Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: McNair podcast thoughts, Titans news and a look around the AFC South

Episode Date: October 25, 2018

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Welcome in to another edition of Locked On Titans. I'm Jimmy Morris, joined as always by Terry Limbert. Terry, how are you tonight? Doing alright. What's up, man? Not too much. A little bit of a slow news time as far as the Titans are concerned. But we've got a few things we're going to talk about, including the Steve McNair podcast that SI has started. I'll give you my thoughts on that. And we did a couple of news items. And then at the end we'll kind of check in around the AFC South and see how those teams are doing. Before we do that, I want to remind you that we're up from UCMiracles.com.

We're here with Titans for SB Nation. You can follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmorrismcm. Terry's at tlambordfb. You can find the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Just search out Locked on Titans, and you will find us there. All right, so in case you haven't heard or haven't seen anything about it yet, SI has been doing a, I guess, true crime-type deal.

Follow the Titan. It's about Steve McNair's murder. And, I mean, before I get into this, I've got to be honest up front. There are very few, or at least I think there are very few things that I'm just irrational about. But one of the things that I am irrational about is my love for Steve McNair. I think, you know, he was, so when the Titans came here, when the Titans became the Titans in 1999, I was a senior in high school. And so really Steve McNair, I mean, if you were around for that, you know the legend around him.

I think he was probably my last sports hero. You get to a point in your life where these guys are not really your heroes anymore. I think McNair was kind of the end of that for me. Like I said, it was just such a magical thing when they came here and they were so good. Went to Super Bowl that first year, all that stuff of held um i guess a special place in my heart so to speak and um you know when when i heard that he had been murdered um i mean that was like i was sad and i don't get sad about celebrity deaths very often but that was one that like actually like legitimately made me sad.

So just understand all of that, where I'm coming from, before we start in on this. Okay, so they've done two episodes of this show so far. The first episode was all around Vincent Hill, who, again, if you're not familiar with the case, McNair was shot four times. When they found him, one of his mistresses was at his feet

with a single gunshot wound to her head. The police in Nashville ruled it a murder or suicide fairly quickly. It seemed like a pretty open and shut case. But Vincent Hill is this guy who is a quote unquote private detective.

Has been was a Nashville police officer. And then basically, I mean, you can go read, but basically he did a couple things that were not good police work and then left the Nashville police force because his daughter moved back here or something. Anyway, then tried to get back on, and they denied him. And Ronald Surpass, who I don't know if he's still the police chief in Nashville, Anyway, they tried to get back on, and they denied him. Ronald Surpass, who I don't know if he's still the police chief in Nashville, but he was at the time of McNair's murder.

He was the one that wouldn't let Vincent Hill back on the police force. Vincent Hill absolutely has an ax to grind with the National Police Force. Let's be clear about that up front. He says he doesn't like him, but he absolutely does have an ax to grind. He's been banging this drum from the beginning that Sahil Kazemi did not do it. Alright? Now, listen, I understand from the perspective of the way

that McNair was killed, a shot in each temple, two shots to the chest, and basically executed. That seems like a bit much. That's the only thing that's ever given me pause about this whole thing, about her doing it. But there's never been any evidence that's been uncovered that points to anything other than what the police ruled it to be. All right.

There's also a rumor out there, and I'm not going to I'm not even going to speak of what the rumor is. If you listen to the podcast, you know what it is. If you listen to the McNair thing, you know what it is. I think it's ridiculous that Sports Illustrated, who is a credible media outlet, is running with this when it's something that's never been corroborated by anybody that has any information about this. Other than Vincent Hill says he heard it from people in the police department. Nobody else has ever said it. They've got the corner coming on in a future episode.

The corner, maybe, whatever. They would know, right? But we don't, anyway, so it's just ridiculous to me that a legitimate news outlet is running with that. There's been no new evidence. All they're doing is retreading the same stuff that Vincent Hill has been saying since

day one, and there's nothing new in it. And then in the episode that came out today, you've got this professor from Alcorn State. His name is escaping me right now. I'll get it in a minute. But that is really close with the McNair family. I do not deny that he's close to the McNair family. He probably is. That's fantastic. But at the same time, he has no knowledge of Kazemi.

