Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: Matt LaFleur to Green Bay, now what?

Episode Date: January 8, 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, how are you? You know, I was a little down after that with Twitter news, but seeing Alabama get their face kicked in made it a lot better. Yeah, it was. I'm doing pretty good, thanks for asking. You and old G. Ramsey, he's been wearing it out this morning. You know, I said, like, listen, the game was over by 10 o'clock. I got in bed at a reasonable hour, so it's all right. We'll be back in the same two teams next year.

Same team twice in a row. We'll see how that goes. This is the Titans podcast, and we're going to talk about Matt LaFleur. Again, the job of the Packers and possible names to replace him. Before we do that, I want to remind you we write for MutelyCityMiracles.com. A couple of times there for SB Nation, so you can check us out there. Follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmoresmcm.

Terry's at tlimbertfb. You can follow the podcast account at LockedOnTitans. And you can get the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Just search out LockedOnTitans. So big news, obviously, Matt LaFleur is expected, I guess, to be named the next head coach of the Green Bay Packers. We kind of just brushed over the fact yesterday that he was interviewing with the Packers, that he had interviewed with the Packers on Sunday.

Not really expecting him to actually end up landing the job he did. Obviously, I don't think it was based on the work that he did here for the Titans in 2018, but his resume was getting him head coaching interviews last year. So from that standpoint, it's not all that surprising that he was able to land the job. But, you know, his first experience as a play caller was this past season with the Titans.

Things didn't go well. Now we've talked about all the reasons for that and all that kind of stuff. But, you know, at the end of the day, I was just a little bit surprised to see him one gig as the guy in charge of the offense, and it didn't go very well, and he's able to parlay that into a head coaching job. It's a total leap of faith by the Packers. Like you said, I don't think you can go off of much that he did in Nashville.

His offense ranked 25th in total offense. But you can make the argument that he's kind of dealt a bad hand here. You talk about the Marcus Mariota injury week one, lost Delaney Walker week one, Rashard Mack with the team,

working with all these young receivers inconsistent offensive line not a lot went right and I don't know how much blame he deserves for the offense being like it was I think we're frustrated because we saw

this offense have its high moment in the middle of the season when Marcus Marietta was right we saw the run game pop up in the middle of the season when Marcus Marietta was right. We saw the run game kind of pop up at the end of the year. So we were excited to give him one more year to let Marietta heal, let a healthy Marcus play with confident Derrick Henry and kind of see where it goes and we had talked a lot about continuity Which is something Marcus Mario hasn't had so it's just it's another blow for Marcus Mariota

Who just hasn't had any luck to really in any aspect of his career? So Once again, this offense is going to have to start over. It's gonna to be a new voice in Marcus Mariota's ear. We'll see some in-house candidates that they can hire, but just a really big blow for Marcus Mariota in a key season. 2019 is his prove-it year. So, another tough blow for

Marcus Mariota. Yeah, absolutely. And Graham Barfield, NFL.com, I guess he's a fantasy guy over there, tweeted this last night talking about Matt LaFleur's, quote, weird 2018 season with the Titans. You know, Marcus Mariota never fully healthy.

Delaney Walker misses all year. Jack Conklin missed seven games, limited to two more. And the Titans had the sixth hardest strength of schedule. So, you know, I mean, we've talked about all that stuff kind of ad nauseum here, mainly around Marcus Mariota, but obviously the same thing's true for Matt LaFleur. You know, and all that stuff aside, it just seemed like there were a few play-calling things that I just couldn't understand.

were a few play calling things that I just couldn't understand. That's, I think that's what, um, that's, that's, I think what surprised me more than anything else. I mean, like you said, you can excuse whatever happened here. You can excuse, um, I mean, look at Mike Vrabel. Okay. Mike Vrabel was the, was the head coach. I mean, was the defensive coordinator for the Texans in 2017. Their defense was terrible that year.

