Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: Offense leads the way for NFL's final four; A look at the Titans' TE room

Episode Date: January 14, 2019

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Welcome in to another edition of Locked on Titans. I am Jimmy Morris, joined as always by Terry Lambert. Terry, how are you today? Doing pretty good. What's going on, man? Not a whole lot. A few things to talk about. We'll kind of give our thoughts on the divisional rounds, the divisional round of the playoffs, as well as give an update, if you can call it that, on the Titans Offensive Coordinator Search, and then talk about the tight end position on this roster. and then talk about the tight end position on this roster. Before we do all that, I want to remind you to be right for me at CityofMiracles.com where we cover the Titans for SB Nation. You can check us out there. Follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmorrismcm.

Terry's at TLambertFB. You can get the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Just search out Locked on Titans. You can also play the podcast on your smart speaker by saying, Play podcast Locked on Titans. You can hear us there. We also have a voicemail line that we have set up now where you can call in. You can leave us your thoughts.

If you have a question, we'll play it on the show, probably on Thursday's edition of the show. That last Thursday seemed to go pretty well, so we're looking at doing that again. So if you call the number 615-787-8762 leave us a voicemail if you could. Keep it to about a minute. Makes it easier for us to edit it and get it on the show. Alright, so

Divisional Roundup Playoffs you have the top four seeds all won. I think it's a pretty rare occurrence. I haven't gone back and looked to see how often exactly it happens. But you made the point that probably the conversation we should center around here is that what you have left right now in the playoffs

is the teams with the four best offenses in the league. Yeah, so the old adage you hear, defense wins championships. Well, not really this year. So you just look around the landscape of the league And we've talked about this Throughout the year You just watch the Chiefs play football You watch the Saints, the Rams

And still the Patriots And you just wonder How the Titans are going to compete With that I know the Titans found a way to knock off Tom Brady convincingly At home this year But man, it just seems like that. I know the Titans found a way to knock off Tom Brady convincingly at home this year, but

it just seems like the NFL has gone through just this rapid change over the last two, three seasons. You're just seeing wide open offenses and you just look at what the Titans have. They just seem so far away from

that for a multitude of reasons, you know We've talked at length about Marcus Mariota why he hasn't succeeded the things that have held him back I think we both believe Marcus Mario has a chance to be that guy still Through all the stuff that he's been through but it just seems like there's a there's a clear way to win in this league today, and it's offensive. And I'm not saying that John Robinson needs to ignore the defense. There's certainly some things that they have to address.

They've got to get bigger, more athletic up front. They've got to find another edge presence. But it's hard to convince me otherwise that John Robinson shouldn't just load up, find a new starting guard, find a couple of new receivers, maybe throw another running back into this mix. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing that I look at is talk about where you want to allocate the most of your resources. And I think when we look at what they need to add on offense,

the Titans that is, I think we both agree it needs to be in the receiver room and it needs to be somebody with some experience. I mean, I don't think they need to spend their first-round pick on a receiver, and I just don't know how much that would help them to have another young guy in that group. Now, if it's a guy that's going to come in and be Randy Moss in his rookie year, sure. But I don't think we have that guy in this draft, and he's probably not falling to 19 if there is that guy. So, yeah, I mean, we talked about this before, and it's a long way still until free agency.

Teams obviously have the chance to re-sign their guys before they ever hit the market. But I don't want to hear anything about not overpaying for guys. And listen, if you've listened to us or read us for any amount of time, you know that we're not the, hey, go sign everybody in free agency. Everybody gets cut, the Titans need to bring them in. We're not those people. But I don't see any reason to not bring in two receivers in free agency this year um you know and again the guys that i look at that are that are potentially

going to hit the market guys like golden tate and tyrell williams you got a guy that can work underneath a possession guy then you got a guy that can stretch the field the titans need that they need a guy that can come in and be a good route runner and show that. And they still need that dynamic presence over the top. And they tried to make Taewon Taylor that. It hasn't worked out for whatever reason. So I'm with you, man. I mean, the way that teams are winning right now is on offense. And honestly, I think you could do enough in free agency where you would be freed up to spend a couple of draft picks,

even the first round or maybe the first two rounds, on defensive players. If you could find a couple of receivers and maybe even a guard in free agency, I think you'd be able to do that. Because like you said, there is still some stuff that needs to be done on defense for this team. They don't have enough on the defensive line. They don't have enough as far as the edge is concerned. But even still, I mean, look at the way that most defense are playing now. They have those versatile linebackers, Jayon Brown, Rashawn Evans, some of those guys.