Jenny Kazemi is what they call her. No knowledge of her. No knowledge of kazemi jenny kazemi is is you know what what they call her um no knowledge of her no knowledge of her relationship with steve mcnair no knowledge of whether or not she committed the crime he doesn't think that she did but he doesn't think that she did just because he doesn't think so like and i don't understand how that qualifies as anything other than i mean just this dude this random dude's theory that, yes, he's closer to the McNairs, but he has no knowledge of the case. He's bringing nothing new to the table. So, so far in two episodes, they've trotted out a guy that was, you know,

basically kicked off the police force. They've trotted out a professor at Alcorn State who, and again, I'll look up his name here in just a sec, but basically, you know, got run out of Alcorn State for some very bad stuff, and they brought no new evidence. They just say, hey, we don't think that this is how it went down. So I'm having trouble at this point understanding really what the point is of the podcast, and I got into it on Twitter today with a guy that is somehow related to the podcast, the McNair one, and saying, well, you don't care about the afterlife of this story.

Well, that's not necessarily true, but I just don't understand why we're running something through the mud like this when there's absolutely no evidence to corroborate what we're talking about. Yeah, it seems like you're reopening this wound here, like you're saying, without much new being brought to the table here So I don't know if you're gonna do a story like this And you got anything new don't you think you'd lead off with that or something? Yeah, it's just I realize it's a series and they're gonna get to I'm assuming something

I don't know like you like you're saying they're just kind of something uh i don't know like you like you're saying they're just kind of dredging up the rumor mill here and it's it's funny that the narrator of the podcast just kind of says uh about vincent hill he's like i don't know if i can trust this guy you know he's just kind of discrediting him and and he says but he's all i've got right now so So the whole thing just seems a little bizarre. I just, I don't know. It's something that you need to probably let lie because they're talking about the entire Nashville police force and big conspiracy theory here. So it's starting to sound a little tinfoil hat to me.

It's probably something that should just be left alone. But maybe something comes out of it in the later episodes. But so far, not much new being brought to the table. Yeah, and so that guy's name is Alvin Simpson. That's the guy at Alcorn State, Doc Simpson. Just go Google that. Go Google his name, and you'll see what I'm talking about as far as his issues that he had later on.

Yeah, and I remember, so back when this happened, it was back when August West and I were doing MCM radio. So, I mean, it's been a long time ago. And I remember him talking about, like, because Florio was running with all these conspiracy theories back then at the time, and I remember August just going into the, like, you know, I was running with all these conspiracy theories back then at the time. And, and I remember August is going into the, like, you know, these, these Kung Fu ninjas that broke in and, you know, it was just like anything, like it was just ridiculous stuff people were coming up with. And like,

and listen, I'm by no means a gun expert, but you know, one of their, one of Vincent's Hill, Vincent Hill, who was a, it was a police officer, right? One of his theories to why Kazemi couldn't have done it was because it was with a 9mm, and she's a small girl, she couldn't handle a 9mm. Well, it's not a.45. Like, I don't understand how, like, that's not a gun that, like, a girl can't handle. You know, I mean, it's just, like, the stuff that, again, if there's something new, if you've got something, fine.

Like, you know, and if what if what they said happened is not what really happened like mcnair's family deserves to know the truth and if somebody else killed him that person needs to be in jail like absolutely all that stuff is true but right now you're you're not doing anything besides sensationalizing a story that was already plenty sensationalized and you know all the stuff that we learned about with steven air and then you know the affairs and all that kind of stuff which is learned about with steven air and then you know the affairs and all that kind of stuff which is whatever i mean it is what it is but like i don't know i just don't i don't i don't get the point yet of what's going on here and and you know the

next episode they're going to talk to all the jenny casimi's friends and they're going to say oh she was so nice she couldn't have done this like all this stuff that like again it's fine whatever but like of course her friends are going to say that and they don't have any evidence to prove that she didn't do it so it's just i don't know the whole thing's confusing to me i just got done listening to the ray caruth podcast that the charlotte observer did it's just called caruth if you haven't listened to it you should go listen it's really really good like it tells a really good story gives you the background on the case you learn so much about um you know about the girl that he had killed, about his son, the severe brain damage, cerebral palsy.

I mean, brings a lot of attention and light to all that, and the grandmother that's raising him and all that kind of stuff. It was a really good story, really well told, dealt in fact-based things. And I just don't, again, I just don't get the point here. So, I don't know, like I't get the point here um so i don't know like i said maybe something else comes up later but i would think that if they had i don't know if they had something you think like you said they would lead off with it and i i listened to a few minutes of the first episode or it was pretty much into the first episode and they they ran with this rumor and

i was like okay i'm not listening anymore but I can't not listen for whatever reason. But I don't know. It's been driving me crazy. And I just said I was kind of firing some stuff off on Twitter this morning, but it was too much really to get into on Twitter. So that's kind of my two cents on that. Anything else that you want to add there? Do you feel better? I do.