And, you know, Vrabel gets the head coaching job. So, I mean, you understand that, the personality, all that kind of stuff. I mean, obviously, LaFleur had something that he could sell to the Packers, you know, whatever that was. And, again, we know that right now Sean McVay is the hot name in NFL circles. Everybody's trying to find the next Sean McVay. LeFleur worked for him. I mean, all that stuff makes sense.

LeFleur does have some good stuff on his resume from the time before he came here. So it does make sense from that standpoint. But like I was saying, just some of the ways that they used the running back at the time this year is really the main thing that I point to. You know, just even after Derrick Henry, I mean, I get not wanting to consistently give Derrick Henry the ball early in the year. He didn't deserve it.

It wouldn't have been effective. But even after he got rolling, it seemed like they were still kind of holding to that rotation, would take him out at times when it didn't seem to make sense. The two-point conversion play call in London. I mean, just stuff like that that we talked about that we kind of scratched our heads about because it didn't make a whole lot of sense. It was that kind of stuff that made me wonder sometimes if he was ready to be an NFL play caller,

and now you're handing him the reins to a whole team. So I think that's really the confusing part to me. Again, I get the lineage and all that kind of stuff, but there were just some things, even with his play calling in the game, outside of all the injuries and all that kind of stuff, that confused me. And again, at times had me wondering if he was ready to be a play caller. Yeah, and you have to factor in, I think, you have to factor in the health of Marcus Mariota.

We really don't know how healthy he was. So maybe some of those games, uh, he really didn't have his whole playbook available because Marcus just wasn't healthy enough. He didn't want to get Marcus hit again. So there's just a lot of factors there that went in. And I think if you're a Packers fan,

you just kind of have to throw that out and look at his ties to Sean McVay, uh, which I think is what the Packers there that went in. And I think if you're a Packers fan, you just kind of have to throw that out and look at his ties to Sean McVay, which I think is what the Packers did. And, you know, I don't know if this is going to work. Clearly he's pretty good in an interview. He interviewed for the Titans head job last year, ended up getting an offensive coordinator job. But, man, following Sean McVay, that's going to lead to some really, really bad hires around the league.

Some guys that are perhaps not ready. I don't know if McVay, or excuse me, LaFleur is ready for a head job. He's just coming off of his first gig as really the guy calling an offense. It's a total leap of faith, but hey, it's better than trotting out a retread, the Jim Caldwells of the world. So applaud the Packers for doing that, but just sucks for the Titans. Sucks for Marcus Mariota.

This is his one year to prove it, and once again, it's his fourth offensive coordinator in five years. There's been some talk that Marcus Mariota is a coordinator killer, a coach killer. I don't know that that's necessarily the case when you look at who he's worked with.

So when was the last time the Titans had an assistant leave? Was it Jim Schwartz? Yeah, I think it was. Yeah, I mean, you've got that going for you. At least people are interested in the Titans again. Maybe Vrab variable is on the right track here uh but yeah you just hope you can bring someone in from the same coaching tree so mariota doesn't have to relearn everything he learned last offseason yeah absolutely and to your

point i'm with you man if the titans whenever they're looking for a head coach again which hopefully is not for a really long time. Bring me a Mike Vrabel. Bring me a Matt LaFleur over a Jim Caldwell, a Mike McCarthy, the guys that have proven they can't get it done. Everybody at some point, you have to take that leap of faith with them and let them do something they've never done before or you wouldn't ever have any new coaches. Listen, we're going to get into that coming up when we talk about guys that could possibly replace LaFleur

because you're going to have a list of guys that have called plays, that have had at least some level of success with that, and then you're going to have a list of guys that have never done it, and we don't have any idea how successful they would be if given the opportunity. Great point there. All right, we're going to talk about some possible names for a place coming up. Before we do that, I'll tell you about MyBookie. If you've been listening here, you know that we endorse MyBookie.

