Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: New info on Mariota's injuries, Kiper mock draft

Episode Date: March 27, 2019

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Welcome in to another edition of Locked On Titans. I'm Javay Morris, joined as always by Terry Lambert. Terry, how are you tonight? Doing all right. What's going on with you? Oh, not a whole lot. We've got a few things to talk about in Titans land, another circular Marcus Mariota conversation. So we'll touch on all that.

Before we do that, I want to remind you that we write for you at citymiracles.com. We're coming to times for SB Nation, so you can check us out there. You can also follow us on Twitter. I'm at JimMorrisMCM. Terry's at TLambertTN. You can get the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Google, Spotify, iTunes, the new Himalaya

podcast app, whatever it is. Just search Locked on Titans in any of those places, and you'll find us there. If you have a smart speaker at your house, in your car, you can say, play podcast Locked on Titans in any of those places, and you'll find us there. If you have a smart speaker at your house, in your car, you can say play podcast Locked on Titans, and you'll be able to hear us. We do have a voicemail line, so we'll hopefully get to another voicemail show later on this week. If you want to call in, leave us about a minute-long message,

reaction to the Mariota stuff, the draft, whatever it may be, 615-787-8762. That's the number. It's about a minute-long message, and we will play it on a show sometime coming up. All right, so the big, I guess, news discussion, whatever, today came from the Paul Kuharski report about all of the injuries that Marcus Mariota suffered during the 2018 season. injuries that Marcus Mariota suffered during the 2018 season. We knew about a few of them, obviously,

but there were some more injuries on that list that had not previously been reported. This is, again, from paulkuharski.com. He does have this story unlocked, so you can read it even if you are not a member of his site. So we obviously knew about the owner nerd damage in week one. We knew about the stinger that happened in the coltskin then again in week 16. But we also, at least from Carrick's report, found out that he had plantar fasciitis issue in his foot. Apparently it tore all the way in week 16,

which I guess is a good thing because it relieves some of the pain, again, according to a car accident report. But he also said he dealt with a strained oblique, a broken rib, a sprained AC shoulder joint. He also cracked a vertebrae, presumably on the same hit where he got the stinger in the Colts game. So, I mean, all of this to say, one, the people that questioned Mariota's toughness, which was not very many people, but there were a handful

of people. I mean, Clay Travis kind of led their way on, you know, this guy's a wuss, whatever, he doesn't want to play in the most important game. We said back then that that was a bunch of garbage. The locker room were questioning him, so nobody else should either.

If you were in that camp, certainly after reading this report, you shouldn't be anymore or you're just, you know, at this point refusing to change your mind on him, so whatever. So, I mean, again, we learned from this what we kind of already knew, that he's tough, but, you know, there's the injury-prone side of this. And from that standpoint, this doesn't really make you feel any better. Yeah, it makes you feel better. It makes you feel worse at the same time.

You know, like you said, Deuce tough. I mean, we said it all last year, you know, almost to a fault, where people were calling us Mario to an apologist. But when you look at this laundry list that he was playing through and then you start to look at some of these box scores, throwing for 100 yards in the last

two games that he played, it starts to make sense. You start to understand why this team was riding Derrick Henry like they did. And part of that was Henry getting hot. But I just think Mariota was not fit to play. And then the deal with the Redskins game,

it was just kind of the final nail in the coffin there. So like you're saying, you read this. There were some reckless things said in Week 17. You understand people being mad, people being upset. Their quarterback, most important player, isn't going to play. And I think another layer to this is how the whole thing was reported. Because if you'll remember, Mariota was supposed to play all through the week. And then we get to the weekend, and then, well, it's kind of up in the air.

And then, well, it's a pain tolerance thing and then well it might be a long-term deal that could be career threatening. Reading this report I'm not sure how anyone in that organization was split on this decision. You absolutely sit him down. You absolutely sit him down. There's no question. So it's interesting. It sheds a lot of light on it. But like you're saying, it doesn't give you a ton of confidence in Marcus Marietta going forward because unfortunately, just yet another example of the guy getting hurt, the guy's made of glass, you know, all of that. If you want to question his durability, fine. That's certainly something that needs to be questioned. It might just be the reason why he's not the Titans quarterback next year.