I feel a little bit better. You've been talking about this all day i was interested to hear your tape because i was i was uh i think i was 16 at the time so yeah you know i was tights fan but just not into the hard news cycle of it so you obviously know a lot more and remember a lot more about than i do yeah i mean i remember i remember where I was when I got the news. I had messages on my phone from my dad from August West and old G. Ramsey. So I remember that. We were on a boat because it was the 4th of July.

So anyway, it was, yeah, it's something I'll never forget. But like I said, I just, and, you know, his family's been through enough and all that stuff. And, you know, I don't know. There have been plenty of things that have happened that have been, you know, surrounding that since then, so I don't really, like I said, if there's something new, great, whatever. But until then, I just think they're just kind of drudging something up and there's not really a point other than to, you know, get people to download a podcast and we're going to make it as sensational as we can.

Unfortunately, that's kind of the world we live in today. So anyway, all right, so like I said, that was my however many minutes on that. I do feel a little bit better getting it off my chest. Coming up, we'll talk about just a couple of newsy things that have happened over the last couple of days. Before we do that, we're going to tell you about Vivid Seats. Vivid Seats has been sponsoring the podcast for a little bit here, and we

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for $20 off of $200 or more as a new customer to Vivid Seats. Make a memory that lasts a lifetime and let Vivid Seats help you get to your favorite live event. All right, so a couple things. Like I said, newsworthy. The Titans-Redskins game is now going to be December 22nd at 3 o'clock. We were talking a little bit, you know, for the longest time, the Titans played at noon on CBS.

I mean, you could set your clock by it, right? They weren't very good, so they didn't get any – they didn't get flexed in any, you know, Sunday night games. They didn't get very many Monday night games. They didn't get flexed in any Sunday night games. They didn't get very many Monday night games. This year, they probably have less noon kickoffs than they have in recent memory. Since I can remember being here, you've got the two Monday night games,

obviously next week in Dallas. You've got one in Houston. You have a Thursday night game. Everybody has one of those against the Jaguars. You had this past weekend, you had the London game that kicked off at 830. And then I think there's already at least one more game. I think the Jets game is three o'clock. So, you know, coming off of, I guess, coming off of a playoff season, when they won a playoff game, you get a little bit more in the national, you know, view when you get kind of more of those island games, or at least less games that you're competing against. But it would be nice to see the Titans show up a little bit,

continue the success that they had last year so that they kind of get to stay in these spots. Yeah, it's a doubleheader that day, that Saturday. College football is done. December 22nd, those games are always fun to me, playing regular season games on Saturdays. At least for me, I'm always at one of my thousand Christmases trying to watch through opening presents and all that. So Redskins, Titans, and then after that you've got Ravens Charters.

So the second matchup for sure could be jockeying for some playoff seating there. You hope the Titans are still in it to that point. I don't know how confident you feel at this point, but the Redskins are another team. Their division is terrible, and they could be in it too. So two pretty interesting games being played over what should be a holiday weekend. Yeah, and I think the Redskins have been better, maybe, than most people have expected them to be.

Their defense has played a little bit better the last couple of weeks. They really struggled against the run early in the season, but they've gotten a little bit better. So, yeah, it could be a game with, like you said, two teams battling for playoff position, but we hope the Titans are at least on the mix. And, again, I think the more that we see, the more that we figure the Titans are going to have to win the AFC South to get in.

There was a time where we thought we might get multiple teams from the AFC South. I don't think that's the case anymore. I think you're going to get one team, and it's whoever wins the division. So, anyway, I don't know. But, like I said, this is good to get some different games in different time slots. Like you said, you try to watch through different things. So we'll keep an eye on that. The other Titans-ish news thing,

Rashard Matthews signed with the Jets earlier this week. I don't think we talked about that on the show. But interesting that the Jets play the Titans in Nashville on December 2nd. So you'll have that revenge narrative going on there. You know, a week after, Rashard Matthews said that nobody would sign him because, you know, he didn't come out for the National Anthem last year, even though I don't think

nobody wanted to sign him because he tried to force his way out in Miami and then quit on the Titans. That's more of the reason that nobody wanted to sign him. I mean, a guy that's a talented player, and I think if he's healthy, he can probably still play. He was good last year. We didn't get to see much from him here this year just because he was hurt.

And then by the time he got healthy enough to be out there, he was pretty much trying to get out the door. So, I don't know. I mean, he'll help them, like I said, if he's healthy. That guy's the worst. I mean, a week ago he comes out with a sob story. No one's going to sign me over the Anthem crap. And then a week later, he signed with the Jets. So we talked about it.

