Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: Looking at franchise tag situations; Offseason plan

Episode Date: February 20, 2019

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Welcome in to another edition of Locked On Titans. I'm Jimmy Morris, joined as always by Terry Lambert. Terry, are you today? I'm trying to stay awake through all this rain we got in Nashville. Yeah, trying to stay awake, trying to stay above water. Yeah. A lot of flooding going on around the area. Schools closing early, which is a whole interesting thing. But anyway, not to get into all that, Titans podcast, what's up on the Titans. But not to get into all that, Titans podcast, what's up on the Titans. A few things before we get started.

You can follow us on Twitter, at jmrsmcm, at tlambertrt. You can check out our website, musicandmiracles.com, where we cover the Titans for SB Nation. So you can see what we got going on there. You can also get the podcast or read your podcast, search out Locked on Titans, and you will find us there. Get the podcast or read your podcast, search out LockedOnTitans, and you will find us there. Today we're going to talk a little bit about the franchise tag. Yesterday on Tuesday was the first day teams could franchise tag players. That goes for the next few weeks here. Most times teams kind of wait until the end of the period to actually do that.

Nobody's actually officially done it yet. There's been reports of some things that are potentially going to happen. We're going to talk about that, talk about some guys that can potentially get franchised and kind of how that pertains to the Titans, mainly in the Ed Rusher deal. And then Bill Barnwell wrote an article about how five steps to improve each team this offseason. So we'll talk a little bit about some of the stuff he talked about there as well. All right, so from the franchise tag perspective, I think the most interesting part of it for the Titans is how many of these edge rushers are going to hit the market. Because you've got a potential free agent class this year that has some pretty interesting names in it.

Now, again, not all these guys end up hitting the market. Now, again, not all these guys end up hitting the market. You're talking about Demarcus Lawrence from the Cowboys, Jadavion Clowney from the Texans, Dee Ford from the Chiefs, Dante Fowler, a guy that I liked coming out, but that hadn't worked out real well. I don't think he's going to get franchised, but he's a guy that's going to be out there as well. And then you've got Trey Flower from the Patriots, some of those types of guys. Now, like I said, we know that not all of those guys will hit the market,

but it seems like it could be a year where there could be a guy or two that the Titans could, if they want to go out there and spend, they could go out there and grab a guy in free agency, which is not typically the case with edge rushers. Yeah, it's the time of year where you pull up the free agent list and, you know, your eyes get real big at the potential names. But, you know, we'll see in the next two weeks here, this list will start to dwindle, and then we'll start to see what the real options are. So, you know, DeMarcus Lawrence, David Clowney, Frank Clark,

those guys probably aren't going to hit the market. They're probably one way or another going to stick with their current teams. You just don't see elite game-changing pass rushers hit free agency. But you're going to see that second-tier pass rusher, guys like Trey Flowers, Preston Smith from the Redskins, you mentioned Fowler. Those guys could very well hit the market. I think those guys are the ones that the Titans are going to have to attack.

Just from a sheer numbers perspective, you can attack this position in the draft. I think you can sign one and draft one. I don't think you can ever have enough. I think you need one more full-time player opposite of Harold Landry. So there are some interesting names out there. Probably for me, a guy I really liked is Preston Smith. Ended up going to the second round to Washington. Hasn't been super productive in his career. He's had a couple of eight sacks per year type seasons.

So, again, you're probably not going to get the game changer on this market. You're probably going to have to pay a little bit over. But, you know, I think it's high, and they're going to have to get one of those guys. Yeah, Smith's an interesting guy for sure. Like you said, I mean, the numbers don't pop off the page at you. And so I doubt he gets franchised. I mean, you're talking probably about $15 million for him. The Redskins are going to pay him if they franchise him.

Now, there's also players that are potential free agents on their teams. Their teams can renegotiate with them or negotiate with them before the market actually opens. So not only will you see a lot of guys on the list get franchised but you'll also see a lot of guys that are on the list work out deals with the team that they're currently with so if a guy like president smith is not going to hit the market it would more likely be because they work out um you know kind of an extended deal versus a franchise tag but yeah i mean he's definitely a guy that's got some intrigue uh i talked about trey flowers uh pro football focus did an article yesterday where they projected flowers to um to the titans i mean i think that's an easy thing right you got a knee there a guy coming from the patriots

