Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: McDaniels spurns Colts; Titans round out staff

Episode Date: February 7, 2018

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Welcome in to another edition of Locked on Titans. I'm Jimmy Morris, joined by Terry Lambert. Terry, how are you tonight? I'm great. It's been a really fun night. Yeah, it's been really interesting, so we're going to get into all that here in just a second. Before we do, I want to remind you that Terry and I cover the Titans for MuseumMiracles.com, part of SB Nation, so you can find all of our work there. You can also follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmorrismcm. Terry is at tlambertfb. We also have a Twitter account for the podcast now,

and it's at LockedOnTitans. No underscore, just at LockedOnTitans, so search that out. Like I said in the last episode, we'll start to do some question and answer type stuff, and we'll use that account for those times. So go ahead and follow that. We'll put the podcast there every day, and we'll use that account for those times. So go ahead and follow that. We'll put the podcast there every day, and we'll try to have some interaction there as we go on throughout the offseason.

And you can also subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts, or just on Spotify. You can find us there as well. So big news tonight, which is kind of a crazy scenario. Josh McDaniels, who has been reported to be the next head coach of the Annapolis Colts for almost a month now, right? Backed out after the Colts made the official announcement earlier today and scheduled a press conference for Wednesday.

But the news broke tonight that McDaniels has decided to not become the Colts head coach and stay in New England. Terry, I'll get your reaction to that. Why? That's the big question. Immediately my brain went to, is Bill Belichick retiring? So you just wonder what happened to get him to this point. The Colts had already announced it on Twitter.

It was out there. A press conference was scheduled. And then all of a sudden, bam, it's not going to happen. So something happened between 4 and 8 o'clock tonight. He backed out of his deal, and you just don't see this happen. So the Patriots clearly came to McDaniels and said, Hey, we've got a plan for you. We're going to keep you around.

You're going to succeed Bill Belichick. Something like that, something along those lines happened. And I don't know if Belichick's going to retire or whatnot, but it seems like they laid out a short-term plan for him. He's clearly in their future. a short-term plan for him. He's clearly in their future. It just seems like they want him to be the guy that takes over for Bill and kind of lead them into the next era.

Yeah, and I was reading a column earlier tonight, and I can't remember, I think it was in the Boston Globe, basically saying the Patriots let Jimmy Garoppolo get away. And it seemed like they had their successor to Tom Brady there. They let him get away. They didn't want to let the same thing happen with McDaniels, the successor to Bill Belichick. Whenever he does decide to retire, it appears right now that that's not the plan for now,

that he will be the coach, the Belichick, that is, will be the coach of the Patriots in 2018. But you've got to figure sooner rather than later Belichick will be hanging it up. And so I guess they wanted to, you know, have that guy there that they could succeed him. You know, and then I still am of the belief that there may be something to this Andrew Luck stuff.

You know, Chris Mortensen had a report on Sunday that the Colts doctors are afraid that Luck might need another shoulder surgery. There have been reports that he might never play again. We haven't really gotten any updates on him officially since the Colts put him on IR back in the middle

of the season. If you're walking into a job like that and you think you have a franchise quarterback and then you find out you're if you're walking to a job like that and you think you have a franchise quarterback and then you find out that well you know this guy's not gonna not gonna be back this year not gonna be back at all or whatever that would obviously be some cause for concern as well and and you know if anybody knows how important it is to have the franchise quarterback it'd be much josh mcdaniels i mean you've seen the success that he's had in new england with tom brady and then he went to the Broncos and had Tim Tebow. He knows how important

it is to get that guy. That could have been something there as well. It's up, though, an interesting situation for some guys because they had some assistant coaches hired that were planning on being a part of McDaniels' staff. The Colts are saying Tuesday night, we're recording this, that those guys are coaches hired they were planning on being a part of mcdaniel's staff and the colts are saying tonight uh tuesday night we're recording this that those guys are still staying so it'll be interesting to see how all that plays out i guess there's obviously a lot of different directions the colts can go but you know dave tube uh is a name that you keep seeing floated out there he's the