So maybe they can kind of mix and match to where maybe you don't have to have as much of an edge presence as you thought formerly. I don't know. I just think there are plenty of options that they can use but like you said i think the biggest thing is now we want to see them allocate a lot of resources this offseason towards this offense because marcus mariona has one year to prove it and if he doesn't then and if he does i mean it's a whole other conversation contract extension franchise like whatever right like that's that's not really the conversation

we're having right now but if he doesn't do it next year then you're looking at 2020 going into that year needing a quarterback and on top of that think about this if even if things stay equal kind of to what they were last year i mean this team had a had a year from marcus mariotta where he wasn't healthy played bad whatever they were not in seven So even if you have something similar go on next year, you could be talking about needing a quarterback and still being – picking middle to late in the draft, and so you're not going to be able to get Tua or whoever the guy is that you think you want.

You're not going to be in a position to necessarily get him. No, you're not. We've talked about it before. I think this roster probably bottoms out as a 6-10, 7-9 team. You're not getting a top pick for that. But, yeah, you make a good point. For getting nothing out of Marcus Mariota, still going 9-7, the arrow's still pointed up here, perhaps with or without Marcus Mariota.

The arrow's still pointed up here, perhaps with or without Marcus Mariota. So you just kind of look around, and you see physical offensive lines dominating. You see Kansas City run the ball like they did. You see the Rams run the ball like they did. You see C.J. Anderson. That's just bizarre to me. And then you see, of course, Alvin Kamara and Mark Ingram in New Orleans. I think investing in this offensive line, fixing it up for good. You've got a couple situations up in the air right now.

You don't know what they're going to do with Quentin Spain. Josh Klein could certainly be upgraded. Ben Jones could be upgraded. And then, you know, you look at the right tackle situation. Jack Conklin, we don't know what he is anymore. Is he going to kick inside the guard? That's been rumored. Now is kind of the time to sort through all of that.

I think we could see a big overhaul potentially this season. So I'm with you. I think you sign your perimeter playmakers. Give Marcus Mariota some experience. Whoever the offensive coordinator is, you get a veteran in here that's done it before that can come in and learn the playbook. They're not learning how to adjust to NFL life. It's not going to take them three years to figure it out.

You've got Corey Davis, who's going to make that third-year leap that we always talk about with receivers. You hope Taewon Taylor can do something similar to that. Obviously, not as big of a leap as Davis is going to make, but you bring a couple veterans in, and then you draft in the trenches, I think. I think you find a guard, perhaps a center. I think you put somebody on defense with Jarrell Casey and find a pass rusher on the outside.

I think that's your obvious needs right now. Yeah, and you made a good point, too, just kind of to wrap up this conversation about the rushing game. You know, everybody thinks about the Rams and the high-flying offense and all that kind of stuff. The Rams won that game Saturday night by running the ball. 273 yards on the ground. Like I said, CJ Anderson, 23 for 123.

Todd Gurley, 16 for 115. I mean, Jared Goff didn't have a very good game. He was 15 to 28 for 186 yards. So, however you want to move, you've got to be able to move the ball. It doesn't necessarily have to be through the air. And, again, you know, if you look at what McVay really likes to do, I mean, he runs a lot. Like, his whole offense is predicated on the run game.

That's what I think Matt LaFleur was trying to do here last year. Unfortunately, that run game didn't get going until the last, you know, four to six weeks of the season. So, injured quarterback and all that other kind of stuff. So, we didn't necessarily get to see the ceiling there. So, anyway, yeah, load up on offense. I think that's what we've learned from this season. And, like I said, with the four teams that remain.

All right, coming up along those lines, we'll talk about any news or updates we have as far as Titans' offensive coordinator search goes. So I guess it's kind of misleading to call it an update because we don't have anything as far as what the Titans are thinking, who they're bringing in to interview any of that kind of stuff on the office of coordinator search so we're what a week into it now i think it was last it was their last monday or tuesday um that the announcement was made that la flora was going to uh the packers so we're a weekend now we've seen nothing at all basically all just speculation from different people on guys that might be in the mix for the job. So I think the interesting thing that we were talking about

before we started here, Gary Kubiak is apparently interviewing for jobs. He's a guy that makes sense here from the standpoint of comes from basically the same tree as Matt LaFleur. Shanahan, you know, Gary Kubiak was with Mike Shanahan for a long time in Denver. And then obviously was the head coach there. You know, and then stepped down as the head coach after the 2016 season. He had some health issues. I guess was going to be a scout.

I guess he was ready, kind of itching to get back in. I haven't seen any connection to him here. The Titans are interested or whatever in him, but you can kind of just draw those lines with a similar coaching tree, however you want to put that. We do know that he's supposed to interview with the Jaguars, I think, on Tuesday, and I guess he had talked to the Vikings about a position on their staff.