We talked about it a lot, how terrible the receiver market is. At the end of the day, teams don't really care about the Anthem stuff. They care about winning football games. about winning football games. So he walks into a pretty good situation for him. No more Terrell Pryor. Quincy Inouye is out for the foreseeable future. Robbie Anderson's banged up too.

So he walks in. He might be a legit number two, number three option for Sam Darnold and the Jets who were trying to get their quarterback going and off the ground. So if he wanted more playing time, he somehow got it. And I don't really like how he went about it going and quitting the football team, but somehow he fell upwards, at least into a better situation for his personal numbers. Yeah, I mean, I guess that's what he cared about and what he wanted. fell upwards at least into a better situation for his personal numbers. Yeah. I mean, I guess that's what he cared about and what he wanted. So, like you said, congratulations to him.

I guess we're getting that. And hopefully the Titans can shut him out or something and not have to deal with any of that stuff. But, you know, and so there was another trade today. The Giants traded Snacks Harrison. So, you know, you've got some movement in this trade market. We'll see if the Titans are going to do anything. I think they really need to.

I think they, when we talked about this a little bit last week, I think they'll regret it if they don't. But we're kind of getting to the point, you know, with the bye week here, I think the trade deadline is, what, Tuesday. So if they don't make a move in the next couple of days, maybe they still do. The UIC thing, the deadline spur action, so they could do something beginning of next week. But it seems like these next couple of days would kind of be the prime spot for them to do something if they were going to do it. Because if you've got a guy that you're targeting, you want to get him before he plays on Sunday or Monday

or whenever his team plays this weekend. You don't want to see a guy that could possibly get hurt or whatever. So you would think that they would try to make something happen in the next couple of days. Yeah, really, I thought today was the day. It's Wednesday at 10 at night. We're recording this. I thought today was the day they'd make a move if they were going to

just to kind of get him in, get him inside the system, just start to get him up to speed. It didn't happen today. So I'll hold out hope for one more day. But, you know, if you don't make a move in the bye week, it's hard to imagine them making a move next week at the deadline when you've got this added time. So it doesn't make much sense to me.

But going back to the Giants, I love what they did. You know, they're terrible. They know they're terrible. They got a first-year head coach. They're not going anywhere this year. Why not trade some players? You know, take the baseball approach. Go get a free fifth-round pick.

I've always wondered why teams don't do that more. I guess it's the compensation picks that you're awarded. But it seems like we're in for an active trade deadline here, and I love some of the early moves that we've already seen. Yeah, and that's fun. It's fun. I mean, the baseball deadline is always fun to follow. And if we get something similar to that this year.

And we saw a lot of activity before the draft and all that kind of stuff. So, we've seen multiple people say that it's going to be an active one. So, we'll keep an eye on, hopefully, again, the Titans, whether it be a receiver or even a tight end. I think they can come in and help them. So, we'll kind of see how that goes. All right, to finish up, we will talk about the AFC South, kind of check in on the other teams in the division. Before we do that, we are going to talk about Trevor's favorite product, Blue Chew. We've told you about this before.

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The Jaguars play in London. Do you remember who they're playing? I don't. I don't either. Jaguars are in London against somebody, and the Colts play the Raiders. So odds are the Titans – I mean Raiders. So, odds are, the Titans, I mean, I think the Texans probably beat the Dolphins tomorrow night. So,

odds are the Titans will not be in first anymore when they get back on the field next Monday night. But checking in, you know, listen, the Jaguars have become a disaster. They've got all kinds of issues down there. You know, they benched Blake Bortles on Sunday

they're going back to him this Sunday but there was apparently a lot of yelling and screaming in the locker room after the game their defense that was so has so much talent on it, so vaunted last year, has given up a bunch of points over the last few weeks and so things just kind of seem to be falling apart

there, so I mean I think that at least defensively, they're still the most talented team in the division. But we've said all along that, you know, the biggest mistake they've made is not finding an upgrade over Blake Bortles. So it looks like that's coming back to haunt them a little bit. And, again, when you're going to play with that type of game plan or whatever, you don't have much margin for error

on the defensive side of the ball. In today's NFL, it's just hard to be that perfect on defense all the time. Yeah, Jaguars get the Eagles. The Eagles, there you go. So, tough matchup there. Considering where their defense is at,

and it's just funny how quickly things change in the NFL. We talk about that a lot. How does that defense go from that good to playing as poorly as they have over the last couple weeks? I guess not sustaining drives and a bunch of turnovers from white portals will eventually catch up with you. The injury to Leonard Fournette is interesting

because you take that guy top five, and he really, outside of a couple of great games, hadn't done a whole lot for you. The hamstring injury has kept him on the sidelines. And, you know, that was the book on him coming out of LSU, and they still took him with the top five pick. So that was bizarre to me. They really messed up there.