special teams coach with the Chiefs. You know, that would be kind of a big jump for a guy to go from being a special teams coach, special teams coordinator, however you want to say that, to the head coach. You know, I'm a lot less afraid of the Colts in 2018 if it's Toob instead of McDaniels running the show there. But, I mean, I guess you never know. Apparently Toob is very well respected on the league, so maybe he is a guy that just hadn't gotten a chance and will do well

when he does. The early reports, you've seen Toob's name out there. Rappaport floated Leslie Frazier, who is currently the Bills defensive coordinator. Yeah, sign me up for either one of those. Neither of those scare me like McDaniels

does. What you don't want is Frank Reich from the Eagles. You don't want DiFilippo. You don't want anything from that team. As you saw them carve up the Patriots, that would be the worst-case scenario here. That might even be an upgrade from McDaniels. But going back to Josh, I just don't really buy the Andrew Luck stuff. I mean, you knew what you were walking into when you accepted that job,

reportedly accepted that job, and I guess he did. They had already announced him as the head coach. I just don't see anything that could have roster-wise scared him away. I don't know that they could get any new new andrew luck that that could force him to say you know what never mind i just think it was something on the patriots end some offer was made some plan was put in place uh but yeah absolutely bizarre uh colster looking for a head coach when it seemed like you know theyDaniels out from under the Titans, which is just ironic. Yeah, and Diana Russini of ESPN just tweeted that those members of the Colts coaching staff that had been hired on or signed contracts or whatever,

that they were just as blindsided as everyone else. They didn't know. They hadn't heard from McDaniels regarding his change of heart. So kind of a crazy scenario there. And, again, I think the most likely thing is that, you know, Bob Craft came back and said, look, what's it going to take to keep you here? We want you to follow Bill Belichick. And, you know, I mean, that's a – it's an interesting choice for McDaniels

because do you want to be the guy that follows the guy? You know, I mean, you've got Bill Belichick who is, I mean, at this point, has to go down as the greatest coach in NFL history, right? I mean, what the Patriots have been able to do in the salary cap era to be, you know, as dominant as they've been every year. That's going to be a tough act to follow. Obviously, a very high standard that he's set there and then whenever mcdaniels does take over he's going to be doing it without tom brady um if he does get tom brady it's going to be at the very tail end of his career and he's not going to be

the guy that he's been you know during this run so you know you have that choice of of trying to continue that dynasty there in new england or go to the Colts and really build something from the ground up. They've got some pieces, but coming off a really rough season. They've had a couple of rough seasons with Luck not being healthy. It's kind of an interesting choice there. This is it for McDaniels. We talked about that before when we were talking about him as the Colts head coach or possibly the Titans head coach, whatever.

He was only going to get one more shot. Now, the fact that he agreed to become the Colts head coach, obviously they had a press conference scheduled, and he's backed out of it like he is. I think the only other head coaching job he's ever going to get is going to be the Patriots. So now he's got one shot to do it whenever that time comes. So, I mean, it's an interesting, I guess, career choice there,

trying to decide between those two things. And, again, I don't know what's better. Like I said, I just feel like taking over New England once Brady and Belichick are gone is going to be tough for anybody because you're going to be expected to produce at the standard that they've been producing at, and it's going to be tough for anybody because you're going to be expected to produce at the standard that they've been producing at, and it's going to be tough with those guys gone. Absolutely.

I totally agree with that. How much of this situation is Bob Kraft just saying, hey, screw you to the Colts for the whole deflate gate situation? I always think about that because the Colts were the ones that turned them in to the NFL and got the whole ball rolling on that whole ordeal. So that immediately popped into my mind, and I think Schefter tweeted that tonight about somebody texting him that that was a possibility too. So the Colts-Patriots rivalry is back on.

I think the Colts have a long way to go before they want to hang with them. But, you know, like you were saying, Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, it sounds like they don't have a whole lot left in the tank. Yeah, and so there's a report out there now that the Colts already have two or three interviews lined up in the next 24 to 48 hours, arranging themselves a pro football talk. The names are not known at this point. We talked about Tobe. He's a guy.

