Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: Locked on Ravens crossover episode

Episode Date: October 10, 2018

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The Locked On Ravens and the Locked On Titans podcast. I am Jacob Troxell here with Matthew Stevens and a special guest from the Locked On Titans, obviously Terry Lambert joining us. So thank you guys for joining us all here today. We're going to talk quickly about just kind of where each of these teams are at right now and kind of give some matchups to watch on both sides of the ball. First, I want to ask you, Terry, where is this Titans team at right now,

and what have you seen out of them in these first couple weeks here? That's a pretty loaded question. So you had the Eagles game, and the Titans looked like they were just going to go on a tear and win every game left on the schedule. It turns out you go to Buffalo Buffalo and the Bills beat them. So a little bit of a high and a low situation there. I think the Titans' offense is going to struggle for the next few weeks. I think the Eagles' secondary was pretty rough that game.

I think it kind of gave us some false hope there. So outside of Corey Davis, just not a lot there on the receiving core. Marcus Mariota has been pretty good this year when he's been healthy, which hasn't been much. But his receivers have really struggled to consistently catch the football. Your listeners might know Nick Williams dropped a potential game-winning touchdown in Buffalo last week. So it was frustrating last week.

I think Marcus Mariota is playing at a decently high level, just not getting a lot of help. Derrick Henry, Deion Lewis have just been okay. Derrick Henry especially has kind of struggled so far this season. They've yet to get him going. And Deion Lewis hasn't been used as much as we thought so far. So it's a work in progress. It's a totally new scheme this year.

Matt LaFleur coming over from the Rams. Really haven't seen this offense operate at a high level yet outside of that Eagles game. So just looking for them to string some games together. They're finally healthy. So, you know, we'll see where it goes from there. And defensively for the Baltimore Ravens, you know, Baltimore's defense is kind of just as good as it has been advertised,

largely speaking, through five weeks. They hold the top spot defensively in points per game allowed. They have the best third down percentage defensively. They are allowing the fewest yards per play in the third fewest yards per game, and that kind of extends to the fewest passing yards per play, fourth in passing yards per game, tenth in rushing yards per play, and fifth in rushing yards per game. And that's been without Jimmy Smith, cornerback, who has been suspended for four games. He finally came back last week, didn't play a ton, but played well. He had one target his way, which was never caught. So, you know, we kind of got back to his

shut down cornerback ways that we saw last year before he got that Achilles injury. And yeah, I mean, it's been a defense that has largely done well. They've had some moments over the middle of the field still continues to be a problem. They didn't really address that in the offseason, so no huge shocker there. And they've also, later on in the game against the Cleveland Browns, you know, they gave up some large chunks of yards. They gave up roughly about, I believe, 110, 115 yards in overtime in the final two drives that, well, ultimately Cleveland ended up winning 12-9, and that was the game. So it's been, generally speaking, good, but there's still been some things that defensively this team can get

better at. But for Baltimore Ravens fans, it's Dean Pease, who is now over in Tennessee, and obviously that's going to be the storyline of the entire week. Now you've changed over to Don Martindale, who has performed much better with the same exact unit that Dean Pease had. So everything considered, it seems to be that this is an upgrade over last year, even if some of the same problems kind of present themselves. Yeah, it's hard for me as an outsider to kind of poke holes in this defense. They're pretty solid across the board, you know, just as an outsider looking in.

Jimmy Smith coming back, that's a big deal. We saw Tredavis White kind of take Corey Davis out of the equation. Like I said, there's not much behind Corey Davis in this passing offense. You've got Taewon Taylor, who really is still learning. He's still a young guy. He's just kind of a nine-route type guy, pop-screen type guy. Outside of that, you've got Tajay Sharp. Then you've got Nick Williams and Darius Jennings.

I mean, it's just really bad right now. So, you know, having that corner, having Jimmy Smith back, having Marlon Humphrey there doesn't give me a lot of hope for this Titans passing game which we saw virtually nothing out of last weekend in Buffalo. Terry, real quick, I want to kind of say that this Titans offense looks largely

like what Baltimore's offense has over the past few years. I'm looking at Marcus Mariota's stats, 63.1 completion percentage, 6.6 yards per attempt, two touchdowns, four interceptions, and a 72.3 quarterback rating. And then you look at the rushing, 3.4 yards per carry for Derek Henry, who's your kind of lead back.

