Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: Reacting to the final 53

Episode Date: September 4, 2018

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Welcome in to another edition of Locked on Titans. I'm Jimmy Morris, joined as always by Terry Lambert. Terry, how are you tonight? Doing pretty good. What's going on, man? Not too much. Coming off of Labor Day here, getting ready for Week 1, Titans-Dolphins. We've got a lot to talk about. The 53-man roster that was announced after the cutdowns finished up on Saturday. So we'll get into that, talk about some surprises there because there were quite a few of those. And then talk a little bit at the end about the Dolphins, the line of that game, and just some notes and stuff from

practice today. Before we do all that, we remind you to be right for musicofmiracles.com where we cover the Titans for SB Nation. So you can check us out there. You can follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmorrismcm. Terry's at tlambertfb. You can follow the podcast account at LockedOnTitans, and you can also search out

LockedOnTitans wherever you get your podcasts, and you will get the newest episodes as soon as they are available. Alright, so the Titans finished their roster cutdowns on Saturday. They were actually, they actually announced their roster, I don't know, like an hour and a half before the deadline.

But there were quite a few surprises on there. We went through, if you listen to the show Thursday night after the fourth preseason game, we went through and kind of gave our predictions. And we told you there's anywhere between 46, 48 guys that are pretty solidly on the roster in the last four, five, six guys, whatever it is, that would be in flux there. Starting with the offensive side of the ball, we talked about really with Jonathan Hutton earlier last week about how they were either going to keep four running backs or four tight ends.

And at that point, he said we agreed that it would be four running backs instead of four tight ends. So we figured Akram Wadley would be on this team. That Anthony Ferkshire would not. It turned out to be the other way around. And I think the surprising part to me is that Akram Wadley, not only did he clear waivers, but as of this recording Monday night, he hasn't been signed to a practice squad. So that part of it was a little bit surprising to me.

Yeah, I thought they'd keep four because of what we talked about, what happens if Deion Lewis goes down. Who is your pass-catching bag? We've seen Derrick Henry catch some passes, some screenplays, but he's just not that guy that can go take a dump off and make something happen. He can contribute in space, but that's just not really his game. Can David Flewellen give you some of that?

Maybe a little bit, but I don't know. Deion Lewis is such a unique player. I thought they had a shot with Wadley or even Daylon Dawkins to keep a guy on the roster that can back up Lewis and give you something in the passing game. So that was surprising to me. Yeah, and like I said, I guess maybe we were just hired on wildly than we should have been.

Like I said, because I was sure that he would end up somewhere. And then another note, just real quick, Titans cut Luke Falk. The assumption from everybody was that he would be back here on the practice squad. The Dolphins claimed him. Titans played the Dolphins week one. I'm not usually one that buys into this conspiracy theory stuff that you sign a guy that's been with a team to get inside of their playbook or whatever it may be. But there is absolutely no other reason that the Dolphins would have claimed Luke Falk other than that.

I mean, Luke Falk was terrible. Like, we all talked about how terrible he was. He had no shot at making this roster. You know, we knew that. The Titans didn't have any choice here. I mean, it's not like, you know, they were, I don't know. I mean, I think they were probably pretty shocked that anybody claimed him. But, I mean, do you agree that there's absolutely no other reason the Dolphins would want Falk other than to

try to get some type of insight into the Titans offense? You can't sit there and watch the tape that Falk put out and go sign him and believe that he is worth anything to your franchise. So yeah, it's real convenient. The Dolphins played the Titans week one and

Matt LaFleur says today that he didn't fully install everything and he held some stuff back. So just in case that had happened, he said he had been burned in that situation before. So it's interesting. I think, you know, you saw the Seahawks and 49ers. They do this all the time, or at least they did two or three years ago, just passing intel back and forth.

And the Titans and Colts did it a few times. But, yeah, I think it's overvalued. I don't know what Luke Falk can go take to the Dolphins that's going to give them some sort of edge. You know, we've talked about preseason. The Titans are keeping this thing under wraps, and I firmly believe that with how vanilla we saw things. Yeah, and so, I mean, there'll be some hand signals and that kind of stuff.

They'll have to change, obviously, because some of that stuff, I'm sure they would have carried forward into week one. But, yeah, I don't think it's going to be that big of a deal. Moving on to the receivers, you know, we said that we'd keep six receivers. We speculated that the back two after, you two after the four that we knew would be there would be Darius Jennings and Nick Williams. It ends up being Darius Jennings and Cameron Batson. This, to me, says two things.