And then I guess, yeah, Florio throws out Jim Schwartz, Frank Reich, John DeFilippo, Leslie Frazier, and possibly even Jim Mora. That would be a really interesting one. You know, his dad was obviously the coach there with the whole playoffs thing. So anyway, we don't know who those names are, but that will be something to watch. And, you know, I don't know. I mean, I really do think that if they go the Frank Reich-DeFilippo direction, that would scare me. And somebody, I think it was Orlovsky that suggested earlier that, you know, if he's making a decision, he does that.

You go with one of those two guys or both of those two guys in Ryken DeFilippo, and then you bring in like a Jack Del Rio to come in and coach the defense. That's sort of what the Rams did with McVay and Wade Phillips. So I really hope the Colts don't do that. I'm hoping for something more of a special teams coordinator or a Leslie Frazier. Hey, Jeff Fisher, a guy that's great at coming in and being real steady and, you know, getting your team right where you want them. So I think they should call Jeff Fisher.

We know he has a Colts jersey. You know, we've got the picture of, you know, him posing at that thing. It just always cracks me up. But anyway, so it's been a crazy night and a crazy you know hours here because it was just this morning that you know the the Colts officially you know made the announcement and announced a press conference and now they're back to back to you know probably square one I mean I don't know if they had any indication this was going to happen or not but now kind of back to the drawing board to figure out who their coach is going to be so we'll keep

an eye on that like I think it's of interest to the drawing board to figure out who their coach is going to be. So we'll keep an eye on that. Like I said, it's of interest to us, you know, obviously since the Colts are in the Titans division. So we'll kind of keep you up to date on what's going on there. All right, coming up here in just a minute, the Titans and Mike Vrabel finished rounding out the coaching staff today. So we'll talk about the hires that were made and kind of give a little bit of preview into what's coming in the next weeks in the offseason. All right, so two position coaches announced today.

Keith Carter will be the Titans offensive line coach. He comes to them from the Falcons where he was the running backs coach but has been an offensive line coach before uh in college he played at ucla and then he was an offensive line coach um and a couple of san jose state uh and a couple other places and then tony dues is going to be the running backs coach and he comes to the times from west virginia uh Our friend Mike wrote a really good detailed post on these two guys. You can see that at museummiracles.com, breaking these guys down. And then I guess the biggest name to us, Steve Watterson, is retained as the strength coach, and he's been the strength coach there for 30-something years. So a guy that is very recognizable with this franchise if you if you pay close

attention so you know and mike very well i'd heard him on the radio i think it was the midday 180 last week talking about how you know basically he was going to evaluate watterson is what see what he what he brought to the table what he liked what he didn't like and then make a decision there so obviously um you know steve watson did enough to impress him that he gets to stay around uh so anyway that that pretty much does it for the coaching staff um and so you know i think all when it's all said and done i mean the things we're paying the most attention to are obviously offensive and defensive coordinator we talked about those last week and talked about how we thought vrabel did really well with those two hires. But you were saying that after that, the next most important thing is probably the offensive line coach.

And so, I mean, we don't know a lot about Keith Carter, but we know that he's worked with LaFleur before in Atlanta when they were under Kyle Shanahan. So it'll be something to keep an eye on as training camp comes around. Yeah, it just seems like positional coaches, the guy that can make the biggest impact is the offensive line coach, at least right off the bat. So Carter's an interesting guy.

Was a running back coach this year for the Falcons after two years as an assistant offensive line coach in Atlanta. So another guy off the Kyle Shanahan tree. He's going to know Matt LaFleur's offense. Outside of that, we don't really know much about him. Then it's the same deal with Tony Dukes. We don't know a whole lot about these positional assistants. It's kind of funny to watch people get really excited or really angry over these hires

because you just don't know a whole lot about them. So, you know, the thing I found most interesting today was keeping Steve Watterson. After the hamstring issues that really just plagued the Titans all season long, I thought they might go a different direction there, but it was kind of interesting that they chose to retain him. It's going to be his 33rd straight season

with the Titans, so maybe they just wanted to keep some continuity there, but the Titans can't. Surely, at some point, it becomes it's not just luck. There was something wrong with the hamstring issues. It seemed like one popped up every week. So that can't happen next year for sure.