Deion Lewis is 3.2 yards per carry, and the only touchdown set of Marcus Mariota on the ground. And then in the receiving game, you mentioned the fact that Nick Williams dropped a touchdown pass. Baltimore had that happen with Michael Crabtree last week against the Cleveland Browns. So, you know, it very much seems like we're just kind of seeing like a weird mirror image of the Baltimore Ravens, at least from this side of things. Yeah, and I'd probably argue that the Ravens actually have, you know, a lot deeper of an offense.

You know, you've got John Brown, Michael Crabtree over there. This offense has gone through Corey Davis through the first quarter of this season. He's eating up targets, and there's just not been that guy that steps up. You know, we had richard matthews here uh it just seemed like a really solid number two and he got hurt in in training camp and was just coming back and then he just decided hey i'm done just in the middle middle of uh weeks week three i believe so that's kind of created a hole um John Robinson hasn't addressed it yet. He's just

kind of rolling with his young guys. That's been surprising to see. So I can see the parallels there, but I think Joe Flacco has more to work with than Marcus Mariota does at this point. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And both these teams coming into the game at 3-2. So certainly a matchup that could come down to, you know, end up deciding playoff positions later in the season if both these teams kind of continue on the trajectory that they seem to be on. And, you know, guys, like I said, it's a big game. And ever since I started this podcast, people have been asking me for advice.

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how much of this new system needs to get Derrick Henry involved, Terry? Because he seems like a guy that I watched a lot of in college and early in his career, and I know he's still a young guy, but it seems like he still has a lot of potential, but he just hasn't really gotten going in this new offense yet. Derrick Henry is a fascinating dude. I mean, he's 6'3", 250, every bit of it, but he doesn't run like it at all. You think back to Brandon Jacobs. That's the obvious comp for a guy like that.

He does not run like Brandon Jacobs. He's not going to lower his shoulder. He's hesitant. He tippy-toes. He's just kind of slow getting through the tackles. He doesn't really trust what he's seeing. But if he ever does get going, he's legitimately the fastest player on the field. So it's really bizarre. he's a six foot three 250 pound home run hitter uh so he's got a lot more chris johnson in him than than brandon jacobs so uh they've really struggled to find a rhythm for him uh just not a lot of room to run this offensive line hasn't been great through the first few games uh looking for that to improve because jack conklin uh just

now got back into the lineup two weeks ago. Taylor LeJuan's been banged up. He missed most of the last game. So they haven't worked together. They haven't been able to put that chemistry together. So still have some hope for Derrick Henry, but he's just a strange, strange NFL runner. Yeah, and to me, it seems like sometimes he runs a little bit, not all the time,

it seems like sometimes he runs a little bit upright, and you know, being that, you know, being a bigger guy, a bigger target, sometimes you can use your size to advantage a little bit if you get a little bit lower. Henry averaging 3.4 yards per carry this season, his longest run of the season, only 14 yards. He's no 20-yard runs this season, no touchdowns, and he has just as many first downs as Marcus Mariota does running the ball. Nine first downs for each one of those guys. Matthew, how do you see this Ravens defense stacking up against the Titans offense? Well, I think that's a really good question, and like we were kind of talking about before with Corey Davis being the primary guy on this offense, the only one that's actually really doing anything, 26 receptions, 361 yards, and a touchdown, Baltimore's going to do everything they possibly can to go ahead and shut him down. So I would expect Baltimore to kind of, you're going to lock someone like Jimmy Smith

or Marlon Humphrey on him, and then you're going to throw a safety over top of that. You want to make sure that Corey Davis, if he does catch the ball, has guys all over him the second it happens. Outside of that, it's going to be just trying to get to Marcus Mariota, I think is going to be the biggest key there.

And Mariota is certainly a very mobile quarterback, but one that has been largely fragile throughout his career. And I think if you kind of look at a lot of his stats, he's a guy that maybe gets a little gun shy at times as well. So if you can go ahead and get someone in his face, as well as shut down his first option, which will be Corey Davis, you're more likely to go ahead and pull off a few turnovers. You're more likely to go ahead and pull off a few turnovers. You're more likely to go ahead and see that offense sputter a little bit more, and Baltimore's defense has done that to some pretty solid offenses this year, most notably in the Pittsburgh Steelers.

