Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked On Titans- Sept. 26- What did we think of the Titans loss to Oakland on Sunday?

Episode Date: September 26, 2016

What did we think of the Titans 17-10 loss to Oakland on Sunday, in our Offense/Defense segment plus more? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Learn more about our healthy benefits at fepblue.org slash getmore. You are Locked on Titans, your daily podcast on the Tennessee Titans. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. And welcome to Locked on Titans, your daily source for all Titans news and information. every day. On a Monday, for our recap of the Titans' latest, how should I put this, debacle, failure, falling short, several things that went on in the game on Sunday at Nissan Stadium with the Raiders, and the Titans come up on the short end of a 17-10 final score in the game. We'll have our current news segments today, of course, as always, and then our offense and defense segments.

And, Brad, I want to start by asking you offensively, the Titans struggled throughout most of the game, but yet on that final game winning or potential game tying, I should say, drive, they were able to mount the drive, three passes, get some down the field. They get down to the four yard line, Taylor LeJuan gets the penalty and then everything went backwards How do you overcome something like that when you get to that point and have a penalty like that that knocks you backwards? Well the thing is trying to table those kind of emotions guys obviously we know it's a hard fought situation, you're behind in points

you need to get a score on, a field goal is not going to do it, but when you make a big play like that, tabling those emotions that would otherwise get you into trouble is something that the Titans are going to learn. Unfortunately, they learned today the hard way. I think that when you look at young teams that continually make mistakes to shoot themselves in the foot, I'm not trying to make excuses, but that's exactly what they were. If they weren't, in a lot of instances, outplaying the Raiders, like we did see them eventually, especially when they really started getting the ground attack going downhill, even on the edges where Derrick Henry found the corner a lot of times. I was like, wow, look at the speed of the big guy. But either way, they stayed on the field, they converted

third down, and they were able to move the chains. But before that, they were inefficient and the mistakes, obviously, that Marcus Mariota continues to make and I can't I see so much promise and potential in him. I'm not going to just sink the ship so to speak, but he has to table those issues of ball security. Yeah, it's really an issue with the Titans in terms of they don't have a large margin for error because they're not a real explosive offense. They want to run the football.

They want to keep it close, have a chance to win at the end most times. When you play that way, that's fine. When you play that way, though, you have to realize that if you lose the turnover margin, if you don't convert on key third downs, or if you get silly penalties like the ones at the end of the game then most likely you're probably preventing yourself from having a chance to win the football game obviously 17 10 the final score very much a disappointing day for the titans and we touched on just a little bit there the offense at the end of things and guys let's go ahead and jump into

our offensive segment and talk about this offense. And Brad, you made some great points about the running game getting going downhill, especially in the second half. Derrick Henry able to get the corner. The Titans did something they have not done since 2013, and that was have a 100-yard rusher in today's game to DeMarco Murray, breaking that century mark. Congratulations, for goodness sake. 2013, is that what you said, Greg? Good God. Either way, he had 114.

Derrick Henry had 45 yards basically on 10 carries. And Marcus, when he did choose to run, had 22 yards on just three carries. But I think what the Oakland Raiders defense were able to do, and sometimes Terry was befuddled Marcus Murray, to make him hold the ball and then rely on his feet. And then we saw him kind of being careless in some instances and I think just kind of getting loose on him. But I think that, you know, basically without Delaney Walker in the offense,

we saw it being pretty pedestrian. I mean, Amaro was their highest receiver with three receptions for 59 yards. We did see Tajay Sharp didn't really have a really, really big day, explosive day. He only had 48 yards. As well did DeMarco Murray was at least effective in the pass game, again, finishing out five catches for 41 yards. Basically, the pass game was pretty much inefficient. They had to rely on the run game. When they finally did it, things started clicking. Yeah, Brad. When you talked about Marcus Mariota and the things that he's doing, he admitted that he's still trying to do too much.

