three years before he's even a number two quarterback. That's probably the plan with him. Yeah, absolutely. All right, so that will do it for that part of this. Like I said, coming up we'll talk a little bit about the odds that Nashville gets a draft in the next couple of years.

All right, so the owners' meetings, coming up, we'll talk a little bit about the odds that Nashville gets a draft in the next couple of years. All right, so the owners' meetings are coming up at some point here in the next month or so. At that point, they will decide where the next two NFL drafts will be hosted, so the 2019-2020 drafts. 19,000, 20 drafts. Correct me if I'm wrong here, Terry. The finalists, Nashville, Cleveland slash Canton, Vegas and Denver. Is that the list? And Kansas City, yeah. And Kansas City, okay.

You know, I mean, I think with everything Nashville has going for it right now, just the way the city is growing, it's kind of the hot it city, and there's all that. Downtown is very convenient for something like that. You've got a lot of space down there that you can use, a lot of stuff that's walkable. Obviously, there's a lot of stuff down there at the riverfront and all that that's made for concert venues and that kind of stuff. So there's a lot of that stuff that's already set up that they could use because it would have to be outdoors if it were here, obviously. So I think Nashville has that going for it.

The turnout for the uniform unveiling I think definitely has to be a point in the favor of the city because it was cold that night. It was a uniform day and the uniforms ended up leaking a little bit before,

a couple days before the big event, and people still turned out. And then if you go back to last year and you look at the Predators, just the amount of excitement that was down there, even around Bridgestone Arena, all the people downtown watching the game outside and all that stuff. I just think that Nashville has put a really good foot forward over the last couple of years with things like that. And so I really think it's a pretty good shot that it ends up here

one of those two years. We're talking about how Vegas would make sense in 2020 because the Raiders will be moving there then. But what do you think? I mean, I think Nashville's got a pretty good shot. Yeah, just listen to any media member that's been to Nashville to cover a Titans game or a Preds game or whatever. They all come away with saying Nashville's one of my favorite destinations to come to.

People want to come visit Nashville. It's the it city in the south. You hear it's going to rival Atlanta in the future. So it's kind of the happening thing. It's kind of the hot new thing right now. And just imagine putting the NFL draft right there on Broadway. How awesome would that be? I mean, it would just be such a unique spot for the NFL.

And really, you know, that would be something mean, it would just be such a unique spot for the NFL, and really, you know, that would be something really, really unique, something new to the league. You know, they really haven't embraced Nashville all that much, so, I mean, just look who they're up against. Kansas City and Denver and Cleveland? What do those

cities bring to the table? You know, you could talk me into Vegas, sure, with the Raiders heading there in a couple years. But like you said, 2020 makes more sense for Vegas. I see no reason why Nashville shouldn't be the frontrunner here. It's probably because we live here. But, I mean, really, what does Kansas City and Denver bring to the table that Nashville isn't?

Yeah, I think that's a thing. And I don't know. Like you said, when you talk about the way that cities are growing, I don't have that info on Denver and Kansas City, but they haven't been growing like Nashville has been. And so I just really, I don't know. There just seems to be a lot of stuff pointing in their favor here. And when is that going to be announced?

I was trying to find it, and I can't. May 22nd or May 23rd. It's one of those two it's when the nfl meets okay so yeah the nfl meetings toward the end of this month so um we'll obviously be keeping an eye on that that'd be cool i mean be cool to have it here and i think it anytime there's never been an event here and people like you're saying people walk away saying man nashville sucked and they couldn't handle it and you know blah blah um you know the the one thing is it would have to be outdoors so you got you have to hope for good weather you know they had the the with it being in uh in jerry world down there in dallas you know you had the the ability to have it covered if it

needed to be um so i mean that that's obviously a benefit but the other things you're talking about it's going to be outdoors there too um so i mean i don't think that's necessarily a thing that hurts nashville but i don't know it'd be interesting to watch it'd be cool to see it here like you said cool to see everything going down like that on broadway and just you know again it's a good thing for the city and a thing that would bring some attention to the titans uh nationally which they haven't gotten a lot of over the last few years. Obviously, some of that's because they've been terrible, and so they don't have much hype at that point.

Hopefully that changes over the next couple of years, and they're back on the NFL national map. But anyway, so like I said, we'll keep an eye on that. It would be cool to see. All right, anything else that we need to cover tonight? I don't believe so. Okay, I think that'll do it. Just a heads up, we were just kicking some things around before we came on tonight,

just ideas for topics as we move into this period where there's just not going to be a lot of NFL news. We'll have many camps and that kind of stuff over the next few weeks, but there's not going to be much more than that. So if you have any ideas of things you'd like to hear us discuss, hit us up, like I said, on Twitter, me or Terry. I'm at jmorrismcm. Terry's at tlambertfb. Podcast account, I look on Titans.

You can hit us up in those places. We'd love to hear your feedback. You know, we talked about kicking around some different things, just looking back at past seasons or past players that were interesting and just kind of talking about them. So anybody you'd like to hear us talk about, any seasons you'd like to hear us talk about, whatever it may be, just let us know and we'll do our best to work it in.

Like I said, we're still going to be here two, three, four times a week throughout the offseason. So I'm going to talk about something to try to keep it interesting. So if you've got anything along those lines, let us but between now and then uh like i said check out music miracles.com uh we'll be we'll be posting there regularly keeping that up to date so a lot of stuff going on there again twitter subscribe to the podcast itunes wherever you get that so for terry this is jimmy saying thanks for listening and we will talk to you again next time