But certainly you cannot question the guy's toughness. Yeah, I mean, again, and that's what we said back then. And we have been, I mean, I guess I think I was having a conversation with somebody today, actually, talking about how my feelings on mariona have changed you know this time last year i thought he will be the titans franchise quarterback um that right now i think he can be but my confidence that he will be is no longer there and again it's just because of the injuries and and you've seen it before i mean some guys just they just can't hold up for whatever reason um you know there was also a thing in in in this the interview that he did in hawaii i guess yesterday or whatever that you know he's trying to put on some weight he's been

playing it you know 210 or 215 last couple of years trying to get to play 225 which was apparently where the titans had wanted it before but he wanted to play lighter or whatever. I mean, I remember there was a bit of a stir last year on that. His trainer was on one of the shows on 104.5 and said he was trying to cut weight, and that was the whole thing. You know, maybe being bigger will help. I don't know. There's a lot that goes into this,

and there's a lot of discussion today, too, about some of the things that we love about Marcus Mariota. Out there throwing blocks on a key Derrick Henry run or whatever. And I think that stuff endears him to his teammates, endears him to the fans. And you want your quarterback to have the mentality to do that kind of stuff. Is there a point where that kind of stuff becomes prohibitive to him being on the field? I mean, I guess maybe. But the thing with Marcus, for the majority, so far has been

he's gotten hurt in the pocket. People are like, he needs to run less. He needs to do this. He needs to slide. He needs to get out of bounds, whatever, blah, blah. He needs to stop blocking people. I mean, all that's fun, and I'm sure the hits add up and all that kind of stuff.

But to me, I heard a lot of that conversation today. And that stuff, to me, seems a little bit overblown because, again, that's not where these things have happened. These things, these injuries that he has suffered have happened to him in the pocket. So I don't know how, again, I mean, how do you fix it? And again, some of it's just bad luck. I mean, the tackle that broke his leg in Jacksonville. I mean, that's a play he gets kind of caught from behind. He gets rolled up on.

You see that happen all the time, the way he got tackled. And Guy pops right back up. He happened to get rolled up on, break his leg. And it was worse than what happened to Derek. So, I mean, it's just kind of the – it seems like in a lot of this stuff he's had bad luck but at some point when you have bad luck year in and year out that becomes a trend that becomes something you can't count on and again that's I mean in my opinion why we find the Titans in the place that we find them today still not knowing mainly because of the availability.

I mean, I guess you have some ability questions at this point, too. Like you said, you've had the games where the numbers were down, we had the touchdowns, interceptions, all that kind of stuff. But when you see everything that he was trying to play through last year, maybe that makes a little bit more sense in context, whatever. But again, all of this just goes back to we're looking at 2019 and they're going to have to make a decision on whether he's the long-time answer or not based on what he does this year.

That's the frustrating part to me because people will point to his 2018 stats and I'm just like, is that Marcus Mariota? I mean, do you know? Because he got hurt week one. And we clearly know that it carried over week two, week three, week four, and then we think he got better, and then it flared up again. So, you know, put a percentage on it. What percentage was Marcus Mariota in 2018?

You know, I don't know if he was ever over 70% or 80%. I don't know. It's just an impossible evaluation um it's just as simple as we don't know who he is you know and it it sucks to say but the guy in 2016 um that's who i'm holding on to that's that's who i i know is in there somewhere and somewhere along the way something went wrong it was with the broken leg. Maybe he lost some confidence there. Maybe he never gets it back.

Maybe it was with Malarkey and Hrabisky and that system. Maybe the league caught up to it. I don't know. But that player that really, the light came on in that second year and that stretch where he was playing like a top eight or nine quarterback in the league. That's what I'm holding on to, and that's what I can't let go of. So I just hope that this is a thing of the past. I hope he comes back 100%, at least with the chance,

one last chance to be healthy, to come into this new offense, to get some new weapons, get a revamped offensive line, and really prove himself. But, man, I just don't envy John Robinson because this decision is just going to be agonizing. Yeah, and the worst thing in the world that can happen is, you know, we have – well, I guess it's not the worst thing in the world. The worst thing in the world that can happen would be he's really good next year. They give him a bunch of money, and then we see this, you know, we have, well, I guess not the worst thing in the world. The worst thing in the world that can happen would be he's really good next year.