He's still trying to maybe extend plays when they don't need to be extended or force a ball in when it doesn't need to be, dive out for the extra yard. And those are things that he's having to learn at the NFL level. He did those at Oregon. Oregon was generally the better team on the field almost every time they took the field during his four years there. But when you're in the NFL, everybody is a good athlete. Everybody's a good football player or they wouldn't be here. And he's learning, you know, on the fly and in some cases learning the hard way that you can't always do the extra

and try to stretch out and go beyond what you're supposed to do on a given play. Sometimes you've just got to take what's there, live to fight another down. You know what? It's really about elevating your game. I see so much potential there, Greg. But when you see now going into his second year, defensive coordinators having figured out Marcus Mariota and what his strengths and weaknesses are, the game plan now by

scheme sometimes is effective against him. So he has to raise his game to another level and use that escapability only in situations when he needs to. We don't see this offense being geared towards a lot of read option stuff and let's get Marcus on the edge and start running him downhill. They want those two backs that they've invested a lot in in the spring and in the summertime to really get those reps. So I just think ultimately he has to just figure out a way to stay one step ahead of the guys that are trying to slow him down. You're listening to Locked On Titans on the Locked On Network.

And I've got to go back and touch on two things that you guys mentioned. One, obviously Marcus and the mistakes. He's got to correct those. But to me, the thing that's missing most from this offense, and Brad, you nailed it, I think, with the statistics that you mentioned there, is a game-changing wide receiver. There's not an Antonio Brown, so to speak, with this offense that can get down the field and take the top off and force the safeties and guys to back up

and open up some things in the passing game and in the running game. Brad, I'm going to throw a potential solution to that at you. In lieu of acquiring, not being able to acquire Randy Moss circa 1998 to put on this roster. I liked what I saw from Jason Morrow today. First time out, first time active, three catches, 59 yards. Guy's 6'5", weighs about 250. He's a matchup nightmare for an inside linebacker or safety.

Then we know that Delaney Walker is the most reliable weapon offensively in the passing game for this Titans team. I think that the Titans should employ a page from Bill Belichick in the Patriots book from a few years ago when they had Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez before he ultimately made his demise. But they did not have dynamic playmakers on the outside at wide receiver. They had kind of pedestrian guys like the Titans have.

But they had dynamic playmakers at tight end that could run the seam routes, that could run the skinny posts, that could run the occasional slant or take the ball even on a tight end screen. Put those two guys out there together. Get them matched up on linebackers and safeties. Move the ball through the air that way rather than trying to get your wide receivers who don't have great separation speed locked up on cornerbacks where they can't catch the ball in traffic. Do you know why that makes so much more sense? It's because those guys can be dual threats. They can also become blockers

in the run game. If you've got two guys on the football field like Delaney Walker and Jason Morrow, not only can it be extensions of the offensive line while one of them runs routes, they both can be, like you talked about, Terry, seam route threats, the short stuff, the drags, the skinnies, all those things that they're going to pack the line of scrimmage for, but that's what they're doing anyway. You know what I'm saying? Because obviously Marcus, his running ability, there's always a spy, which either brings an extra guy down in the box, trying to at least slow down either one

of those two guys that run between the tackles. So I think that's an exceptional idea keeping those type run personnel already on the football field and then being diverse with play action from there. I like it. And we saw today that they threw the ball to the fullback out of the backfield one time. It set up their touchdown, the lone touchdown, when DeMarco Murray had the five-yard run. Josh Fowler, so that's another option that you have in the backfield

as an extra blocker. As a guy that I think could be used in some other ways as a receiver as well if you decided to go to that package with the two tight ends moving forward. And then then of course Go right hopefully at some point in time he'll get healthy and get back on the field and at least give you another guy that has the Dynamics of maybe not being the fastest guy but being elusive quick and shifty and when he gets the football Into a very long game. Terry, I feel like Terry Hrabisky. When he said,

oh yeah, we're talking about an unhealthy Delaney Walker when he gets back. What would happen if we did have 0-13 back out there? It's been so long. It has been. It's been over six weeks now. I think he was injured on August 2nd. I was a year younger on August 2nd. My birthday wasn't until

the end of August. That's how long it's been, Brad. Let's move over on to the other side of the football and focus on the defense a little bit. Obviously, 17 points, a pretty good job. They're doing what they do as far as holding scores down. We've not seen any of the three games, even though they're 1-2, have dramatic just being blown out by the other team.