everybody likes to make those connections and and you know not not on not without reason because the titans have signed a bunch of guys that have come from the Patriots, especially during the John Robinson era. But, you know, a guy last year, Trey Flowers, according to pro football focus grades, I mean, 90.4 overall grade, 64 total pressures. He's also pretty good against a run, 37 defensive run stops, run stop percentage of 10.5%. So a guy that gives you a little bit of everything. He's not just a, you know, when you think of Harold Landry,

you think more of the speed rusher. You're probably not expecting him to do as much in the run game. A guy like Trey Flowers, to me, is a little bit more like Derek Morgan, probably a little bit higher ceiling than what we've seen from Derek Morgan, but a guy that can play well against the pass, you know, rushing the quarterback and against the run. So he's a guy that can play well against the pass, rushing the quarterback, and against the run. So he's a guy that's going to be interesting. But what we know is these guys are going to get a bunch of money.

And so what's going to be interesting to watch is how much is John Robinson willing to spend. The Titans still have some cap space. I mean, they're not in trouble as far as that's concerned yet. They do have some things they're probably going to want to do with guys on their own roster coming up. We'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute. But I don't know.

Trey Flowers is a guy that's definitely intriguing to me, would make a lot of sense. But then if you can get a guy like Demarcus Lawrence, you know, PFF projected him to go to the Colts. I think that's just because if he does hit the market, the Colts have like over $100 million in cap space. So they've got plenty of room to basically do whatever they want to. But it's going to be interesting

and again, you've got to fall somewhere between the Titans fan on Twitter that wants them to sign everybody. And every time a free agent signs with another team, they, you know, oh, the Titans are cheap, they never spend any money. You've got to fall somewhere between that guy and the people that think, okay okay you can't be completely budget conscious either

like you can't just necessarily like okay i've got a number that's what this guy's worth if his market exceeds that there's no way i'm going there because we see every year in free agency guys paying more than they're worth you don't want to go sign three or four of those players but if we're talking about an edge rusher we we're talking about a receiver, I think it's a good time for the Titans to, quote, overspend on one of those guys. Yeah, and when you're talking about a position that's a premium in today's NFL, like edge rusher is, you're not going to see, like I mentioned,

the elite players, DeMarcus Lawrence, Jadavion Clowney, hit the market probably. But teams still have needs. They have glaring needs. They're going to have to outbid each other. So that's where the overspending comes in. And, you know, I don't have a problem with it if you're shoring up a key spot on your defense. But I wanted to touch on Trey Flowers. I don't know if he's a fit here.

He's a little heavy 6 to 270 productive player really good player in New England but but kind of plays with his hand in the dirt played a little inside played a little outside I try not to get too caught up in size in terms of where guys fit in the defense but he's not exactly your your pure edge rusher. He's more of a hybrid type guy. So could the Titans use him? Absolutely.

Does he fit their defense like a glove? I'm not so sure. So when you talk about overpaying, I'm not sure they'd do it with a guy like Trey Flowers. Yeah. So, I mean, listen, the best thing for the Titans would be for two or three or four of these guys to hit the market because then you've got some supply there, and so maybe prices stay down a little bit, which seems to fit more into what the Titans are looking to do. The teams have until March 5th to decide if they're going to franchise a player or not.

So, like I said, we usually will see teams wait a little bit more, wait a little bit longer into that deadline before they decide what they're going to do. And that's like eight days before free agency opens. So then you've got that deadline, and then you've got, like I said, kind of the exclusive negotiating rights for teams that, you know, they're players that are going to hit the market. So we'll see a lot of movement there between now and then the good news is all that stuff's two or three weeks away

so we're actually getting into a point where we're going to have some of that stuff to talk about which is which is kind of exciting because terry and i were talking yesterday it's been a little bit tough this year last year you know times made the playoffs they won a playoff game then they fired malarkey then you had a head coaching surge then you had offensive coordinator you know coordinator searches and all that kind of stuff so we kind of had plenty of content to carry us through really up until draft season like combine and all that kind of stuff started and it's been a little bit tougher this year just because times were out so early no big coaching staff changes they hired an offensive coordinator but they kind of did it all in-house there wasn't

this big surgery and like that so um we're we're actually starting to get into a time where things are going to really start happening. So that's exciting because we're kind of moving through this dead period right now. So hopefully things are going to pick up from a Titans perspective pretty soon. All right, coming up, we'll touch a little bit on Bill Barnwell's article about how the Titans can improve this offseason. Okay, so Bill Barnwell wrote an article today, five ways each AFC South team can improve. I was impressed with it.

