Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked On Titans-Sept 19- The Titans got a big win, but there was some bad and ugly too.

Episode Date: September 19, 2016

The Tennessee Titans got a big, come from behind win on Sunday, but there were some bad and ugly moments in the game. What were they? We discuss on the Monday edition. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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You are locked on Titans. Your daily podcast on the Tennessee Titans. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network. And welcome to your daily source for news and Titans information with your host Terry McCormick of Titan Insider, Greg Arias, and former Tennessee Titan Pro Bowl left tackle Brad Hopkins. And gentlemen, welcome in as always on a Monday morning. It is a good Monday morning, Brad and Terry.

Anytime that we can talk about a Titans win over the weekend, which is certainly what happened on Sunday in come-from-behind fashion up in Detroit. Yeah, it really was it. Go ahead, Terry, sorry. It really was it. You are locked on Titans, your daily podcast on the Tennessee Titans, part of the Locked

On Podcast Network. And welcome to your daily source for all Titans news with your host Terry McCormick of Titan Insider, Greg Arias and former Tennessee Titans Pro Bowl left tackle Brad Hopkins. And gentlemen, welcome to a Monday edition Brad and Terry. It is a good day anytime that we can start the week talking about a win and that's exactly what we got on Sunday when the Titans went to Detroit and came out with a come-from-behind win, 16-15, the final score, Terry. Yeah, it really was interesting to watch this game because the Titans were floundering for three quarters, just kind of hanging around, hanging around. You know, the Lions really couldn't put them away, in part because of all the penalties that they had.

But finally, when they let the door open just a little bit, Marcus Mariota directed two touchdown drives in the fourth quarter, and the Titans came away winners. Yeah, go ahead and add that 67-yard run from DeMarco Murray in there as well. Definitely was a tale of two halves, fellas. When you talk about all the things that went wrong for the Titans on the road in the very beginning, obviously they made their halftime adjustments that made them come out and play a little bit more confidently

and were to take advantage of some of their strengths, more so than letting the Minnesota Vikings take the pace, so to speak. Obviously, this is our current news of the morning, the Titans' big win to even their record at 1-1. A little bit later on in the show, we're going to spend a little bit more time talking particularly about the offense and the defense, the good, bad, and the ugly that we took away from Sunday's win. And guys, certainly the victory was a good one, and it does a couple of things.

And one, I think, is give some confidence to this team and Marcus Mariota to get back on the winning track. It had been a while since he had won a football game. Yeah, it's interesting that you say that. A couple of times in this franchise history, they've had games that have become turning points for this team. I think one, and Brad, you were part of this one,

was the opener in the new stadium back in 1999. That was a game where they were down nine points. They rallied, got ten points in the fourth quarter, beat the Bengals, and that kind of started the ball rolling for a magical season in 1999. The other time was a little bit after your tenure ended here, Brad. In 2006, after terrible seasons in 2004 and 2005,

where the magic had seemingly kind of slipped away, they started 0-5 in 2006. They went to Washington. Casey Kramer blocked the punt. Lamont Thompson intercepted a pass. They got off the side, and for the rest of that season, they played well. And that started the ball rolling for better things in 2007 and 2008. You wonder, after this team has been down for so long,

could Sunday's game be a turning point, the start of something that shows improvement for this franchise? 100% you're right, Terry. I think that you can see the very fabric of this team being different compared to speaking to recent years. After so many things went wrong for this team in the first half during that game and even take it back to the Minnesota game, I think that you start to believe those things about yourself,

but not this team. This squad knows that there's going to be adversity. They don't feel uncomfortable when they're behind in points, and they just try and find a way basically to do the right things and rally around their own abilities and win. I think we saw more of an approach to get Delaney Walker involved in the game plan, of course. We saw in short yardage situations just like we did in preseason,

Derrick Henry was very involved. So they're spreading the football around. Tajay Sharp is not surprising anybody anymore. He's obviously a go-to favorite for Marcus Mariota, and I think defenses are now starting to key in on that. So you're still starting to see the confidence intact for a team that really definitely has a different mindset nowadays. Some of the numbers offensively that stood out yesterday,

Marcus Mariota, of course, 25 of 33 for the game, 238 yards, two touchdowns, one interception. But, guys, it was that late third quarter and fourth quarter where Marcus really took over the game, including that last touchdown drive where he was 9 of 9, including the fourth down pass to Andre Johnson. And if you go back, and I know you guys watched it and look at that video, you can't throw a better pass than Marcus put into the double coverage

to Andre Johnson there to drop that in for the touchdown. Really was a nice-looking pass, especially once you saw it on the replay. You saw it from a different camera angle, and you saw how he just threaded the needle. And Andre Johnson, the veteran, having the presence of mind to concentrate, look the ball all the way in between the two defenders, grab it, and make a clean catch for the game-winning score. Really was an impressive play.