And certainly the Raiders offense has some potential to score some points. And it looked like early on that they might actually do that. A couple of big passes to Amari Cooper and you're thinking, okay, the Titans can't cover this guy. He can go for 300 yards today and three or four touchdowns. They did a better job of that. They did a better job, I think, of scheming and doing some things, disguising the coverages and limiting him in that area and only giving up to 17

points. But again, just not enough to get it done and get the win. Yeah, I'll go first Terry. Just in the fact that they were actually keeping them to 123 yards on the ground even though early on I thought Latavius Murray was going to have a phenomenal day the way he was just gashing right down the throat of that defense. But 5-0-13, third down efficiency, that's pretty good, being able to get off the field, so to speak, because it did allow the Titans to at least win the time of possession. Ultimately it didn't matter because they didn't score enough points to win,

but they still at least got off the field and gave the ball back to their offense when they needed to. And also I think that basically one other thing, more sacks. They had to have more pressure. And maybe that is you know Derek Morgan him trying to get himself reacclimated that kind of situation coming off of an injury you know we'll see what happens

but the scheme still is there for them to be able to get after it and they have to be able to manufacture sacks they really do they have one sack today was from Brian Arakpo who now has three for the year so that's the good news the bad news is that's really one of the few times that they got pressure on Derek Carr. And had Derek Carr been on his A game,

this Raiders offense probably would have put up a lot more points. I thought Derek Carr was, as Marcus Mariota was for the Titans, was slightly off today in terms of his accuracy as well. So I think when you look at the way that this Titans defense is, they have to get pressure because they've got to cover for the secondary, which has really been kind of struggling to keep up with speedy wide receivers. We saw it last week with the Detroit Lions and Golden Tate and Marcus Jones. And then you saw it again today, Amari Cooper and Michael Crabtree getting free several times.

Yeah, you saw the quarterback picking on Searcy and Cox a lot in that back end there. And you're right about that. Every time the quarterback has an extended period of time to throw the football, it's hard for anybody to cover somebody for eight, nine seconds. Am I right, guys? Absolutely. And I'm going to take up for the defense here and throw this stat at you because coming into today's game,

Derek Carr was the most difficult quarterback in the NFL to sack through the first two weeks of the season. He'd only been sacked one time, so the Titans at least managed to match the total against him prior to today. So that kind of tells you that he does have some mobility. He's not just a statue standing back there that's easy to get to. There were some times where they had some pressure. You thought maybe they're going to get there and his elusiveness and ability to escape and move around a little bit got him outside to make some throws.

He wasn't always accurate. So I guess technically that is a win for the defense when you can move him off that spot and he misses the pass because he's on the move and he's inaccurate at that point. Still, they do need more pressure going forward, but he's a guy that's tough to sack. One of the reasons why he was moving around in that pocket was because big old 99 was chasing him around. Got to hit him in the quarterback today. We saw him basically making the comfort zone back there just basically unfamiliar for Derek Carr,

making him have to work outside the pocket. Just getting hands on him is what they want. Get him guy in the dirt, you know what I'm saying? So he can't make the completions. Like when he was scrambling around out there and the long connection that he made on the broken play, you know, basically where it was anybody's ball ends up being like a 31-yard gain for the Raiders in that instance.