They give him a bunch of money, and then we see this, you know, this playoff for the three or four years after that. But an equally thing that would be frustrating would be he's banged up again in 2019. The Titans, you know, decide to move on, and he goes somewhere he's healthy for three or four years and lights the league on fire. Because, I mean, like you said, that guy's still in there somewhere, and it's just a matter of whether or not we'll ever get to see it here again, and that's really what 2019 is all about.

So, again, this adds some context maybe to some of the numbers that we saw, but I think as far as durability, injury prone, whatever you want to call it, the issues that you have there, I don't think this really helps much as far as that's concerned. All right, coming up, we'll talk about Mel Kuyper's latest mock draft, what he gave the Titans. All right, so Mel Kuyper put out his third mock draft of the season, this time giving the Titans, again again a clemson defensive lineman but last time it was christian wilkins that he gave the titans this time it was dexter lawrence

i think the titans are absolutely going to be in the market for a defensive lineman early in this draft um i don't think like a pick of a guy who you don't think is going to come in and immediately be disruptive to the quarterback. You know, this guy can play nose tackle. I think he's a good player. All that stuff is certainly true. But when you have the needle, as a lot of the Titans have, I just have trouble seeing them pass on a guy that's going to come in and be an immediate starter and a huge upgrade there for a nose tackle.

When they've shown for the last however many years that even though they've thrown some money at some guys in free agency, that they've pretty much been willing to rotate guys in and out there to try to find the proper mix. So with a guy like Bradbury still being on the board with this pick, I'm not sure that I would really be on board with this one if that's how it played out on draft night. Yeah, this one I don't get. You know, to me, you know, Jimmy's so against tight end. This is like taking a tight end to me because this is taking a two-down player.

Like you said, a guy that the Titans have proven they two down player uh like like you said a guy that the titans have proven they're going to rotate out this is a guy that wouldn't be in on passing downs um it's a guy that that honestly you can you can sign uh late in the free agency period and put a band-aid on it and be fine uh so i i'm like you i'm not taking him there if he can't disrupt and get after the passer. I just think these run-stuffing nose tackles are kind of a thing of the past. I know they're a fixture of the 3-4 defense, but, man, these defenses these days are so multiple and you're looking to get speed on the field.

You're looking to get fast, disruptive players. I just think this is just kind of an old school pick for kind of a new school league. But, you know, I get it. Christopher Wilkins went at 17 in the mock. Farrell went at 16. Burns, a couple of edge guys, went at 15 and 16. So I get it, but I'm with you.

Chris Lindstrom goes 21, and I think Garrett Bradbury went 31 overall I think one of those guys uh feels a more immediate need and I think that's where the Titans would go uh if they had to pick today this would be a little bit of a disaster for the Titans if you're if you're John Robinson and you get through pick 13 with all those guys still on the board. And then Ed Oliver goes 14, Burns 15, Farrell 16, Wilkins 17. I mean, that's about worst-case scenario, you know, from a standpoint where you'd be looking pretty good as far as some of the guys that you would hope would fall to you. If you're thinking about taking a pass rusher and then all those guys go there.

It's really an interesting draft from a lot of different perspectives. I mean, you don't have the skill guys that are really moving the needle. You know, in this mock, Kyle Rory still goes one to the Cardinals, but then there's a report about Josh Rosen not being available. So it'll be interesting to see what happens there. I don't know. I mean, it's going to be fun to watch. There's so many different things that can play out.

But the Titans are going to be in a spot where, again, I think John Robinson would love to trade down if he has the opportunity, especially if you're looking at something like this where you've got, you know, all – Mel Kiper has, what, three interior offensive linemen go in the first round of this draft, and when the Titans pick atemen go in the first round of this draft. And with a Titans pick at 19, all three of them are still there. So that, to me, is the perfect place to be able to trade down. Now, again, you always have to have somebody that's willing to come up

because there's something that they want there. You know, with the quarterbacks, I don't know if there's anybody. What he had Murray going one, Haskins going six, and Locke going 13. Right. So, you know, I don't know. I don't know if there's anybody like that that they're going to want to move up there. Like, everybody always wants to trade down. But you've got to have somebody that wants to come up because there's something there.