Usually Barnwell is not my favorite writer when it comes to the Titans, but, I mean, this one I think was pretty good. First thing, cut Jonathan Ciprian. Second, pick up Conklin's option. Third, add an edge rusher. Fourth, be realistic about Marcus Mariota basically saying you need to get a better backup was pretty much what he was saying there. And then the fifth thing was extend Kevin Byard.

We've talked about the Ciprian thing at length. Everybody wants Ciprian and Vaccaro. That's not going to happen. It's going to be either or or neither. Those are kind of your options there. They're not going to have both of those guys. I think they probably cut Cyprian and move on and try to find maybe a cheaper option there. But we talked about that.

The more intriguing thing, I think, here is Jack Conklin's fifth-year option. So the Titans have to decide between now and May if they're going to pick up Conklin's option. If they do that, since he was a top-ten pick, he gets an average salary of basically like the franchise tag, is what it basically amounts to. Those numbers have not come out yet. But last year, the number for top 10 offensive line fifth-year options was $12.5 million. So assume that will go up a little bit, but not a ton.

It will be somewhere in that ballpark. So basically the Titans have to decide now if they want to pick that up. Then you play through the 2019 season. The Titans would then be able, if they decided to cut Conklin after the year before the new league year after the year before the new league year started so before the 2020 league year started if they cut him then they wouldn't know him anything if he's on the roster first day of the new league year that number becomes fully guaranteed it's also fully guaranteed for injury once they pick it up so I don't know it's kind of

an interesting discussion I think the Titans probably do it because, again, if you go through 2019 and you have some of the similar issues that you had this year, if it was that his production has fallen off, not just that he was still injured, you still have that window where you can cut him and not have to pay him that money. So from that perspective, I think it makes sense to do it. But we haven't heard anything as far as what they're thinking on that yet. Yeah, if we're understanding the rule correctly, it does make sense to go ahead and pick it up because you can get out of it next year.

But, you know, I'm interested to see how he comes back. That knee was the issue back in college, and, you know, we kind of saw signs of it all throughout the year. I don't think he was totally healthy when he came back, despite what the team said. Ended up shutting him down late in the year I don't think he was totally healthy when he came back despite what the team said ended up shutting him down late in the year and you know the thing that makes this interesting is to play of Dennis Kelly because I don't think we talked about Kelly enough and how well he played and how the team was actually elevated when they shut Conklin down so I think Kelly can push Conklin for a starting spot,

but that's not to say Conklin's not going to start on this offensive line. There's been a lot of talk about moving him to guard. I think that's a way to put your five best on the field so you can move him down to guard. It kind of solves two, kills two birds with one stone there. So interested to see if, number one, he's got to be healthy. Interested to see if he can do that. Number two, I'm interested to see if the Titans do put him at guard

because I think that would be a move, you know, if they moved on from Spain or Klein or Ben Jones or whatever, if they retooled this offensive line, I think moving Conklin to guard is the answer. Yeah, I mean, I think they definitely, you know, I think all options need to be on the board. And then you kind of decide where you want to go from there. And it does seem like when you've got a player of the caliber of Dennis Kelly,

it kind of feels like he's wasted if he's not on the field every play. And so, I mean, I think those things, they're going to have to evaluate and see where they want to go there. You know, and if you do that, if you can move Conley McGard, if you think you can be successful there, it kind of fills a need that you have of interior offensive linemen. You can shuffle some of the things around there.

Maybe you don't have to spend as much either in free agency or early in the draft on that type of guy. So that will definitely be interesting to watch, and I think it is something they should consider. I know they basically said no last year, and I get not in season. I know Jack Hunga said he's not a guard. He's never been a guard. He's always played tackle. I understand all those things, but at this point, I think all options need to be on the table.

So we talked about that, add edge rushing help. Barnwell made the same point that you did about Trey Flowers, about the size and if he can play 3-4 outside linebacker. So that's a concern there. Again, I am for addressing the offensive stuff in free agency and then getting that edge guy at 19. But we'll just kind of see how that plays out. Spending more at backup backup quarterback we've talked

about that as well there's going to be some there's going to be some good options out there whether it be tyrod taylor uh barno uh list robert griffin here i don't want any part of that but ryan fitzpatrick i mean you've got some options teddy bridgewater those types of guys that i think you know yeah it sucks the Titans are going to have to spend $25 million in the quarterback position for next year when you're already paying Marcus Mario to $20 million. But at the same time, I think that's just something they have to do because, you know, what's the definition of insanity?

Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I just think that if they go into 2019 saying, Marcus is going to play 16 games, so we're going to keep Blaine Gabler back up, I just think it would be foolish for them to think that way. Yeah, you know what Marcus is. He's going to miss some games along the way. I don't think you can count on him playing a full season.

