Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: Mularkey fired, who will replace him?

Episode Date: January 16, 2018

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Welcome in to another edition of Locked On Titans, the first episode of the post-Mike Malarkey era. I'm Jimmy Morris, joined as always by Terry Lambert. Terry, how are you tonight? Busy day, man. Real busy day. I think we kind of foreshadowed it last night not to get too far down in the dumps over this whole extension offer thing, and and behold it came true today yeah absolutely so if you don't know we write for music miracles.com covering the titans for sb nation on twitter i'm at jay morris mcm terry is at t lambert fb yeah so last night when we talked and you can go back and listen to yesterday's episode of locked on titans we talked about the report out there from interapp report that mike malarkey had been offered a contract extension but we said that we thought that

john robinson would be crazy to just offer mike malarkey a contract extension and tell him that he could keep everything the same as it was this year um you know we we talked about how he trusted john robinson's football sense enough to know that that was a bad idea and that we couldn't see that happening. Well, it turns out that that's exactly not how it had played out. It sounds like they were in negotiations for an extension, but part of the deal there was going to be that Robinson was going to have to make changes to his staff. And we were talking before we started i mean it's a little bit curious i don't know what the right word is but that you know mike malarkey was willing to give up what will i mean probably more than likely be his last shot at being an nfl head coach for terry rubisky i mean that's the that's the hilt that he wanted to die on it's it's just that's kind of weird to me but that's apparently

where he was uh you know a loyal guy by all accounts and he wasn't willing to go forward if he couldn't keep the staff that he wanted so the the the initial report this morning came from field yates of espn saying the titans and mike malarkey had mutually agreed to part ways um it was it was funny we were we were talking but i mean i i had written a post uh you know like minutes before that that report came out basically saying because a lot of people were panicking yesterday and so my point was hey let's not panic until we get some kind of confirmation from somebody that knows something that a mike malarkey extension means that you know everything is going to go forward there's going to be no changes to the staff all that stuff because i mean mike malarkey made it it clear yesterday that he was not planning on making any changes.

So, again, I think that that's probably where the snag came, and that's inevitably why they decided to part ways. Terry wrote up the comments from Jonathan's press conference today, and Terry, I'll let you hit what we talked about was probably the most important piece of that press conference today. And, Terry, I'll let you hit what we talked about was probably the most important piece of that press conference. Yeah, first of all, what a weird hill to die on for Mike Malarkey. I mean, he gave up his final opportunity in the league for Terry Hrabisky, a guy that's just, you know, at best an average offensive coordinator, and I'm being nice in the NFL. So I'm not sure if he was scared that he couldn't get someone better

or what the deal was, but it just seemed to me that he would be so loyal to a guy that really underperformed this year. But John Robinson said today in the press conference he was asked whether or not Malarkey's comment in the press conference kind of sealed his fate. And John Robinson thought about it, and he said, yeah, yeah, that did. And, of course, Malarkey said yesterday that he didn't expect any staff changes

and everything was going to be status quo and he was getting the band back together for another next season. That's clearly not what the Titans wanted. That's clearly not what the Titans wanted. It's clearly not what John Robinson wanted. So it was interesting to hear him be so candid about that in a really just oddly similar situation to Mike Munchak. Yeah, it really is. And our friend Trevor that writes some for me,

see miracles.com, had tweeted out a picture last night of the news report when munchak ended up getting fired and we talked about it a little bit last night uh that he was when he was unwilling to change unwilling to get rid of jerry gray and now logins um and so the titans ultimately parted ways with him so um yeah it's just it's weird the second coach that it's played out like this with but that's kind of where we are now um the the next i guess interesting piece from today is the fact that we all have assumed that at least the first call that john robinson is going to make will be to josh mcdaniel's office coordinator with the patriots uhots. The two of them worked together with the Patriots at one time

when Robinson was there in the scouting department and McDaniels was there as the OC before the head coach in Denver and all that kind of stuff. So that's what had been rumored. Rappaport said, I guess, last week for the Chiefs game that that's who it was expected to be. If Mike Malarkey was fired, if they'd lost to the Chiefs. Obviously, that's not exactly how it played out.

But that's the name that we've all had circled and all been looking at. And then you've got some reports today. Ian Rappaport, one of them. Mike Lombardi was on the midday 180. Lombardi was on the midday 180 and, you know, kind of a similar deal, saying that he thinks that McDaniels, that both of them saying, and then Tom Pelissero, I guess another guy with the NFL.com, saying that they think that it's too late, that McDaniels to the Colts is pretty much done and that the Titans can't get in on it.