Yeah, we can also talk defensively about the youngsters contributing. We saw Parrish Cox ultimately with a game-winning pick. We saw Kevin Dodd get his first sack on his relatively young career. We saw the Titans basically get into the Detroit Lions' backfield four times to bring down Matt Stafford, which is a definite improvement and shows that there's at least a little more balance than what we saw in the preseason. And the thing I think, guys, about the offense was that after struggling

and granted the penalties, obviously 17 against Detroit, 12 against the Titans, it was a very ugly game. But that's kind of what the Titans want with this offense, this exotic smash mouth is to be there in the fourth quarter and be able to win games late, though I don't think they want to necessarily have to come from 14 points down because I don't know that this offense is made to do that. But this is the kind of style of game that I think this team wants to play and we're going to see this season.

They just want to try to get a lead a little earlier and hang on to it down the stretch. Yeah, I think you're right there. If there's one concern that I have about this team, actually there are a couple of concerns I have on the offense side of the ball. One of those is the fact that they still really don't have a speed receiver to take the top off of and loosen the defense so that they can open things up in the middle of the field and for the run game. The other thing is I still think that when he's not in the shotgun,

when he's under center and doing his five- and seven-step drops, the pass protection is still a little bit lacking at times, and they are still allowing Mariota to be hit and be sacked to offer, Brad. Yeah, you're right about that, definitely. On the offensive line, they're relatively young, and they still have some growing to do, but they're more built for run blocking, in my opinion. You know, they're not necessarily fleet of foot to be able to handle some of the best pass rushers that obviously the NFC has to offer, but we did get lucky with not having a couple of Detroit's more pivotal defensive players not on the field for them on Sunday.

As a matter of fact, a couple of them left early in that ballgame, but I think that when you're talking about some of the situations that the Titans had to deal with up there in Detroit, they always had to deal with up there in Detroit, they always had to deal with the long field. So I'm not going to say special teams is an issue, Terry Gregg, but field position definitely was one of them on Sunday. They always seemed to start inside their own 10-yard line having to go 90 yards or so to get a score. So if they can get better field position, meaning better return yardage, maybe even better just coverages.

Now you can give the other team those same kind of issues. It'll be better for the Titans to cash in on scores when they don't have a Spartacus. Yeah, I feel like the defense, and while they played adequately enough, they allowed Detroit sometimes to make some third down conversions to get out of some deep situations on their own end, get closer to midfield and be able to flip the field and thus keep the Titans in those bad field positions. So they've got to do a little bit better job when you get the team into third down

and especially third down in 9, 10, 11, 12 yards as they had a couple of times and still allowed Detroit to convert out of that and be able to flip the field. Right. I think it was mentioned about the penalties on special teams. The penalties really hurt on special teams in terms of field position. There were a couple times on kickoff, the punt, where there was a block in the back or there was a hold, and that's what caused those drives to start inside the 10-yard line rather than start out closer to the 20 where they should have

had there not been a penalty. Brad, I want to ask you a question as a former offensive lineman because Mike Malarkey took the heat for this yesterday in the postgame press conference saying that the safety there when it was made it 2-0 the first score of the game for Detroit was on him because he changed the call that Terry Robiskey had sent down. He didn't like it, so he made the change, and somewhere in that change there was a confusion. But when you look at the replay on the offensive line,

it looked like the right side of the line, Jack Conklin and Chance Wormack, were going backwards as if they were thinking it was some type of pass play and trying to pass block. And then, of course, Wormack gets blown back into the end zone four or five yards deep. Conklin trying to kick his guy out ultimately kicks him right into the back for the safety there. Yeah, as a matter of fact,

I think that that is a true testament of who Mike Malarkey is as a coach. He's deflecting blame from his players. He's putting it all on himself. For me as a former player, looking at that play itself, it had nothing to do with him overriding what Terry Rubisky called. I think that when you look at running a draw in that situation,

it definitely would catch the defense with their pants down because no one would expect it. But when you're looking at the point of attack, looking at Jack Conklin setting up for what normally would be a pass in this situation, he didn't give up. He gave up way too much ground, basically. He stepped in the bucket, so to speak, right into the hole where DeMarco Murray was supposed to be running.

He was supposed to pass the defensive end upfield. He basically got pushed back into the hole itself. Got two gaps, essentially. And that's what caused the play to get blown up. So it was pure execution by the youngster that got them that safety. But I also like the way that Mike Malarkey was deflecting the blame and taking it upon himself for actually putting them in that situation. I have no problem with the play call because it was definitely out-of-the-box thinking, something that would have caught them off guard, so to speak,

but unfortunately they didn't execute the play the way that they practiced it, and that's what caused the two points. Brad, how much do you attribute that to Conklin just being a rookie and it being something to learn from? 100%, because that's exactly what defensive linemen are taught to do in that situation, press, to be two gaps, your body in one gap, their body in the other. And it's exactly what happened when they weren't.