One, the injury that Nick Williams had was probably something that was going to keep him limited for a little bit, and you just can't have your sixth guy, your sixth receiver, limited in practice or in a game or whatever um so i mean that says that to me and then i think that this also means we're talking about this a little bit just before we hopped on here that cameron batson is going to be a factor in the return game i don't know if he's going to be the kick returner i mean i think adori jackson's obviously gonna be the punt returner but you know we saw batson handle the kick return duties a lot in the preseason. And so I think the fact that he made this roster is a pretty good indication

that he will be at least in the mix for the kick return job. Yeah, and remember Michael Cavanaro was kind of signed for that role. He goes on IR, and then Nick Williams gets banged up. I think he was signed in a similar, wanting to take a similar role there. So, Batson may be the third in line there. Maybe the door's just opened and the opportunity presented itself for that. But you're talking about a guy that wasn't all that productive in college. You know, he had under 500 yards his senior year at Texas Tech.

Not all that prolific in a pretty prolific offense. But what he did do is return the football. He had 18, 13, 18, 17 returns over four years of a collegiate career. Really experienced and

I'd expect him to be a factor in this return game, which, by the way, is still very much up in the air. We don't really know what the plans are there. Yeah, again, just one of those things that's been a mystery about this team. And I'm good with them not having Adore Jackson back there on kick returns. Is he your most dynamic guy? I think absolutely. But when you look at the hit they've taken to the depth

of the corner requisition throughout camp and then just the fact that, you know, he played with the second most snaps in the league last year, you know, I'm good with them giving him a breather on that. And with the kick return, I don't know. It's going to be interesting with the new rules, see how much of a factor it's going to be this year. But it hasn't been much of a factor in the last couple of years,

so I'm good with them letting him sit that out. Then the other surprise on the offensive side of the ball was the fact that they kept Aaron Stinney on the offensive line. We talked through all that. Jack Conklin, they moved from PUP to the active roster. So we don't know. We'll get a little bit more to him later. But don't know at what point he's going to be able to be back in there

and join the starting lineup. But obviously they feel like it's less than six weeks because they moved him to the 53, so he does count against that number. But, yeah, I don't think there's anything much there that's surprising other than the fact that Aaron Stinney made it. Yeah, does Aaron Stinney make this team if Jack Conklin's ready to go this week? Yeah, that's a question that I had. Maybe they just want eight bodies up front that are capable of playing week one,

and maybe that's where Stinney gets cut in the future, and maybe they add back another running back, another receiver, something like that. But, yeah, I mean, our buddy Mike broke down the Steelers game, and it showed that Stinney was just terrible, and he looked lost out there. So that was shocking. I think you said that nobody in the world had him on this 53-man. So that was easily the most surprising move of this entire 53-man roster. Yeah, I think you're right.

And if you listen to Mike Keefe on their official Titans podcast, we're going to have Mike Keefe on later this week, but talks about as important as the 53-man roster is, the thing that they're really looking at is who's going to be active on game day. And like you said, if you know in week one that Jack Conklin's going to be inactive on game day, then you just want the eight healthy bodies there. So that could have been a part of it, but I don't know. It seems like they might have had a better option than Stinney,

but I guess they didn't feel that way. All right, so that's pretty much the breakdown of the offensive side of the 53-man roster. Coming up after this, we'll talk about the defensive side. Okay, so I think the biggest surprise on the defensive side of the ball came on the defensive line uh one they only kept five guys so that was a little bit surprising there and then also the fact that matt dickerson who quite frankly i'd never heard of before i saw his name tweeted on friday that he was going to make the 53-man roster,

the fact that he was the fifth guy. You know, I don't know. That's interesting. They're really thin there. They didn't keep Ormsley, who seemed to show up at multiple times in the preseason, the guy that Vrabel had a lot of good things to say about in press conferences, like I said, throughout camp, throughout the preseason. They didn't keep David King, which, again, not that we thought David King was any great player, but they gave up something to get him last year,

and they brought him back. So, I mean, I just thought that maybe they liked him enough to make this roster. But it's just you've got to play three guys at a time, and you're going into this first game with five guys active, or five guys on the 53. So they're really, really thin there. Yeah, I'm baffled.