I've seen no other confirmation of that. And I just, I have a hard time believing that. Like I said, you know, it's been out there that McDaniels would be the guy they would target for a couple weeks. If the Titans really were considering firing Mike Malarkey if he lost to the Jaguars way back in week 17, which that seems like an eternity ago now, but if that was really a consideration that they were having, again, I find it hard to believe that John Robinson had had some type of back-channel preliminary talks with Josh McDaniels. Hey, would you be interested in this job if it were open?

Blah, blah, blah, whatever it may be like that. So, again, the fact that McDaniels did interview with the Colts in that week, the Patriots' bye week before the game against the Titans. I mean, I get all that. He hasn't formally interviewed with the Titans or anything like that. I don't know. But I just, with the connection there and that kind of stuff, it's just I don't, until we see something more concrete, until we have a report that, you know,

McGann is going to be the next coach of the Colts, I'm going to assume that door is still open just because I just think there's been too much smoke there to think that it would just be closed without a conversation even being had. Yeah, I think that's smart. I just don't know how you get from McDaniels would take the Titans job over the Colts to two hours later McDaniels accepting the Colts job. So I'm not sure how you get to that. And like you said, we haven't heard it from anywhere else.

So until we do i'm just gonna assume that that that door is still open uh and you know you can't hire these guys until the patriots are done obviously so uh all these all these all right just just watch the wording on all this you know you see a lot of expected to hire and all this uh things can change quickly in this uh we've already seen the Titans set up interviews, reportedly, with Mike Vrabel, the Texans' defensive coordinator, a long-time player in the league, and Steve Wilks of the Carolina Panthers' defensive coordinator there.

So that's kind of the three names we've got running there. We'll see if anyone else pops up. But it's kind of interesting um you know we've heard so much about josh mcdaniels that i don't really know too much about anyone else in this cycle uh and the titans are kind of getting in late to the party so it's kind of interesting we're gonna have to do some digging on some dark horse guys yeah absolutely and so we'll uh come up in just a sec we'll talk a little bit more about some of the other names that are out there and how we expect this process to go so yeah like you mentioned i mean if we do if they do have to go somewhere

else with this it is going to be a little bit of an adjustment for all of us because i think we've just assumed that if this job was open that it would go just mcdaniels i i really think that there i i expect it to be an offensive guy let me say that now i don't think that it has to be um you know john robinson didn't obviously he's not going to say in the press conference that he's looking for for an offensive guy but i think a key component to any interview with a Mike Vrabel, whoever else that comes from the defensive side of the ball, a key question in that interview would be, who's going to be your offensive coordinator?

Because that's clearly, when John Robinson says that he and Mike Malarkey had a different vision for what success would need to be like or how it would be attained going forward, I think we obviously all know that that's talking about the offensive side of the ball. Again, I'm assuming it's Jeff Daniels until – maybe until I see him at the press conference with the Colts. But if it's not, I think you're still going to find a guy that is an offensive mind. Or, like I said, you're going to have to have – whoever the defensive guy is is going to have to have a strong answer for who would your offensive coordinator be

when you see an interview like that. So we've seen some names floated. You can check out, again, you can look at the site, musicofmiracles.com. Mike posted earlier today some names to consider past Josh McDaniels, some of the names that you would expect. Like I said, we've already seen a report about Mike Vrabel getting an interview. Another report, Steve Wilks getting an interview to DC with the Panthers. And then the names that are, I guess, hot this cycle,

you've got Jim Schwartz, who is a guy that was here before. And I think you could do worse than him. I think he's a good coach. But, you know, again, is that a path they want to go down? And you've got a guy like John DeFilippo, a hot right now, the QB coach of the Eagles. Can he make the jump from quarterback coach to head coach? I mean, that's a pretty big jump. You don't normally see, you normally see a step skipped like that,

but he's a guy that's getting a lot of action this time around, or getting a lot of buzz at least this time around. And then Pat Shermer with the Vikings. He's a guy that had a head coaching job before. It wasn't successful, but again, tell me how you feel about this. I think that you can give a guy a second chance i i think that it's probably a really big jump to go from not running things to running things and so i think sometimes guys get overwhelmed they don't do it right they learn from the mistake the first time and they can come back and do it differently the second time so um i'm i'm not willing to just close the door on anyone because they weren't successful the first time around now you know when you get to like the third time i

think at that point they've kind of shown who they are but give me your thoughts on that i mean are you good with them whether it's schirmer mcdaniels and jim schwartz you're talking about guys that had jobs before and had varying levels of success but what are your thoughts on kind of retread type guys? I'm typically okay with it. I mean, obviously, every situation is different. You know, like when John Fox got hired in Chicago, he couldn't win a Super Bowl with Peyton Manning, and you're going to try and tell me that he's going to go win one with Jay Cutler.