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an excellent job with these types of things. It's like 10,000 words, probably. But when he, going through possible replacements for Matt LaFleur. Now, this is a discussion that I think we should have before we launch into names. We've been all around the MarksMario thing,

and again, where we're at right now, he's playing on his fifth-year option, still a question mark. There are any number of scenarios that could happen with MarksMario. 2019 could be it for him. 2019, he could be really good. They could sign him to an uh they could 2019 he could be really good they assigned to an extension 2019 he could be good enough that they want to see another year and

they franchise tag i don't think we talked much about their day but that's certainly an option um so with all of that in mind you asked me the question before we hopped on here do you hire this do you make this hire for marcus mariota or you or do you make it for the best of your organization as a whole and i think at this point you don't completely disregard mariota in this decision but you don't necessarily hire a coordinator that you think would be perfect just for him because there is a i I mean, I don't know what the percentage chance is, but there's a decent percent chance that he's not your quarterback in 2020.

Yeah, this comes from the talk of Mark Helfrich or anyone really with Oregon ties. Do you go that route? Do you really try and maximize Mariota for one more year? I just don't think you do. I think you get the guy that Vrabel feels brings the best philosophy, that has the best fit, that fits with him, fits with the coaching staff. Because, I mean, Mariota is just not a sure thing at this point. As much as we want him to be, as much as we thought he would be, he's just not.

So I'm just not with the line of thinking that you go hire a spread guy, an Oregon, a Chip Kelly disciple, anything like that. Now, what I am for is keeping it somewhat on the coaching tree, on the McVay, on the Shanahan coaching tree, which is what LeFleur ran here last year. So I think you need to keep it there, not just for Mariota, for all the receivers, for everyone involved, for this offensive line. They learned a whole new system.

We really didn't see them start to gel until week 14, 15, 16 in the season. So we were told it was going to take half the season to come along. It took a little bit longer than that, tons of injuries. But I just hate to see all that work undone just because LaFleur went up to Green Bay. Yeah, and so with that in mind, Mike listed two guys on the current staff that could be candidates. Pat O'Hara, the quarterback's coach, and Tony Dews, the running back's coach. I would assume if one of those two guys is going to get the job, it would be O'Hara again.

Familiarity with Mike Bramble. I mean, he was on the Texan staff with Mike Bramble before he came here. You know, obviously quarterback's coach is very important to an offensive staff from a skiing perspective, from a jargon, language, understanding, all that kind of stuff from that perspective. So, I mean, he would have as good of an understanding of Matt LaFleur's offense as

anyone else did. Now, we're also assuming that Mike Vrabel liked Matt LaFleur's offense, which maybe he didn't. Maybe he wants to go a completely different direction. I mean, who knows? But if you're trying to keep some continuity, if you're trying to keep along those same days like you said you either go with a with a shanahan tree person or you go with an internal candidate who you know then it would kind of i guess be from a little flirt tree or however you want to look at that so i mean i think o'hara to

me is really the only guy on staff that has a chance to be the next offensive coordinator. Yeah, he's just a guy that me and you really don't know about. He's got all this experience in the Arena League and some high school experience. But outside of that, we really don't know. But you would think that he worked close enough with LaFleur to where he could just kind of pick up where he left off. We don't know if he'd be any good, but that's kind of where you'd start if you wanted to keep him on staff. I just kind of go back to last year.

You remember the Ryan Day stuff kind of before anyone knew who Ryan Day was at a national level. There was some interest there. So you wonder if Vrabel would go down that road again. He's kind of the unknown college guy that's been making some noise. So, you know, obviously Ryan Day is the head coach at Ohio State, taking over for Urban Meyer. But maybe there's someone that he's worked with in his past

that he feels like he can get. So a lot of names right here. It's really, really hard to narrow any outside candidate down. But keep that in mind about last year with Rondae. Yeah, and just along those lines, Zach Taylor, the Rams quarterback coach, is a guy that now the Rams have not been allowing him to interview for jobs. So that's another thing that you have to keep in mind with this. With NFL position coaches, teams don't have to let them interview