Yeah, and that was the thing that I kind of wondered about is just when you have – I mean injuries happen in football, obviously. But when you have the same injury happening to a bunch of different guys over and over, at some point there's a common theme there. And it does seem like that it would be the strength coach be the strength coach that would have the most impact on that. Now, I don't know. I mean, I'm not a kinesiologist or whatever, so I don't know exactly how all that works. But whatever, Vrabel saw enough that he's a guy that they wanted to keep around.

So we'll kind of keep an eye on that. But it is a little bit, I think, of a red flag or just makes you raise your eyebrows a little bit, the fact that they did have all those injuries. But anyway, so we know the coaching staff, who is on the coaching staff now. And so now I would imagine we won't hear much from this group over the next couple weeks especially as they kind of hunker down, start to look at the positions on the offense, the personnel that they have right

now currently, you know, with John Robinson, guys that they're not going to bring back, guys that they want to sign from different teams and all that stuff. So they'll kind of start evaluation. And it's a little bit different than what it would have been if, you know, Mike Malarkey stayed on. You're obviously still evaluating your own team, but you're just evaluating them. You already know them. Vrabel and his staff are getting to know these guys

as well as evaluating their play. So a lot of work for them to do, obviously, in the next couple weeks. And then the next thing, you know, coming up, we'll hear from these guys when we get to combine, I'm sure. You know, the coaches and the GMs always do an interview there the first couple of days. So that'll be the next kind of indication we get of where things are going. As far as the offseason goes,

it's kind of dead here for a little bit. The combine comes around and then free agents are that. There's not a whole lot of downtime. Really, just these next couple of weeks are probably the slowest that we'll have leading up to the draft.

Like I said, we'll be here leading up to the draft so um you know like i said we'll be here and covering all that stuff one more note jason michael got a job he's going to be the tight end coach in uh arizona so the guy that was wiz and hunt's offensive coordinator and uh mike malarkey's quarterback's coach so anyway there's more more coaching news there but you know like i said so we'll stay we'll stay on top of all this stuff and keep talking about it. We'll probably, now that this is done, the coaching staff, we'll probably start to move into some positional reviews in the next few episodes. We can take some time looking at the roster and the guys they have

and talking about places they need to add or places that are good or what they have depth-wise in certain positions. So we'll kind of start to do that over the next few episodes, and that should lead us into the combine. Like I said, we'll have plenty of stuff, combine, free agency draft, all that stuff to talk about. So, Terry, anything else? We're going to have Dan Orlowski on next week.

Confirm that with him. Monday or Tuesday, so be on the lookout for him. He's transitioning to a media role, doing some awesome film breakdowns. So he's a guy that was in camp with Matt LaFleur with the Rams this year before he got cut. So he's going to have a lot of insight on LaFleur, what kind of coach he is, what kind of scheme he's going to run. So look out for that early next week.

Yeah, and he's great. I mean, if you've seen him on anything, he can break it down really, really well and break it down to a level where we can all understand it, not just if you have a high level of football knowledge, film study. I mean, he can break it down where anybody can understand it. So that'll be fun. We'll get him next. So that's it for tonight.

Again, musicandmiracles.com. Check us out there. We'll have a ton of content going up there every day. So check that out. Follow on Twitter. I'm at jmorrismcm. Terry's at tlembertfb. Follow the podcast at LockedOnTitans.

Like I said, we'll do some stuff on question and answer and that type of stuff. So you can hit us up there, and we'll answer stuff on the podcast. So for Terry, this is Jimmy saying thanks for listening to LockedOnTitans, and we'll talk to you again tomorrow.