I mean, it's situations like that where I'm not going to sign off on a guy. But if you're talking about Jim Schwartz who had moderate success with Detroit, maybe they just didn't have the pieces in place. Maybe Matthew Stafford wasn't quite good enough to win in the postseason. Yeah, I'll give those guys another chance. But it's interesting because you've got a bunch of guys rumored that have never had head coach experience. You know, you're not seeing a lot of the retreads rumored to Tennessee

outside of Josh McDaniels. So the first guy that came up was Mike Vrabel. And that one's pretty interesting to me because you're talking about a guy that seven years ago was playing. He was playing in the NFL. So played forever. Played with the Steelers, Patriots, and I think the Chiefs for a year, and has just rapidly risen through the ranks.

He was a linebacker's coach at Ohio State, and then he got hired on with the Texans, took over the defense, and now he's going to be a head coach, likely of the Colts or the Titans. One of the two, it sounds like. So the guy like that is really interesting. Would John Robinson be comfortable giving it to a guy that young? His first comments about the new head coach who he wants to hire was a leader of men. So maybe we're getting too caught up in whether or not it's going to be an offensive guy

or a defensive guy maybe it's just a CEO type maybe it's just a pure leader and then you talk about a guy like Dave Tobe who we've talked about privately why does this guy get consideration for head coaching jobs

I don't quite know but we'll see if his name comes up so I think it's important to kind of forget offense or defense and just look at what they're doing as leaders, because that seems to be really important for John Robinson. Obviously, the offensive coordinator hire is going paramount. Whoever he hires is going to have to lay out their plan for marcus mariotta and this offense going forward but i'm not going to pigeonhole it as it's going to be an offensive guy yeah and uh you know just kind of going beyond those names um a guy like

matt patricia i mean you know all reports are that he's probably the guy in detroit but does robinson try to make a run at him, you know, to get at least an interview in there before he decides to take that job? And just some other names. What about your boy Jim Bob Cooter? You know, a guy that, and I don't know, I mean, is he ready to be a head coach? I don't have any idea. But a guy that, you know, has success as an offensive coordinator,

did seem to work wonders for Matthew Stafford. Would he be a guy that, you know know would be in consideration for offensive coordinator obviously it would depend on who the head coach was but i mean there's all kinds out there and guys that you know i mean in detroit you know jim caldwell is out so you assume that i mean i don't know matt patricia would try to would try to keep jim bob cooter or you know i don't know that they know each other whatever but like i don't know there's all kinds of names out there that that we could that we could talk about um for either one of those jobs because like you said um whoever they hire as head coach that that job is going to be is going to be really important what i think we will know or what i think we will see though is

which one is not gonna he's not gonna play this out in the media um you You're going to have – we'll see reports of guys that they've interviewed, and interviews are kind of hard to keep secret. But he's going to do as much back-channeling and all that stuff as he can out of the public eye, how he's operated in general, and that's kind of the Patriot way. So, I mean, I think that we'll see. It'll be hard to get a whole lot of information as we go throughout this process. But we do have a couple of names that have at least been reported for interviews at this point. And, again, in front of your mind, the whole Josh McDaniels thing is all speculation at this point.

There's no report that they're going to interview him. They couldn't interview him until next week anyway after the Patriots play the Jaguars. And they'll have a window there even if the Patriots win, which I really, really hope they do because I don't want goodots play the Jaguars. And they'll have a window there even if the Patriots win, which I really, really hope they do because I don't want good things for the Jaguars. But they have a window there of that week between the AFC Championship and the Super Bowl where those guys could interview again. So we could see that happen in that week. Like I said, win or lose, obviously the Patriots lose then.

They can do that week. Like I said, win or lose, obviously the Patriots lose then. They can do that whenever. But, you know, I just think it's going to be a thing where we're just going to have to keep our eyes and ears open. John Robinson is, like I said, he's just a guy that's going to kind of try to keep it on the down low as much as he possibly can. But I do think you'll see him talk to a lot of guys that have Patriots ties. I think he probably still has good to a lot of guys that have Patriots ties. I think he probably still has good relationships with the people in that building. And so guys that went through there at one point or another are the guys that I think you'll take a look at. But I don't think it'll be limited to just that, like you said.