But that's because that pressure from in the middle was running around every day. Yeah, I think when you look at the overall play of this defense, it's been pretty solid. Like I said, the secondary still has some work to do, but it's been pretty solid overall through the first three weeks of the season. You remember in the opener against the Vikings, that wasn't on the defense because the offense gave them 14 points. And then last week they held the Lions down. This week they held the Raiders down. So the defense, in the bottom line stat of points allowed,

has been doing a pretty darn good job. It's up to the offense to pick things up. We were concerned about them coming out of preseason because they're one of the more porous defenses in preseason, but maybe they were playing a little shuck and jive on us, right? That's exactly what it was. Like, yeah, yeah, you think we suck. Not.

Well, now, throwing out another stat defensively, and this is not about the Titans, it was about the Raiders, they came in as the 32nd-ranked defense through the first two weeks and managed to hold the Titans to just 10 points. So I don't know what that says about the Titans as a whole, but as you guys were saying, certainly the Titans' defense through three weeks has been adequate enough. They've put the Titans in a position to be 3-0.

They could have won both the games they lost with a little bit more help from the offense. Obviously, the two turnovers against Minnesota. You don't get the dumb penalties at the end of the game today that knock you backwards and take you out of a chance for a tying touchdown. Who knows what happens if it goes to overtime potentially or something of that nature. So the defense has done well enough. They can still be better, obviously, but well enough to this point. But the question is, can they continue that moving forward this week, going to Houston, a team that's going to come in smarting

after getting thumped by the Patriots Thursday night? Real quick, one other thing before we move on. Do you think that there's slightly indecision, not only in the quarterback position, but on the sidelines, especially when you talk about clock management heading into halftime? Are you going to try and move the team into position, kill the clock, and keep going, or are you going to use that one timeout? What are you trying to try and move the team into position, kill the clock and keep going? Are you going to use that one timeout?

What are you trying to do, basically, because you can't take it with you, basically, you know. So I just wonder if there wasn't more communication or better communication coming from the sideline of what they were trying to do, getting more points at the end of the first half. Yeah, that was a little bit tough. I mean, there was only, what, 30-something seconds left when the interception was made. In most cases, I think at that point, you just take your lumps,

go in, make your halftime adjustments, come out, and try to get back on track in the second half. I thought it was a little bit peculiar that they would try and go for points there under a minute and not in plus territory. Okay, I'm going to throw a curveball at you guys. We normally do offense-defense. I'm going to toss out special teams just quickly today. I don't think that the Titans' special teams hurt them today.

Brett Kern did a nice job a couple of times punting the Raiders back deep and pinning them on the sideline, doing some things to back up field position and to shift the field position. But they're not getting a lot out of the return game. And this is no offense to anyone in particular. They're still winding up with some bad field positions at times. What can they do to correct that and help the offense have Marcus in a better starting spot when he takes the field so he's not having to go 70, 80,

90 yards every time? I'll take this one. Brad, you never played special teams. You were a first-round pick. I did. I did. I played the wedge, but they, you never played special teams. You were a first-round pick. I did. I played the wedge, but they don't have the wedge anymore. Remember when the four guys could lock it up? Yeah, absolutely.

They get blown up nowadays. Yeah, you're right about that. Go ahead. Take it away, Tim. I think with the Titans special teams, I think on a team that needs to play close to the vest and run the ball and play good defense, special teams is your wild card.

Special teams is where you need a dynamic returner like the Titans you played on had with Derek Mason. Or they have to be a threat to block a field goal every now and then or block a punt. Do something that's out of the ordinary, that's extra special, that can energize a team. Special teams plays energize a team and turn the momentum on a dime. Things can be going against you all day. You block a punt or you return a blocked field goal for a touchdown,

and all of a sudden the entire field is flipped and the entire momentum is flipped. When's the last time you saw a special team's play by the Titans that changed the course of a game? I think that that might have been one of the reasons why they quietly brought Mark Mariani back into the fold because at some point in time, he did have big play potential. He might have been the last guy to have done that here. Right, and I think that remembering better days and the son basically not

sitting on his career, let's see what he can do with this offense. But you're right 100%. Field position is so paramount. You know, it's almost debilitating when you think about an offense having to go 90 yards to score. But when you think about getting to the midway mark because of a great return or even plus that or, hey, how about for your score on special teams, those are uplifting moments that teams actually get momentum from

and ultimately can win ball games from it. So you're right. Okay. I threw're right. Okay. I threw you the curve ball. Now I'm going to throw you the fastball. I know both of you can hit that. Time for our final thoughts. Who wants to go first?