So I think they're going to be very capable of shutting down this offense. It's more or less just are they going to be able to create any mismatches? Are they going to be able to create any big splash plays of their own? It's going to be help an offense that, as we saw against the Cleveland Browns, maybe isn't as great as we initially thought they were, especially when they don't really commit to running the ball. Yeah, and I'll add that Marcus Mariotta's been great under pressure against the Blitz uh he's

a pretty slippery guy uh you know that nick williams touchdown pass that i referenced earlier you know he slipped the tackle and made something happen got to the line of scrimmage and then put it over the top for what should have been sick so just not getting the help there but uh really really good uh adjusting against the blitz um the problem is the titans just don't have any guys that can separate you know outside of cory davis and and teams know that so they're going to throw everything they've got at davis so uh you know taylon taylor tajay sharp those guys are going to have to step up win some one-on-one matchups because i'm sure mariotta is going to get the pressure once again. Now, one of my biggest questions, I'm sorry, Jacob, but one of my biggest questions right

now is really going to be, you know, how the tight ends and running backs do. We talked a little about Henry. He hasn't really been a huge impact on the passing game, but that seems like the ideal guy to kind of get one-on-one or maybe try to put him in the middle of the field against someone like uh cj mosley or kenny young or uh peanut the the other inside linebacker seems like a perfect ideal there but uh i just don't know if is is that something that tennessee just isn't really trying to do that often or uh is that just not henry's skill set as being a receiver so much? Well, they don't really trust him on passing downs

because he struggles in pass protection. So they've tried to get him the ball in space a couple times this year. It hasn't gone well. And the other layer of that is you bring in Deion Lewis. He's hard to keep off the field on passing situations because he's so good. He's so electric in the open field. So it's something we saw last year. They wanted to get Derrick Henry up to speed, you know,

get the ball in his hands where he doesn't have to think, just run. It's something I'd like to see more of, honestly. We've talked about that on Locked on Titans this week, getting him out on the perimeter in space up to speed because you're going to have some safeties and some corners making some business decisions there. You don't want any of 6'3", 250 coming at you at full speed. So that's something I would really like to see in this offense,

but we're just not seeing it right now. And we're really not even seeing Deion Lewis be too involved in the passing game. So I think this offense is still finding their way. Again, we've only seen the game plan really, you know, full game plan two games this season. So still a lot of unknowns there, even through five weeks. And, you know, Matthew, you mentioned the big play coming from this Ravens defense. That's something we saw a lot of last season.

The big play coming from this Ravens defense, that's something we saw a lot of last season. But currently, they haven't allowed a touchdown in the second half of any games. Martindale's been making some great adjustments. But currently, where we're at with the Ravens defense, tied for 17th in the NFL with only six turnovers through the first five games. Last year, they led the NFLfl with 34 so they've played well but they haven't forced as many big plays um and the last thing i wanted to mention here or i guess

ask um is you know without delaney walker what is how much of a loss has that been for the titans and um you know i know you talked about some of the targets and the different things that they do and attention that can be drawn towards less of the whole entire group there, but what has the loss of Walker done? And have you seen anyone in that tight end group able to make a difference physically or schematically? It's huge.

I can't even put it into words how huge it is because Walker did everything. You think you're just losing a receiving threat. He's a great run blocker, and they used him a ton in the run game. So you go back to the Buffalo game, you see Johnnie Smith, who's the second-year player, out there trying to run block. He misses a block, and a play gets blown up in the backfield. So that's kind of been the Titans' rush offense so far.

Just took a massive, massive blow because John O. Smith is not Delaney Walker. He's not anything close. He's not a well-rounded player. He was drafted to help out in the passing game um and now he's being forced to come in as a blocker and it's just not going well so um even in the passing game john who's been invisible um he had a key drop against uh i believe it was the eagles uh dropped a key third down conversion so he's been invisible there's just been no tight end really stepping up to the plate. You've got Luke Stocker there. They just brought up Anthony Ferkser, who flashed in camp.

Maybe he can bring something else to this offense. But right now, Johnnie Smith is not it, but they don't really have any other options to turn to. And Walker, fifth, actually, in terms of current active tight ends in the league, fifth in all-time receiving yards there behind a couple guys, Greg Olson, Rob Gronkowski, Vernon Davis, and Jimmy Graham. So some good company that he is in there, and maybe one of the more underrated tight ends in the NFL.