It's probably a bad idea to pigeonhole it into anything. Whoever he thinks can come in and lead the team. Because, again, I think I still believe, and you can tell me where you are here, I still believe that Mike Malarkey would have been willing to step into more of a CEO type deal and let somebody else run the offense. I think Malarkey would have been back with this

team next year. Yeah, and you knew that was not going to happen. You can talk about Terry H rabisky you can be frustrated with him all you want he's still running running marky stuff you know at the end of the day it's still mark he's offense it may not be but his handprints are all in it they were going to run exactly what he wanted to run so uh the thought of bringing another coordinator in um wouldn't have changed much.

And we talked about that a few weeks ago. And then like we said last night, who's signing up for that job? I mean, it's pretty obvious that the ownership has no faith in Malarkey. So if things go wrong in the slightest, next year he's going to be fired anyway. So I'm not sure why it was even a question. I don't think you were gonna hire anybody it's too special to run this offense for a year while malarkey stuck around for one more season uh so this is the only only they can make and you know what it would be really deflating

to me uh to not land josh mcdaniel's at this point because it feels like he's been the guy all along even for two years. You know, you go back two years ago, all the fans wanted Josh McDaniels. So you talk about the Patriot way, and he's had an experience without Belichick already. What did he learn from that? He's come back into the fold, so you'd hope he'd be more mature. And then you've got the whole Colts aspect.

You've got the Titans colts aspect you've got the titans colts rivalry now they're bidding uh you know potentially bidding over josh mcdaniel so that that part is fascinating uh but you know we were talking a little bit about this before what what draws you to the colts if you're josh mcdaniel's are the titans not in just much better roster shape overall absolutely and again we don't know about Andrew Luck. I mean, there have been reports back when they finally decided to put him on IR this year that he might not play again. So, you know, now you've seen some stuff. You were telling me before that things are going well in his rehab and all that kind of stuff.

But, you know, that's a huge question mark and, you know, not a thing. Because, again, when you're talking about a guy like Joshosh mcdaniels uh most people don't get a third shot so you know he needs he's going to want to go to a situation where he feels like he's set up to come in and have some success and i don't think that if if andrew luck is you know on the shell he's not going to be able to play again that to me, seems like if you've got an option out there like the Titans, that you would obviously choose the Titans. I mean, and just with the talent up and down the roster, you saw how bad the Colts are without Andrew Luck this year.

Now, I mean, you know, you saw how bad the Titans were when Matt Castle played. But, I mean, I think it's a little bit different. You've got some young talent. I mean, the Colts' offensive line is a disaster. The Titans have the makings of a strong offensive line. They've got receivers that are young-ish. They've got a couple of Titans. I mean, you've got U.S. now on the defensive side of the ball, too.

Some young talent. So, yeah, I mean, I think it's set up better to come in here. It's a tough day for a guy like Philip Supernall, you know, because he probably doesn't have a job here next year. Luke Stocker, those types of guys. You're probably not going to bring in a coach that's going to want to keep as many tight ends as Mike Malarkey

did. So he's a little bit bad for those guys. But it's just exciting right now to think about. We're going to see a completely different system next year. We're going to get to see somebody come in and try to maximize the talent that Marcus Maria has. I was reading through something that Kaharski wrote. Apparently, that was a thing that John Robinson hit on multiple times, maximizing talent.

It was something that was big in the press conference today. So that's what they're looking for, and like you said, a leader in that kind of stuff. So it's exciting. It's fun to have this again. It's good for business, for website business. You know, we talked back when Terry covers the Vols for SB Nation as well. And, you know, their whole coaching search and all that stuff. So he's done a great job today covering the stuff on our site

because he's used to it, man, just jumping right back into it. Oh, yeah, plenty of experience. Yeah, plenty of experience. It's fun, and again, it's just exciting because we really felt like that they were wasting Marcus Mariota. And how many years, how much can you beat him down in a system that isn't good for him before either he's fed up with it and he wants to go somewhere else? Or you get into that thing where you've wasted four or five years of his prime with nothing really to show for it.