Okay. We point to each other. You know what? Okay. Don't wave the white flags just yet. Like you said, Houston, it's a daunting task. But if the Titans can shore up their issues, and it seems to be an ifs and buts and candy and nuts kind of situation

every single week, but think about the simple mistakes that they continue to make. At some point in time, they've got to stop, right? The bleeding has – the hemorrhaging has to stop. And if they can do that, Terry, this team has the talent, basically, to win ballgames. All right. I'm going to touch on Taylor LeJuan because I think it has to be talked about.

And the course of this game was too big of a play not to be discussed and discussed at length. I think Taylor LeJuan, I think he had the right intention of just trying to make a play to get Tajay Sharp a little closer to the goal line. But you've got to be smart. You've got to be smart about it. You can't lose head first into the pile and Essentially played a big factor in taking you out of the game tying drive It was going to be first and goal at the three first and and goal at the three, four chances to score the tying touchdown.

And Taylor LeJuan, first-round pick, left tackle, a guy that they want to be Marcus Mariota's protector for the next seven, eight, ten years. It's time for him to grow up, to stop with the penalties. It's okay to be who you are. He's a fun-loving guy. He's got personality. He's got a nasty streak. That's fine, but it's got to be channeled the correct way, and when it's not, it's costly. I'm going to agree with Terry

on that, but I'm also going to defend Taylor just a bit because when we went into the locker room after the game, he did not immediately speak. He sat in his locker in his uniform for several minutes, still in full uniform, before he finally got up, got out of the uniform, took a shower, came back out. He had time to collect himself, collect his thoughts before he talked to the media after he'd showered and cooled off. And to his credit, he stood up and said, you know, I screwed up in the fact that I got a penalty that cost my team.

He said the right things afterwards. Now, as Terry said, it's just a matter of going out and doing those things, learning from this. And there's been other incidents and penalties he should learn from as well. Stop doing them now. You know what's going to happen he's a guy and Brad you know this not from personal from you but from guys in the NFL that get reputations and the officials look at those guys because of those reputations and I certainly think that's where Taylor is headed with some of his stuff as getting a reputation of a guy that the officials are going to look at and when they start looking at you harder,

they find more and more little things that you potentially do that they can throw that flag about. Real quick, I was listening to the feed in Detroit, and they talked about Taylor LeJuan liking to be one of those guys that gets into it with the defender, talks trash, if you will. But you're right, there is a perception that comes along with that. But I think that when you look at what Taylor LeJuan's mistake was, it was basically just one on the checklist of mistakes that young players are continuing to make

that affect the altitude of this team. You know, sure, Marcus Mario doesn't mean to throw off his back foot to the other defender for scores, nor does he mean to run around with the ball away from his body and get the ball poked out when he's getting tackled. And nor does Taylor LeJuan want to run down field about 15 yards and bone his own player basically. Miss the guy you were thinking about boning. Yeah, go ahead and put that in there anyway. If you opened your eyes and saw what you saw, maybe you would hit the right guy.

But either way, you almost knock yourself out and ultimately end up losing the game. It's not funny, but it's just one of the combination of things that young players can make mistakes in doing. And they'll eventually grow up at one point in time. But you're right, Terry, it has to happen sooner than later. Absolutely. That's going to do it for us today. Another edition of Locked on Titans in the books.

For Brad Hopkins, Terry McCormick, I'm Greg Arias. We'll see you on Tuesday on Locked on Titans. You are Locked on Titans, your daily podcast on the Tennessee Titans. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day.