It's scary. What happens if two guys go down? I mean, you're in the trenches battling every snap. If two guys go down, you don't have any depth there. So that's puzzling to me. I thought for sure six would be the minimum uh you know david king julius warmsey they seemed like pretty good bets at least one or the other and neither make the team and then they roll with five so uh at this point uh if john robinson is

going to make a move anywhere uh you know you talk about aaron stenny being expendable down the road i think you'd have to add a defensive lineman there. Yeah, and, you know, they've got a couple of guys. I mean, when you look at, like, Derek Morgan, you know, Brian Wrightville, guys that have played 4-3 end at points in their career that, you know, in a pinch, I guess, could help you. Like you said, if two guys go down, the problem is they're thinning outside linebacker, too,

because it seems unlikely at this point that Morgan and Harold Landry, it seems unlikely either one of them are going to play. So you're thin there. You can't really lend a guy from there to help out up front. So, I mean, it's going to be interesting to see, you know, as we get an injury report on Wednesday, as we get details on how much guys did in practice throughout the week, it's just going to be interesting to see because, you know,

when you look at the outside linebackers they kept, I mean, no surprise in who they kept. You've got Morgan Arakpo, Landry, that are your top three there, and then Finch, Wallace, and Correa. I mean, we were on on that group, one of the few groups that we got right. But, you know, it's just you've got that many guys there, but you might have two of them that are already trending toward being inactive on Sunday. So I don't know.

It's just an interesting spot that they have there. And then, you know, what if you have one of those guys go down? I mean, Finch has been banged up at points during the preseason. So I don't know. It's going to be interesting to watch how that rotation goes in Miami. Yeah, and it's not just the depth. It's not just having five. It's that one of those five is an undrafted free agent, Matt Dickerson.

So, yeah, that whole situation is bizarre. It just seems like an unnecessary risk to me. I don't know why you'd want to go in with that. I don't know what else could be that important that you'd have to go with five on the defensive front. Yeah, and just keep in mind, too, the Titans were, I think, what, 25th in the waiver order. So, I mean, at first, they didn't add anybody after that first round when guys were on waivers Saturday into Sunday. And then I think it was Paul Kuharski that tweeted later, either Sunday night or Monday morning, that the Titans didn't even claim anybody.

So I don't know. It's just interesting. We thought there would be some movement, but I guess they're happy with what they have. So anyway, inside linebacker, again, another place that was pretty easy to predict. They kept the guys that we thought they would, Woodard Brown, Rashawn Evans, Will Compton, Darren Bates. So no big surprise there. Corner, you've got your butler, Logan Ryan, Adore Jackson,

LaShawn Sims, Kenneth Durden, a bit of a surprise. And we talked about that a little bit Thursday night, that they would keep another corner, a fifth corner, but we just didn't know necessarily which guy it would be. We had kind of pegged DeMontre hearst as that guy uh with some versatility there but you know again you feel really good about those top four but if one of those guys goes down it's just kind of a it's a little bit of a question mark when you thought you had you know kaylin reed and ty smith um you know heading into heading into training camp,

you felt good like six deep there. And after the injuries to Reed and Smith, it's just you just kind of got to hope that everybody up front stays healthy. Yeah, Demontre Hurst, he had a nice preseason, and he was the one that was playing the most, and he seemed to have a stranglehold on that last cornerback spot. And, of course, he's the first one cut on the weekend. Yeah.

Durden comes in. We said it was going to be one of these corners that was playing a lot in the second half, and Durden seemed to win the job there. So no way for us to know that. I don't think a lot of people had him on the final 53 either. But, yeah, going back to linebacker real quick, Spillane, the linebacker that impressed everybody, did make the practice squad. So I know a lot of people were rooting for him.

It was a great story. But, unfortunately, the linebacker numbers were just pegged out for the Titans defense. Yeah, so it's going to be interesting. And I think there will be some movement and of course we said that you know heading into the cuts but after week one um and you know hopefully like guys like landry and uh and derrick morgan aren't going to be out that long and then if conklin's able to come back in the next couple of weeks you can move on from an aaron stenny uh we'll just we'll kind of watch and see how that plays out.

All right, so that'll do it for the talk of the roster. Coming up, we're going to talk a little bit about the line for the Titans-Dolphins game. Before we do that, we're going to talk about my bookie. If you want to go bet on this game, we'll kind of give you our thoughts on the line and that kind of stuff coming up. But the best place to do it is at my bookie. Go to mybookie.ag. Again, we always say it, but who you bet with is as important as who you bet on uh you don't want to bet on a site where

you're not sure if you're going to get your money when you win they're going to give you the run around it's going to take forever that's not the case in my bookie you win you get paid that's the that's the biggest thing and they've been in business for a long time great online review they talk all the time about the mobile site. It's just as good as doing it on your laptop or your desktop. You don't have to download an app, any of that kind of stuff. So check out MyBookie. They've got a great deal going on right now.