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that we got it here for us. October, the best sports month, really. I mean, who are we fooling? This is a great time to be a sports fan. We got football in full swing. We got baseball going on, basketball coming up. So it's a great time. It's a great time, and you got to get out there, go to some games, go to some concerts.

It's a great time, and you've got to get out there, go to some games, go to some concerts. So guys, looking at the other side of things, the Ravens' offense versus this Titans' defense, the first thing I want to ask real quick, and then we can get into the rest of everything else, is Kamalei Correa. He's a guy who the Ravens traded to Tennessee before the season started. Terry, what have you seen from him, and how has he looked, again, just physically and schematically, where has he been adjusting to things, and how has he looked?

Well, he's been on the edge pretty much. That's all we've seen him. Hadn't played a ton because Titans have three pretty good edge defenders, Brian Arakpo, Derek Morgan, and now Harold Landry has emerged into, I think, one of the better pass rushers in the league already. So Correa's kind of that fourth guy coming in, giving the Titans some depth.

Dean Pease has used him as a blitzer, getting creative using him on stunts and stuff. And I think he ended up getting a sack a couple weeks back. That was the first of his career. But I haven't seen a ton. Just kind of a nice role player for the Titans at a spot where they really didn't have much depth. So I think that was a win for the Titans. He's not setting the world on fire or anything, but a decent fourth edge for sure. Matthew, where do you see, I know we talked a little bit about the Ravens offense

coming into this, but where do you see the Ravens offense stacking up against them? Is there anyone in particular that you think can take advantage of the Titans defense or vice versa? Is there any one on the Titans defense that could create a problem for Baltimore well obviously you know the the John Brown situation seems to be the one that is the one that we talk about really every single week he's a guy that can go ahead and not just beat you deep and that's what everyone kind of thinks is that he's just that straight line gonna go ahead and take your guys deep, and that's going to be it. But we saw him in Cleveland do a lot of the underneath stuff as well, and then turn relatively smaller plays into much larger ones. He's good at finding weird pockets in coverage. He's good at being able to make quick cuts and get separation that way,

and once that happens, Brown turns on the Jets, and good luck catching them, as well as that deep threat aspect that he brings. So, you know, where Tennessee is going to try to limit him is, well, they're probably going to try to put a safety over top of him. And, you know, I'm looking at Logan Ryan and Malcolm Butler as the starting cornerbacks right now. If I'm Tennessee, if I'm Dean Pease, I'm definitely not going to let John Brown go one-on-one with either one of those guys.

How he wins that matchup or if he wins that matchup is really going to determine a lot. And what we saw Cleveland do that was relatively successful is, well, they backed off the line of scrimmage a little bit they dropped more guys into coverage they they were able to go ahead and uh you know put more guys back there and and challenge john brown a little bit more to get open but more importantly play up to the other guys so that way it wasn't just a all right fine john brown isn't open i'll go to willie sneed i'll go to michael crabtree i'll go to the tight ends I'll go to the running backs they didn't get the big gains that they had done in previous games so how John Brown plays in this one I think is going to be pretty vital and then of course there's always the question marks around the run game and

we've kind of ranted about this for five weeks now and more explicitly over the last two episodes. Baltimore is doing a running back by committee, I guess, now. They're not really trying to get Alex Collins involved, I guess. No one entirely knows what's going on in Baltimore when it comes to this run game outside of John Harbaugh, who goes, I don't know what you're talking about. It's just fine.

So who knows? We might see, if I'm Marty Morningwig, I definitely have looked at that, you know, the offensive coordinator. I've looked at that and went, okay, cool. So maybe I need to figure out how to get Alex Collins in space a little bit more, how to get Javorius Buck-Allen in space a little bit more. Maybe let's try to focus on getting this run game going a little bit more than passing 60 times in a three-point game. You know what? I wish I could give you a solid answer on this one, guys, but I don't think anyone knows what this Baltimore Ravens offense is going to look like this week.

Yeah, I'd be lying if I said I didn't play a game of Madden today and run the ball 40 times just to, like, get out the frustration. It's not just the Ravens that do this either. This has, I think, become a problem for a lot of teams over the years. And I'm not even necessarily a guy that thinks, well, you've got to run the ball. You've got to run the ball all the time. Run the ball every game, 30 carries. I'm not really like that,

but I think there's so many situations that we see every week in the NFL now where teams just get, I don't know if it's whether they get caught up in the moment or they just really do think that throwing the ball now is the best way and not even necessarily using the run game. When the Ravens played the Steelers, they only ran James Conner nine times. And then, you know, what does he do this past week? He looks good. So I just, I don't know.