So, you know, he's a guy that I think would be interesting. I would question how long he would be here. He's not that old. I mean, he's 57 years old, but he has had some health issues in the past. But if it's one year and see what you have out of Marcus Mariota, I mean, I think Kubiak makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I think our theme here is going all in on 2019 to see what you have. And Mariota, no better guy to do that with than Kubiak.

I think he keeps some continuity around. I'm sure there's some different terminology, but the same basic scheme is the same. You think back to all those years in Houston, Arian Foster operating behind that zone blocking scheme. You think of all those tight ends, all that play action. It's similar to what you saw here last year. Like you said, there's been no connection yet.

But just connecting some dots, that seems like a guy that Vrabel should be interested in. And look, he's a guy that's been around the block as a head coach. He's seen it all. That could probably help Vrabel through some of these situations. I think we forget that Vrabel's just now heading into his second year. He saw a lot in his first year. But like you said, I worry a little bit about continuity. Would he stick around for more than one year?

He's had some health concerns in his past. I'd be willing to look past that considering how big of a year it is for Marcus Mariota. I just want him to have every ability to go out there and perform at a really high level in 2019. At this point, Kubiak is the leader in the clubhouse for me just in terms of an experienced play caller that would run a similar system to what LaFleur did last year. Yeah, absolutely. And if it's not going to be that, if you're searching for a similar system,

then I think the next conversation has to be guys in house and we talked about names a little bit last week and again anything that we say at this point is really just speculation um the the you know the arthur smith movement has gained uh gained some legs and i think it's again just more like people connecting different dots on the internet i don't think it's necessarily anything that anybody's heard from the team because, like I said, unless I'm missing something, there has been nothing reported as far as who they're thinking about, who they're talking to,

any of that kind of stuff. Usually we'll see some of these national guys break news of an interview or something like that, but we haven't seen any of that at this point. Not surprising. I'm sure Mike Vrabel would love it if he could announce his offensive coordinator without anybody having any idea who they talk to or whatever.

That just seems to be kind of the way that he likes to operate. So maybe he's going to get that wish. I don't know. But like you say, Kubiak makes sense from that standpoint, from the coaching tree and all of that. I don't think, I mean, again, we've seen some different hires around the league. We were talking before we came on, the Browns. Todd Monken was a guy that a lot of people were looking at

and talking about could be a good guy to bring in here. Freddie Kitchens hired him with the Browns, and they've got Steve Wilkes as their defensive coordinator. This is obviously not a Browns podcast, but I've been really impressed with what they've done this offseason. We talked about it a little bit last week, making the common sense move of keeping Freddie Kitchens so you keep that continuity with Baker Mayfield.

But then you've got those guys now on staff, two of the hottest names as far as coordinator searches were going this time. So you talk about a team that the arrow is pointing up on. I think the Browns might have the arrow is pointing up on. I think the Browns might have the strongest arrow pointing up of anybody. Yeah, I totally agree. You look at Freddie Kitchens going from a quarterback coach to a head coach to hiring a former head coach and one of the hottest names on the market, an offensive coordinator.

We're going to be talking about the Browns for a long time here in the AFC, potentially as early as next year as a threat to win that wild card race. And, you know, I think you're going to see a lot of connections there with the Titans and the Browns just in the future, fighting over playoff positioning in years to come. So really, really impressed with what they've done Moves pretty quickly, you know and kind of the opposite of that Titans aren't moving quickly Like she says we've heard nothing and it just kind of makes me wonder if if we aren't if Titans aren't looking

Just kind of into some college ranks maybe maybe into some untypical candidates. I don't know. I just don't get the feel that Vrabel is going to hire your run-of-the-mill type guy unless he can get his shot at a Kubiak or something. So, you know, I don't have any names or anything like that. But I wouldn't be surprised to see him kind of test the the waters uh of the college game like he tried to last year but yeah that's the point i was gonna make i mean you know it was reported first last year that you know they offered the job ryan day the the head coach at ohio state

so yeah i mean it wouldn't surprise me at all if he thought outside the box there i think that's something he definitely uh likes to do and wants to do. And I think he is going to, you know, do his best to find the guy that's the best fit. And, again, like we talked about last week, not necessarily for Marcus Mariota at this point, but for the offense that he thinks that they should run and then, you know, kind of build from there. And, obviously, you have mariota uh this year just kind of see how that goes so anyway um we'll be keeping an eye on that if we if we see anything obviously we'll bring it up here and you know we'll be keeping it up to date at mcmiracles.com

as well all right to finish up the show today we're going to talk about the tight ends break down how that position performed in 2018 you, tight end was really probably the outside of maybe offensive line. The Titans got hit harder with injuries at tight end than any other position. Obviously with Delaney Walker going down in week one at

Miami and then you had John Smith getting hurt later in the season. You had a group that you felt pretty good about. Two guys at the top that, you know, were probably very much in the center of what their plans were going to be for the offense last year, especially Delaney Walker. John New kind of was slow after, you know, after Delaney Walker went down.