for coordinator jobs. So if they don't want these guys to even talk to the Titans, they don't have to tie them, and that's that. But Zach Taylor, again, same system that LeFleur came from, all that kind of stuff. So that would make a little bit of sense if you're going outside, but you want to stay in a similar tree, similar thing to what's been going on here. All right, and then – so after this, we'll just kind of kick around some names that have been thrown out there that are fun and kind of talk about if we'd be in favor or not. So, hey, listen, I'm going to throw fill out lane kiffin that's my first name

um good guy i i knew i knew you're gonna love that um and listen like it's not gonna be the tights offensive coordinator but if you know if they hired him would you hate it um i i don't know i mean at least at least he can't get you into trouble with the NCAA. This is a tough question for you. As an NFL coordinator. But you just talk about a slimy snake type guy. Yes, I probably would hate it. But, you know, I don't think you're getting him out of Boca Raton. I think he's having too much fun hitting up the bars down there

and being a rock star. So, yeah, I'm out on Lane. Yeah, there you go. He has success. That man can turn a quarterback around. All right, so the other names you're going to hear, you know, we've talked at length about how we don't like retreads. But, you know, Mike List, three former head coaches on the list here,

Adam Gates, Jim Caldwell, Mike McCarthy. None of those guys do it for me. I would just, I mean, I don't know. I mean, obviously Mike McCarthy had a lot of success with the Packs. I don't know what success Jim Caldwell's had. I can't remember it. It's been so long ago, I guess. Adam Gase was really good when Peyton Manning was his quarterback,

but, I mean, I think there are, you know, literally thousands of people on this earth that could call plays for Peyton Manning in his prime or even, you know, like towards the end of his career. So I just – those names, I would rather see them go somewhere with the unknown outside the box, even with an O'Hara over one of those three. At least that's my personal opinion. Yeah, I'm out on Caldwell or Mike McCarthy for sure. I mean, if you can't manufacture an offense with Aaron Rodgers pulling the strings, yeah, I'm out on you too. So Adam Gase is interesting. I typically am totally out on Peyton Manning, offensive coordinators.

Something just went wrong in Miami. He lost the team, so there's the concern there. Can he maintain control of an offensive group? He wasn't particularly bad in Miami, but he did lose control at the end, but that was as a head coach. So I don't know. It feels like he's going to get a bigger job. He's interviewed for some head coaching positions.

So that's an obvious name. I don't know how I'd feel about that one i'm not in or out and then another interesting brian callahan was a guy that i think the titans talked to last year um before hiring matt lafleur uh he's a raiders quarterback coach has been out there for a while obviously has you know those nfl bloodlines his dad being being a successful head coach both in the nfl and in college. So the name is interesting. I mean, he's done some good work with a guy like Matthew Stafford,

done some good work with Derek Carr in Oakland. So he's a name that, I mean, if that was who they brought in, I wouldn't necessarily hate that. But then you are probably looking at a complete new system. Yeah, and that's another guy we just really don't know too much about, total wild card. I believe he worked with Jim Bob Cooter, who's also available. Just both of them did some average work up in Detroit. But, again, you don't know how Callahan is or will be on his own calling an offense.

So he's totally unknown for me. And the other guy that I don't think it makes any sense to go down this road, but John DeFilippo was a guy that was a really hot name this time last year. Obviously ended up being the Vikings offensive coordinator and got fired during the season. I guess just had some issues with the way they ran that offense, abandoned the run too quickly in games and i don't know i mean obviously you know mike zimmer was a role and

play defense so i mean you you get that from that perspective but i don't know i mean it's just he's he's an interesting name because he was such a hot guy uh in that last cycle but also you know it was funny it seemed like frank reich a lot of credit for the eagles were able to do last year in that playoff run with with uh with with nick foals and everything that happened there and then you know frank reich was the office coordinator but there were other names on that staff that were you know hotter names than he was john di filippo one of them and now you've seen the success that Frank Reich has gone on to have with the Colts and Andrew Luck.