They've gotten pretty good production out of T. of TJ Yelton in the backfield. Just not a lot of good there. You look around, not a lot of good in the AFC South. So suddenly what looked like a struggling Texans team might just have the best shot to take on this division. Yeah, never mind. I lied there. The Texans are 4-3. I don't know what I was looking at earlier. The Texans are 4-3, so they're in first.

But, yeah, I mean, it's – yeah. And the Texans, look, we saw them. Their defense has been playing better of late. J.J. Watts kind of running back into form. We knew they had plenty of talent on that side of the ball as well, at least in the front. Their secondary is not very good. But the thing that's going of running back into form. We knew they had plenty of talent on that side of the ball as well, at least in the front. Their secondary's not very good. But the thing that's going to get them is that offensive line.

I mean, they're going to get Deshaun Watson killed. You know, he already, like last week, when they went to Jacksonville to play, they sent Deshaun Watson on a bus because they were afraid he's got, you know, like a bruised lung or whatever. And they were afraid with the pressurizing, you know, or whatever, on the airplane, so they sent him on the pressurizing or whatever on the airplanes. They sent him on a bus. So he's already a little bit banged up.

Their downfall is going to be that offensive line. They've got plenty of talent on defense. They've got plenty of talent at the receiving position. But they've got the other issues there. And the Colts, you know, we know Andrew Lugger looks good. That offense, I think, is kind of coming on. They're throwing the ball a bunch. Marlon Mack has emerged as their lead back down there, and he's a talented player.

Just kind of been banged up his first, you know, year plus in the league. And their defense is better than, you know, we thought it was going to be, like, terrible, like one of the worst in the league coming in, and they've been serviceable. So I think, really, I think at the end of the day, you've got four teams that are around 500 teams, right? in the league coming in, and they've been serviceable. So I think, really, I think at the end of the day, you've got four teams that are around 500 teams, right?

I mean, you're going to finish somewhere between 7-9 and 10-6. I mean, to me, they're all really close to being the same. And so, again, that just, to me, you know, a couple of these games, the Bills game, when you have such a thin margin for error, I just feel like we're really going to look back on that game and regret that loss because I think the division is going to be that close. And when you've got a game like that that you really should win and you let slip away, it can really come back to haunt you. Yeah, I totally agree.

Like we said, the schedule lets up a lot for the Titans coming up, so that's good. I struggle to separate any of these teams. I don't buy that Jacksonville and that defense aren't going to figure it out. Maybe they finally see the light

and bench Blake Portals. They took a step towards that playing Cody Kessler this weekend. I guess I'm probably the furthest down on Indy because Andrew Luck is doing a ton on the offensive side, and they're still losing ballgames. They gave up 42 to the Jets, 37 to the Texans.

So that defense started decent but has had a couple bad games, and they're starting to shed their true colors here. So I don't know how long Andrew Luck can keep that up. I don't know how long Deshaun Watson can keep that up. Like you said, I saw a stat. I don't have it in front of me, but it wasn't even close. Deshaun Watson is on the ground more than any quarterback in the league. So you talk about Will Fuller, DeAndre Hopkins, their rookie receiver, Kiki Kuti.

Those guys are getting down the field, but Deshaunun Watson isn't able to stand upright in the pocket, so that creates a problem, obviously, for the offense. So a lot of flawed teams in this division. It's going to be really fun to see who can come out on top. Yeah, and like I said, you know, with everything that has gone wrong, the Titans are by no means out of it in the division. And so if they can fix a couple things, if they can get the offense at least to where everybody's on the same page and rolling and find some consistency there, then they've got as good of a chance as anybody else.

So anyway, that'll do it for tonight. We got Dubai coming this weekend, so no Titans football. But we'll be back next week getting ready for the Cowboys game. In the meantime, check out musicofmiracles.com. We'll have a ton of stuff going up there, film reviews around the league, all that kind of stuff. So check that out. Follow us on Twitter.

I'm at jmorrismcm. Terry's at tlambertfb. Again, search out Locked on Titans. Write and review us if you would. We'd appreciate it. Thanks for listening to Locked on Titans, and we'll talk to you again next week.