And we saw that a lot in the first quarter, or the first half, basically. The offensive line kind of getting pushed around. They weren't as physical as we've seen them in the preseason or even against the Vikings. And it was apparent in the early start of that ballgame in keeping Marcus Mariota protected, as well as getting the run game off to the start that we saw them have in the second half.

They were getting pushed around a little bit, but I think they made the necessary adjustments, sometimes too tight in sets, really putting Marcus Mariota under center like Terry was talking about and getting that eye formation kind of downhill running approach more so than what we've seen them in the gun trying to do, you know, the handoff draw type stuff that really don't allow the offensive lineman to

be almost parallel with the lines, with the ground, basically, and getting good low pad level and being able to fire off and initiate the contact. They were backpedaling in essence, you know, doing a lot of things that they just don't necessarily feel comfortable doing. Brad, is there a little bit of an, I don't want to say identity crisis with the offensive line, but because they're running some from the eye, as you mentioned, some from the shotgun, the pistol sets, those different things, the blocking rules for those, are they different types of rules,

and is that perhaps some confusion and maybe not allowing this offensive line to just come off the football and run sets? Would they be better to maybe just get in the eye and run downhill with these two backs? Yeah, well, when you think of what the Titans are trying to do, really it's about deception. It's not being predictable. It's not having a vanilla pedestrian game plan. They want defensive coordinators to be thinking about what the possibilities

are by showing them different looks, different sets, and then running multiple plays off of those same sets. So it is a mentality. It is different, though, when you say, hey, look, I'm going to line this rascal up. We've got six guys on the line of scrimmage to block for us right here, and we're just going to run it down your throat. I mean, that's just not the approach that the Titans have taken,

even though they have that in their bag of tricks. They want you to think that they're more diverse than that. But they also have to have the downfield threats to be able to open up the entire balance of the offense. You know, when Doyle Greenbecker, big receiver, Justin Hunter, big receiver, when those guys were at X and you had to respect them because of their

ability possibly to get past the secondary, you didn't have near as many bodies in the box. Nowadays, when they don't have that deep threat and you basically got to watch the scenes and the crossing route stuff, you can litter that whole box with a bunch of different people, which kind of obviously affects the pass game, but definitely affects the run game.

They'll get as straight as what they're most comfortable in doing. I just think that it really comes with consistently being able to stick with one thing. Let's move along to the defensive side of things, guys, and talk a little bit about what we saw and took away from the defensive effort obviously Matthew Stafford had a pretty good day throwing the football penalties obviously

were huge especially that one particular series where Detroit drove from their own one yard line all the way to the Titans one had two touchdowns called back one on an offensive pass interference the other on a hold they wind up only getting a field goal out of that. That was a huge moment in the game. But I thought the defense, while they battled hard, they just could not, as I said a little bit earlier, make a play to get off the field when they needed to and stop that drive. Now, they did get some stops at times,

but at other times obviously they weren't able to. And, again, I think that affected field position. I think the pass rush was really lacking in the first half. They didn't get their first sack of, actually the first sack of the season until the final play of the first half when Kevin Dodd got to Matthew Stafford. But in the second half, they were able to get three sacks, and they played much better. I think they're going to have to generate pass rush consistently

because the secondary is not speedy enough. They've got some old warhorses back there in Jason McCourty, Rashad Johnson, Parrish Cox, Bryce McCain. They've got guys who've got some tread off the tires back there in secondary, and they're going to have to cover for those guys. Those guys are smart and know where to be, but they may not get there as fast as they used to. I thought they did a better job of that in the second half. Three guys that stood out to me on defense, one on each level. I liked the way Carl Klug played on the defensive line. Not only had a sack, but also had a nice tackle for a loss.

And then at the linebacker position, obviously, Brian Arakpo with two sacks in the second half. And then finally in the secondary, Damian Stafford was laying in the wood when he got an opportunity to get in there at safety. Yeah, I think that basically Matt Stafford was laying in the wood when he got an opportunity to get in there at safety. Yeah, I think that basically smashed Stafford and company, pointed out a couple of areas in the secondary to kind of really see if they could make some plays.