So I also think you kind of have to think towards 2020. What happens if you decide to move on from Marcus and you keep the same offense around? A guy like Case Keenum is interesting, and you'd have to pay for him. He's going to get a lot of money, still do a lot of money from the Broncos there, but they traded for Joe Flacco. If they decide to move him, a lot of people have connected those dots with the Titans.

I'm not against it. You know, Case Keenum is a guy that's won a lot of games in this league. You know, I don't think he's anything special, but I think he'd be in the top five backup quarterbacks in this league for sure. And I think that's something the Titans have to have. So, again, you know what Marcus is. You know he's going to miss games. Prepare for it.

You're stupid if you don't. Yeah, and I think they will. But I don't know. Part of it, it just, I don't know. I worry that if they thought Blaine Gabbert was good enough last year, then it scares me a little bit that maybe they'll have that same thinking this year. Now, they shouldn't because they saw what that meant.

The thing with Keenum is, I mean, I think the Broncos have to cut him. I don't know exactly how trades work against salary cap. I was trying to look that up real quick. But he's got that $21 million cap number for 2019. Titans can't take that on. I don't know with the trade how all that kind of stuff works. But, yeah, another guy that's an option out there. And then the last thing, the fifth year, sorry,

extending Kevin Byard's contract or renegotiating his deal. Byard's going to get paid, whether it be the Titans use a franchise tag on him this time next year or they go ahead and extend him. I mean, the type of guy to me that you want to extend, he's one of John Robinson's best draft picks to date, a guy that by all accounts puts in the work. I mean, he does all the right stuff, goes in the locker room, all that kind of stuff,

homegrown players, you know, all those types of things. So I would think that would be something that the Titans would be looking towards doing. And, you know, maybe in the same vein, what happened last year with 10-1 maybe something that gets done you know right at the beginning of camp or whatever but he that seems like a no-brainer to me i mean i know you you got to consider money and all that kind of stuff but to me you got a guy that's been a great player been great for your franchise all that kind of stuff i mean i don't think there's any reason they wouldn't want to give him a long-term contract. He's one of the few really young building blocks that they have.

So I don't know why you would choose to go franchise tag year to year. That just seems messy. It just makes everybody mad. You know, it makes the player mad. It seems to make the organization mad. It seems to make the fans mad. So no reason to do that. Titans have money to go ahead and do that.

I don't know why you wouldn't. I mean, the guys already become one of the best safeties in the league, starting to become one of the faces of this defense, one of the faces of this franchise. You know, once again, we talked about the Titans don't have really a face of the franchise. I'd argue it's Taylor LeJuan. You could make an argument that Kevin Byard is becoming that guy. I think the league is starting to wake up to him.

You had the whole deal with Deion Sanders, which played into Byard's favor because he played it up, and Sanders looks like an idiot. But no reason to go ahead and lock him up. He should be a staple of this defense for many years to come. Yeah, and we're coming off of a time where the Titans had so much cap space simply because their draft picks were so bad they didn't have anybody to give money to. Now you're entering into a period where you paid LeJuan last year, you've got Bayard coming up.

So, I mean, it makes, you know, the salary cap a little bit trickier to manage, but it's a good place to be versus having all this cap space and having nobody to spend it on. So hopefully that will be, you know, more of the norm going forward, and then you can continue to draft guys that play well. You're going to see, in this scenario well you're going to see in this scenario you're going to see some guys leave and go get more money elsewhere that the titans just didn't have that that type of value on them but as long as they're drafting well replacing those guys

that's that's not really a problem so um yeah that that's kind of what we're looking at um all right so that'll do it for today uh we're going to do a voicemail show tomorrow. We do have a couple, but by all means, if you would like to call in and leave us a message, something to talk about on the show tomorrow, 615-787-8762 is the number. Leave them out a minute-long voicemail. Like I said, we've got a couple. We can use a couple more. So don't hesitate to call up there. You've got free agency draft, you know, guys, things to talk about today, whatever it may be,

questions or comments on any of that. to call up there. You've got free agency draft, you know, guys, things to talk about today, whatever it may be, uh, questions or comments on any of that. Uh, you can do that. 615-787-8762. Again, musicmiracles.com is where we write about the Titans and you can follow us on Twitter.

I'm at Jay Morse MCM and Terry at T Lambert RTT. So thanks for listening to today's episode of locked on Titans. And we'll talk to you again tomorrow.