And obviously he has Andrew Luck. I know that helps. But I do think that their scheme is good, and they did a good job of maximizing what Andrew Luck was able to do early in the season when it seemed like he was still a little bit limited throwing the ball. And then later in the season they kind of opened it up more as Luck apparently got healthier.

So I don't know. Is the shine off of DeFilippo? I mean, obviously for getting fired in his first year with the Vikings, but even more so with just the success that Frank Reich has had. Maybe it was really Frank Reich that was doing a lot of that structure and game planning and that kind of stuff with the Eagles. Yeah, that was my exact thought. I think we had the wrong guy pegged last year because we were all over Flip,

kind of wanting him to come here at the time. But it does seem like Frank Reich was the one pulling the strings there. But, yeah, that would be a tough sell. You know, you talk about going to Minnesota, Kirk Cousins, he's not the worst quarterback, not the best, probably somewhere in the middle of the road. But you've got Stephon Diggs, you've got Adam Thielen, some weapons there, Dalvin Cook, it just couldn't make it work.

It was just downright bad down the stretch. So I know the offensive line was a problem there, but his one season of work, I don't think you can go back to that and hire him with confidence. If he's going to be your quarterback coach, that's a different story. He was given a lot of credit with Carson Wentz and his development, so maybe that's a candidate down the road if the Titans make a change at quarterback coach and some other positional coaches as well.

Any other names of interest? Man, there's so many. That's my thing. It's so early to be speculating. I know it's fun, but it's just really early. The guy that's kind of got me piqued on both a Titans perspective and apparently a Volunteers perspective is Todd Monken, Buccaneers offensive coordinator. That guy was really good in college, had two top five offenses at Oklahoma State,

went to Southern Miss, ended up dumping to the NFL and coordinating the Bucs offense with Jameis Winston and all those guys. Actually ranked third in terms of total offense this year. So he's had some looks as a head coach. I believe he interviewed with the Packers and the Jets. That's a guy that you've seen a lot around Twitter already for. So he's got the stats to back it up. I wouldn't mind seeing the Titans go down that road.

Yeah, he is the guy's interview. So did he get fired in a year? Dirk Cutter took the play calling away from him? I don't know. I think that, if I recall correctly, that's what happened. And it was just crazy because that offense wasn't the problem, obviously. Right. So, yeah, he's an interesting guy.

Again, it's just, yeah, some things will come out, guys they start talking to. And so we'll have a little bit more to go on when that happens. Because, like you said, mean there's so many names and you can you can just kind of scatter all over the place and and talk about guys that that they could or should or whatever begin so um we'll obviously keep an eye on all of it as it happens and you know again we weren't really expecting this to happen when we talked yesterday we thought we'd be you know talking about receivers today of the time dresser and all that kind of stuff. But the floor is gone. They're looking for somebody to replace him,

and so obviously we'll, like I said, be on top of all of that. So keep listening to us. We'll be a couple more new episodes this week. You can also follow us, museummiracles.com. We'll be writing stuff up there, keeping track of guys that are reported to be in for interviews and all that kind of stuff. You can also call in and leave us a voicemail. We'll be writing stuff up there, keeping track of guys that are reported to be in for interviews and all that kind of stuff. You can also call in and leave us a voicemail.

We'll talk about it on the show. We had a couple after yesterday's show, which was awesome. And what was planned on getting to them today, obviously with all the news that happened, not going to do that today. But before the end of the week, we'll get to those voicemails. The number is 615-787-8762. Just leave us a voicemail.

We'll play it. We'll talk about any questions you have, any kind of feedback or whatever. Who do you think the Titans should hire as their offensive coordinator and why? Leave that for us, and we'll be sure to listen and provide feedback. Again, follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmorrismcm. Terry's at teamlambertfb. Thanks so much for listening to Locked on Titans,

and we will talk to you again tomorrow.