Obviously, Searcy was picked on a little bit. Parrish was picked on just a little bit. But I thought for the most part, in the absence of Derek Morgan, we saw them improve the pass rush in the latter 30 minutes of the ball game. Brian Arecbo was definitely an impactful player. The Stars were starting to step up and contribute defensively for that team. Jarrell Casey obviously getting hits on the quarterback. Those are the things that make Matt Stafford and company uncomfortable

and that they have to basically deal with. Now, this is a very formidable defense. If they can get that other part of the team as far as controlling the clock, you know, moving the sticks, staying out of third and long, converting third downs, this could be a team that not only AFC is going to be worried about, but the entire league as well. Now, Brad, I've got to throw this to you and ask you this question, obviously having been there. How much, if any, did the way the officials were calling the game yesterday, and obviously a combined 29 penalty flags short of the NFL record of 37, but still 29 flags. How does that affect players when you know that they're calling this so close

and how you go about it? In particular, I know you didn't play there, but in the secondary, we saw Parrish Cox flagged a couple of times, and then having to overcome that and try to come back and make a play. Culminates in more mistakes, Terry, because in the back of your mind, you're starting to think, man, are my hands in the right place? Am I holding on to this guy too long? Did I hit him up too high? Did I leave my feet?

You're doing all these things other than reacting to what you see, because now there's another element to the game that can actually affect you, which is you getting some laundry thrown at your feet. No one wants to see 15-yard penalties that negate drives. No one wants to see, you know, you get penalties that call on you that give the other team momentum. And that's what's happening when you get 29 penalties. At least the one thing that we can say, Terry and Greg,

is that they were consistent, 12 for the Titans, 17 for the Lions, 29 plays in all. There wasn't one side getting it more than the other. At least that's fair. Yeah, I would agree with that, Brad. I think to add to that, I think it makes you gun shy, especially back there in the secondary, because if you get called for a penalty, then maybe you're not as draped on the receiver as you would be the last time.

And that little extra cushion that you give might be the difference in a completion and an incompletion. Certainly give credit to Parrish Cox because he kept his head in the ballgame and obviously made the play that ultimately sealed the game, the interception there on that last drive when Detroit had an opportunity to get down and get a field goal. So he might have let it affect him a little bit through the course of the game but bounce back, and that's certainly a trait of a veteran,

and that's certainly something that I think the younger guys on this team, and there are a lot of those, can learn from he and some of the other veterans that kept playing along on Sunday and how they finished that ballgame. I'll say this real quick, Terry, before I hand it to you. I think that Parrish Cox was almost a microcosm of the way the Titans played throughout the entire afternoon. You know, was kind of picked on early, had some issues,

but then comes up big in the end to make a play to submit the game for the Titans. That's the way that they played the game. They had their issues early on, made some mistakes that were self-inflicting, but they made the necessary adjustments, felt confident enough in what they worked on during the week to ultimately get them back to where they felt good and comfortable to be able to make plays like they did to ultimately come away from Detroit with a W. Yeah, I hadn't thought of it that way, but that's a very good point, Brad. I think Cox was kind of a microcosm of how the day went for Tennessee.

And I think it's one of those things where lesson learned. You keep battling and you keep battling. And I think at times in the past this team has not done enough of that. Maybe it is a sign that things are getting better. It's time for our final thoughts on Sunday's win over the Titans. And, Terry, lead us off with this one and give us what you took away from the game as your final thought for the day. Well, I think that one of the things you have to say out of this ballgame is

we are seeing the maturation of Marcus Mariota. He threw a bad interception there in the third quarter, and it looked like for all the world that the Titans were done for. But thanks to the defense stepping up a little bit, Marcus found his rhythm, and in the fourth quarter, showed you why he was the number two overall pick in the draft last year. I will say this, guys. The way that the season started with that just debacle in the first week,

I think it was easy for the NFL fans to say, well, the Titans, just like what Denny Green said, they were what we thought they were. But this win going on the road against a tough NFC opponent, obviously with quality players and being able to come back and win that way, I just think that it just basically shows that this is a different squad and that they are not what they thought that way we were, if I get that correct. Basically, this is a far better team, even with the youngsters contributing,

than most would give them credit for. And I'm going to tell you what, fellas, I think this AFC division is even more wide open with all the dysfunction that we're seeing up in Indianapolis. Absolutely. I would agree with that. This team certainly showed some heart and some mental toughness. My final thought is on Kevin Dodd.

He is a rookie, obviously second-round draft pick. He was brought in to be another pass rusher for this team. He missed a lot of time with the injury and the surgery during training camp where he missed all of training camp. And just now starting to get back to a little bit of playing shape, I thought he played well and showed flashes of the potential that he has that got him drafted in that second round. And I'm interested to see with him going forward

and with a hopefully healthy Derek Morgan coming back on Sunday when the Raiders come to town, what this defense can do with Dodd, with Morgan, and with the Rackpo off that edge as pass rushers. Guys, another one's in the books. Absolutely. Hey, real quick before we go, guys, I've got to say something about the youngsters that are contributing in 2016

between Sharp, Conklin, now Dodd, throw Kevin Byard in there. These youngsters have really stepped up, and maybe that's a direct attribution to what Mike Malarkey has been able to do as far as reaching the players and getting them ready to play. Absolutely. I think you're seeing lots of contributions from some young guys on this team, and that has to continue for this team to get better down the road. That's it for us today.

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