So I'm not sure what that is in this draft. But I don't know. Like you said, I just have a hard time passing on an interior offensive lin something there. So I'm not sure what that is in this draft, but I don't know. Like you said, I just have a hard time passing on an interior offensive lineman there when you think that's a guy that can really come in and upgrade your team. And then, again, standpoint of you don't know what's going on in quarterback, if you're starting all over next year, you need to have as many really talented guys on that offense as you can. Yeah, sure.

And I think Daniel Jones may be that guy. you need to have as many really talented guys on the offense as you can. Yeah, sure. And I think Daniel Jones may be that guy. You just listened to ESPN a little today. The Giants at 17, you know, that's a destination for them. That might get some trade action. That's ahead of the Titans. But, you know, if he gets below there, you see teams trade back into the first round and grab quarterbacks all the time.

Just trying to get that, pick up that fifth-year option. So, yeah, I want to throw it back to Monday. We had another mock draft. Yet another tight end, Noah Fant from our buddy Dan Kadar at SB Nation. It's an interesting pick. I think we've talked about Fant a lot. He's more of a move tight end. Played the big slot for Iowa. Would kind of be

more like a receiver tight end hybrid. Just wanted to get your thoughts. Has it changed at all? Has your firm stance on the tight end position changed at all since John Robinson has checked some of these

boxes in free agency? It is. It's more stomachable now. But I still don't get it. I understand Lenny Walker's old. I understand Johnny Smith was hurt and was coming on, but hasn't necessarily shown what they thought he could be, I guess. But I just – you have much bigger needs.

I mean, right now they don't – they have a starting guard spot open. How are you going to take a third tight end when you have a starting guard spot open? They'll tell you, okay, well, he's going to play alongside Delaney. Fine, then you're giving up on Jonu. Well, you're not giving up on Jonu because Delaney's gone. Okay, but you're stunning Jonu's growth, the guy that you drafted in the third round a couple years. I mean, all these things, I just, I don't, it just doesn't make any sense to me.

And, again, if you've got a guy like Hawkinson, which, I mean, that's basically a curse word to me at this point, but, like, when you've got a guy like him who can do a bunch of different stuff, who can, you know, be an in-line blocker and all that kind of stuff and gives you matchup advantages and that kind of stuff, okay, that's more of a conversation. It doesn't seem like he's going to be there at 19. I just don't get Fant at all.

I think that if Hawkinson was there, I mean, I think that might be something they would consider. I just think there's less than a, you than a 0% chance that they take Fant. Maybe I'm wrong. I've said that Trevor gets my Twitter account two weeks if they take Fant at 19. It doesn't make sense with what the makeup is of this team. And again, we're talking about, we think, and maybe we're way off base here, but we think that everything that they're doing

is to give Marcus Mariota or the team the best chance to win 2019. How quickly can Noah Fant get up to speed? How quickly is he better than Jonu Smith in an offense that Jonu's been in for a couple of years? I mean, all those questions I think are relevant, and I just don't understand. What if that guy's not ready until week six, week seven, week eight.

What have you done then? It just doesn't make sense to me. Yeah, if Josh Kahn is still on this roster, I might be open to it because then you've got a clear answer who your right guard is going to be. But that's a big opening right there. And, again, we've talked about maximizing marks for Marietta. I'm a big proponent of offensive line and pass catchers.

I've just come around on that in the past couple of years. I think they make more of a difference as a unit than your pass catchers do. I'm kind of offensive line or bust right now. I just can't talk myself into anything other than

plugging that hole with Lindstrom or Bradbury there. I just think that's your immediate need. There's no answer on this roster right now. Are you going to start Pam Field right there? I don't think they are. Unless

they've got another veteran free agent signing in them, I think it's offensive line for me. If they do sign one right there and say Christian Wilkins is not on the board, all these edges are off the board, then I think we can talk about it. But still, a couple of more things have to happen for me to even consider it. Yeah, absolutely. So anyway, we'll see how it plays out. Hopefully, we'll get a draft. I think we're going to get John Ledyard on

hopefully tomorrow. We'll get his opinion on some of these things. Coming up, we'll wrap up the show with just a couple of odds and ends notes that came out today. First thing, you directed my attention to a story on Titans Online that the uniforms, they're going to get a little bit of a modification,

the light blue jerseys, which I didn't realize that they didn't wear after week three. They wore them in week one in Miami and week three in Jacksonville. But Amy Adams-Shrunk said today at the owner's meeting that the numbers were too hard to read from far away i guess we're hard for people to see hard to see on film and all that kind of stuff uh so they're they've they're going to thicken up those numbers a little bit and again i mean we when the new uniforms were released we said we we really liked everything about them except for the font on the numbers was weird now i think it's weird too that you're going to have now a different size number on that jersey than the other two.