It's really puzzling to me to see how these teams do this. I mean, Alex Collins didn't even get back-to-back carries in that game last week. So I just, I mean, you know, if you're only going to run him 15 times, 10 times, that's fine. But it just seems like sometimes, and again, it's not only the Ravens, but I think some teams make it very obvious when they're running the ball, especially when they're not doing it a lot. There are certain situations that they do it, and it's just obvious, and then it doesn't work. So maybe that's just a little bit of overthinking.

I'm not sure. It's tough for me to put myself in their shoes and assess that. But I really do, again, I might, hopefully I don't say this every week, but I think whatever team gets more out of their run game in this game will have a huge advantage. And I think ultimately this Ravens defense has an advantage. I think they should set up the Ravens offense to succeed with some short fields or turnovers or whatever that may be

but if the Titans are able to get Derek Henry going then that really changes this game a lot. Well I can tell you just from a Titans perspective you talk about John Brown Titans have struggled with speed deep this year Kenny Stills, Week 1

Will Fuller Jordan Matthews certainly doesn't have deep speed but he killed him anyway this year. Kenny Stills, week one, Will Fuller. Jordan Matthews certainly doesn't have deep speed, but he killed him anyway. Malcolm Butler has been downright awful so far. The big ticket free agent coming over from New England. He's given up four deep balls off the top of my head that have gone for touchdowns. So John Brown is a guy that terrifies me, and I'm sure terrifies the rest of this fan base. We all see it coming from a mile away.

If John Brown's on your fantasy team, go ahead and fire him up this week because Malcolm Butler just cannot handle deep speed. They don't shadow. Adore Jackson is probably their best cornerback, but they do not shadow. John Brown is going to have his opportunities on Malcolm Butler. I'm betting the Ravens will know when that's happening, and I'm betting they're going to send him deep. Flacco, with that arm, John Brown deep, that is a major, major concern.

To make matters worse, Kenny Ficarra that is a major, major concern. And, you know, to make matters worse, Kenny Vaccaro is going to miss this game again. He's out for two or three more weeks. So you're going to start, you know, Kendrick Lewis at strong safety. You know, Kevin Byard is great, but the Titans are a little weak right now at strong safety. That paired with Malcolm Butler against John Brown, that's probably a bad combination.

Yeah, and, you know, Kenny Vaccaro is a guy I certainly think highly of and, you know, not having him, definitely a huge loss, in my opinion, for this Titans defense. But, Terry, real quick, before we sign off here, what's the food scene around the Titan Stadium there in Nashville? Because I've never been to Nashville, but I've heard very good things about it. You know, I haven't been down there in so long because, yeah, I used to go to a ton of games, but now I'm kind of stuck in the living room

because I write for SB Nation and, you know, I do the game recaps. So Nashville has kind of become known for their hot chicken, though. That might be. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I don't know if y'all knew about that or not, but hot chicken places are popping up everywhere, all over Nashville. You know, everyone's trying to get their version of it out there. So that's probably my favorite Nashville food right now.

You know, you've got the barbecue places. You know, that's hard to beat too. But the hot chicken places, that's where I'd be. Oh, man. Yeah, that sounds phenomenal. One time I was on a flight going out west, and I had to – I had about an hour layover in Nashvilleashville but i had to stay on the plane and it was killing me i was so hungry and i wanted to get some food so bad but i knew i

couldn't so um that is definitely on the list whenever i get to nashville and if you ever are in maryland you got to try this is kind of goes without saying but you got to try some crab cakes man yeah you got to do it yeah sounds good man mat You've got to do it. Yeah, sounds good, man. Matthew will have you over. He'll have some ready for you. Yeah, we'll get a bushel of crabs and get going. I can't say I've ever had crab cakes, so I'd love to try. Just try picking the crab for the first time.

It will be a huge learning process, but you'll get it. I don't know about all that, but I'm not a big crab guy, but I'll keep an open mind. There you go. All right. Well, that does it for us. Thanks again for joining me, guys, and collaborating. Love doing the crossover episodes. And follow us on Twitter, at LockedOnRavens, at LockedOnTitans.

And hopefully we get a great game this week. So thank you guys again for listening.