A lot of people were wondering what was going on with him. He was really coming on last year, and then he got hurt. So that was obviously disappointing. I think he was probably just thrust into a role a little bit sooner than he was ready for, quite honestly. Wasn't planning on taking on that role last year. You know, they had guys from there. You've got Luke Stocker, Mike Holprun, however you say his name. You know, Ferkser was obviously a guy that we had some fun with.

however you say his name. You know, Ferkser was obviously a guy that, you know, we had some fun with. But, you know, I mean, you have to feel pretty good about where that position is assuming that Delaney and John O can come back healthy. Yeah, I think we – I don't think a lot of people realize that Delaney Walker was out nationally when they kind of look and see what went wrong with this Titans offense. He's just kind of one of those guys that just made it all go. And to lose him week one, I think, you know,

I remember Dave McGinnis telling us when we talked to him after week one, he's like, nobody's going to replace Delaney, and it's just a huge blow to the offense. So just a key cog to be lost out there to lose that that leadership to force John who into what he had to do yeah it just just a bad deal so I think we can be encouraged with how John who came along especially in the middle part of the season I think he kind of really started to take ownership of what he was going to be

in this offense. We'll see if he can come back and be the tight end too. I've got confidence in him now. And now you look at Anthony Ferkser. That's a guy that's probably got to be on the roster now. But then you wonder about John, who's ability to block and that

probably opens up a spot for a fourth tight end to come in. So I don't know if they want to keep Luke Stocker around, Michael Pruitt, like you said. I think you can find guys like that pretty much anywhere. They do seem to like Stocker, though, in this offense. So I think solidifying that blocking role, whoever it may be, is really the only question here. So I think you've got three locks to make the team next year. Yeah, like you said, if you're looking for that third guy or the blocking tight end behind

Delaney and Jonu. I think they want Delaney and Jonu to be those dual threat guys. They can do both things. We know Delaney's done that in the past. Like we're saying, I think Jonu was growing into that role. dual threat guys. They can do both things. We know Delaney's done that in the past. Like we're saying, I think John New was growing into that role. But Stocker is scheduled to become a free agent at the end. He'll be a free agent when the new league year opens, assuming that they don't do any kind

of extension with him. Not sure about Michael Pruitt's contract status. They signed him during the year, so I would imagine it was a one-year type deal. They'll be looking for, I guess, something else there. Like I said, I mean, you know, if they like Stocker and you can get him back here for, you know, basically nothing, that's fine. As long as they're not handing the ball on fourth and one. You know, and I think Stocker has a role in this offense, but that's not it.

So, you know, this is a group that we should, you know, we'll have these same conversations, you know this is a group that we should we you know we'll have these same conversations uh you know after cut downs heading into the regular season we'll have these same conversations about going through and looking at positions of the roster um you know this is this is a group i think we're going to feel pretty good about at that point again assuming that the lady and john who are both back healthy at the beginning of camp and you know make it through camp without any without any type of injuries. And yeah, Fergster, I mean, he came on, caught the ball, and they threw it to him. So that's more than you can say for a lot of guys on this team,

tight end, wide receiver, whatever. So anyway, yeah, if we see him at that position, I would just assume it would be a blocking guy. I wouldn't think you'd get any more than that. All right, so that'll do it for today's show. Tomorrow, we'll look at the offensive line. Obviously, a lot of conversations to be had there. One of the more,

I guess, disappointing groups, position groups for the Titans last year. And just still a lot of question marks around that. Alright, so again, musicofmiracles.com will be right there. You can check out anything, any breaking news or anything, we'll have there. We'll be right there. You can check out anything, any breaking news or anything we'll have there. We'll obviously talk about it the next day on the show.

Follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmorsemcm. Terry's at tlambertfb. Again, podcasts. Wherever you get your podcasts, search out Locked on Titans. Smart speaker, play podcast Locked on Titans. If you want to leave us a voicemail, 615-787-8762. Like I said, keep it to around a minute

and we'll try to get you on the show on Thursday. So for Terry, this is Jimmy saying thanks for listening to Locked on Titans and we'll talk to you again tomorrow.