I don't know how noticeable it's going to be. Amy Adams-Strunk said it'll be a slight tweak. But I do think it's a little bit weird that they're going to make that adjustment on that one and not the other two. But, again, if it was causing an issue for film and people watching the game and all that kind of stuff, it makes sense. I mean, I'm glad they're going to go ahead and do it. Yeah, two things. That's what everyone was screaming at the jersey reveal. That was our one complaint, sticking up the numbers,

and now they're doing it. But you can't just do it on one. That's not going to bother me. You can't do it on one and then leave them thin on the white and the dark blues. You can't do that. So I'm really them thin on the white and the dark blues. You can't do that. So I'm really hoping that they thicken them up across the board. So that's something to watch. I'm not exactly sure why you would change one color but not the other.

And the other thing that was interesting that came out, a league-wide thing, that pass interference will now be reviewable in the last two minutes of each half. It looks like officials in New York will initiate those challenges, both offensive and defensive pass interference. This is the first time the league has opened up penalties to being reviewable. It's going to be interesting because, you know, I mean, obviously this is a – I would call it an overcorrection to what happened in the NFC Championship game. Obviously just an egregious miss there.

So, you know, you've got to make a fix for that. I mean, I do get that. I mean, if you want to talk about reviewing pass interference plays deandre hopkins bless his heart he's not gonna be able to catch a pass in the last two minutes of the game if they're gonna you know go by the letter of the law and call offensive pass interference because he pushes off on every play so it'd just be interesting to see how egregious the the mistake would have to be for there to be a review initiated. Yeah, I have no idea how to feel about this. Part of me says good on the NFL for trying to make that right,

but the other part of me says this is going to be terrible and everything's going to be reviewed within two minutes. And if it's not, you're going to have a coach screaming at the end of the game, well, why wasn't that reviewed? So it's a balls and strikes call. I just really hope they're not opening up Pandora's box here. Well, that's the thing.

Some people are anti-replay altogether. I am not that. I think they should try their best to get it right. But at the same time, when you get into something like this, what's to stop them from doing anything for holding, roughing the pass?

I mean, whatever else it might be. I mean, roughing the pass is subjective, so I guess that's a little bit different. But when you talk about there's holding on every play, as you hear everybody say all the time, like I said, I just don't know how specific they're going to be. And like you said, what if you have a team that gets an offensive pass interference called against them in one game and then a defensive pass interference called against them in a game? It causes them to lose both games.

And then they've got another game where it looks like someone should have been called. This is tough. I mean, I think Pandora's box is a good term there. Because once you do this, then it opens it up for questions at other spots. And I just don't know if this is a road they want to go down. So it'll be interesting to see how it plays out. You know, last year the thing was the helmet rule. We talked so much about that.

It was called fairly heavily the first couple weeks, and then we didn't see much of it. So I don't know if this will be something like that. I would hope that it would be something close to the level of that Saints game for the booth to initiate a review. But again, if you want to go by what the letter of the law is, it just seems like this is going to open up a lot of questions for that kind of stuff. Anyway, that's just something that came out of the NFL owners' meetings. We'll keep an eye on it. If there's any more developments, any rule changes that are really going to affect the game,

we'll obviously talk about them if we see that. All right, so that'll do it for tonight's show. Like I said, we hope to have John Ledyard on tomorrow from the Draft Network, Lock on Draft. Obviously really good. We had him on a couple times last year and does a really good job. So we'll get into some guys specifically with him. If you have any guys you'd like for us to talk about, hit us up on Twitter at jmorsmcm, at tlamberttn.

Again, listen to the podcast. Wherever you get your podcasts, Google, Spotify, Himalaya, whatever it is. Just search out Locked on Titans, smart speaker, play podcast, Locked on Titans. Thanks so much for listening. For Terry, this is Jimmy, and we will talk to you again later this week.