If you join MyBookie and use our promo code, they will match your first deposit dollar for dollar. So use the promo code LOCKEDON to activate the offer. Visit MyBookie online today. That's M-Y-B-O-O-K-I-E. And don't forget to use the promo code LOCKEDON when creating your account to claim the bonus. You play, you win, you get paid. All right, so on my bookie currently,

the Titans are a two-point favorite at at miami in week one and you know i mean that's about right to me um i i feel like the titans are the better team but at the same time we've watched this team for a whole training camp a whole preseason and i don't i don't feel necessarily differently about them than I did when camp started. It's not that I feel worse. There's just still a lot of things that I don't know about what's going to happen with this team. It's weird, and I was telling you I wouldn't bet a dime on this game.

Even though the Titans are the more talented team, we just don't know. We didn't get a good feel in preseason. Supposedly they weren't showing a lot. They weren't game planning for anything. It just sounded like Vrabel wasn't real big on the preseason. So just a lot of question marks here. And the Dolphins are kind of laying in the weeds. They've got Ryan Tannehill back.

I don't know what that defense is going to look like without Indomitian Sioux. It's a spot that the Titans should be able to handle, but as we saw last year, a lot of players on this roster, they kind of struggled in those spots. You think about that Browns game, you think about that Bengals game, it's just unnecessarily close. So I'm a little afraid to put my money on that game yeah and you know i think it's going to be interesting to see with with stuff like that you know a lot of a lot of that we blame the malarkey for different reasons whatever it may be um you know people said he

wasn't a good motivator or we talked about how they didn't necessarily uh play to the weaknesses of the team they were facing they did what they wanted that they you know set out to do regardless of what the strength of their team were i think that that will be an issue this year i think the times are going to be one of those teams that attack the weaknesses of the opposing defense especially um but just all the other stuff like you you said, it'll be interesting to see how much different this team is than last year's team. Are they able to go in and handle their business in a game where they're clearly the better team, that kind of stuff, because they ended up winning those games last year,

but it was just never as easy as it should have been. So that'll be something that's good. Yeah, I think the hope here is that the Titans come out like the Rams last year and just absolutely obliterate people and put up 35 a game. We just haven't seen that. You know, there's still, for as big as believers as we are in Marcus Mariota, we still need to see it. You know, we still need to go see him get on the same page with Corey Davis.

We need to see Taew him uh get on the same page with corey davis we need to see taylon taylor actually go contribute you know we've heard the practice reports and all this uh we need to see it happen on the football field so uh yeah i'd like to to tell you yeah go bet titans minus two but unfortunately i can't do that quite yet yeah Yeah, I'm with you. I mean, I think that the most likely outcome is that the Titans win the game and win it, you know, pretty easily. But I don't feel great about that. And like you said, it's just kind of we're in just a place where they just need to show it to us.

And we'll see. I mean, it's going to be an interesting start to the season because you turn and play the Texans after the Dolphins, and that's a team that a lot of people are really high on with the return of Deshaun Watson, JJ Waddell, those guys being back. So we'll obviously have plenty of time to talk about that. But that'll do it for tonight. We'll be back pretty much daily at this point, heading into week one.

Just a thing, Jack Conklin, one thing we needed to know he he did he was in uniform today at practice and did some work and now we know how vague excuse me the titans have been with the injury reports and all that kind of stuff so i'm not sure exactly how you would classify his practice they didn't have to do that today but today. He was out there and did some work. Obviously, he's trending in the right direction. I would be really surprised if we see him in week one. That's the last note there. We'll be back

a few more times this week. We're aiming to get Mike Keefe later in the week, so we should have him mid-week. Obviously, he'll bring a lot of good information. We had him before and he was great so we expect that again but in the meantime you can see miracles.com

you can check us out have plenty of stuff heading up into this week one match up and like I said subscribe to the podcast just search out Locked on Titans follow us on Twitter I'm at jaymorrismcm Terry's at tlimbertfb so for Terry this is Jimmy saying thanks for listening and we will talk to you

again later this week