It's exciting that we're going to be having a different conversation here. It doesn't mean that they're going to make the home run higher, but I will say this. Mike Malarkey wasn't John Robinson's guy. He was Amy Adamstrunk's guy. Robinson more or less inherited Mike Malarkey. Now John Robinson gets to make a hire. This guy is going to be John Robinson's guy. This guy is going to determine how long John Robinson is the general manager

of the Tennessee Titans because now you've got drafts and free agency too, but just as important is who he hired as the head coach. So this is his first shot at defining his legacy as a GM, and if it's a bad hire, it could be his only shot, at least here. So that's exciting, and I think we have faith that John Robinson is going to do the right thing, have faith that john robinson is going to do the right thing and we have faith that whoever john robinson is going to bring in is is better especially for the long run for the titans than another year or more years whatever of malarkey slash rabisky i think that's a good point uh because you know robinson doesn't have to draft a quarterback.

GMs are usually graded on how they draft quarterbacks and whether or not they can find their franchise guy that can lead them to the postseason. Well, he's already got that guy. This is the first big moment. And to be clear, it's not 100% his call. He said that today. He said Amy is the owner of the team and she will have the final say, but he's

going to have some input so yeah that's interesting uh but yeah you you heard robinson say it's important to maximize the players and put them in positions where they can maximize their talent and i thought that comment was interesting because you heard malarkey say yesterday that they really felt like they put every player in the offense and on defense in positions to maximize their talent. So clearly there was some disagreement there. And I'm just not sure how Mike Malarkey can be serious with that comment. When you've seen what Derrick did this postseason against Kansas City

and you feed DeMarco Murray all those carries that he got. When you just blatantly ignore the spread offense and the success that you have to go back to jumbo sets and getting three teams back on the field, I'm just not sure how he can be serious with that comment. And ultimately, that's what did him in. It's just pure stubbornness. So, like you were saying, it's just exciting

to go in a different direction, and we don't know who it's going to be. We might not be happy, but I think it couldn't get any worse for Mariota. He was running a goal-line offense, essentially, out of the jumbo package, and we think

a lot of Mariota, we think he can run the spread offense really well. You see these creative offenses coming out of Kansas City. You see what New England does and how innovative everybody else is. And it's just exciting to even think about something like that to come to Tennessee. Yeah, and just bring me a guy that looked on it across the field from him each week and identifies that team's weakness and tries to attack it that's what the patriots do the patriots i mean and they've you know bill belichick has become you know arguably the greatest coach in the history of the nfl by doing just that that guy mike malarkey was not that guy terry bisque is not that guy

we're going to run our system we're going to force it no matter what now i mean i'm sure they had different different parts or different tweaks or whatever each week based on who they were playing but for the most part they were gonna run their offense and they were gonna just try to be better at it and i think that that i don't feel like that's the way the way to win you have to be able to adapt and this i would say the most adaptable guy on this staff was dick lebeau. You know, he's 80 years old. And a lot of times you get this thing, like these older guys, they're not, you know, they're stubborn. They're setting their ways. And that's the kind of thing with malarkey.

But we saw LeBeau make a lot of halftime adjustments and do a good job there. You know, and obviously I think that he probably won't be back. I would assume that he probably goes on. I mean, I guess he'd retire maybe at this point. But anyway, that's the thing that I want to see. That's what I want to see in the next guy. Absolutely. Just be innovative.

You see all these offenses in the league. Sean McVay. You see all these young, bright guys. Shanahan in San Francisco. You saw what he did with Jimmy Garoppolo. Those fan bases are excited. Years of being down, you know, the Rams have been a terrible franchise. The 49ers have been down in the dumps.

To see teams like that just rise and to consider where the Titans already are, you know, this team went to the second round of the playoffs. So think if they hit a home run with this hire. Think where they're going. Yeah, absolutely. So anyway, that's pretty much some of what we know today. You'll be listening, I guess, Tuesday morning. I'm sure we'll get a ton more information during the day on Tuesday,

so we'll have an update on Wednesday as to where things stand, and we'll kind of go from there. But, you know, like I'll kind of go from there. But, you know, like I said, it's just exciting. It's exciting coming off a playoff run now to have this coaching. And like you said, the foundation's already there. And if they can get the right guy in here, they can build off of that. Anything else we need to hit before we go?

Stay tuned to MusicCityMiracles.com. We'll have it all as it unfolds, and it's going to change by the hour, I'm sure. So like it has been today, and like I said, Terry's done a great job getting that stuff up there today. So stay posted there, and like I said, we'll try to get that stuff updated as soon as we see it. So again, follow us on Twitter at jmorphsmcm, at TLambertFB. Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts locked on Titans. For Terry, this is Jimmy saying thanks for listening, and we will talk to you tomorrow.