Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: Snap counts, injuries and Malcolm Butler's issues

Episode Date: October 2, 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. So tonight we're going to get into a little bit of the news from Mike Vrabel's press conference today. And then we'll talk a little bit about just some observations from the snap count totals in the game. Those don't always necessarily tell much of a story, but I think they do from this game. So we're going to talk a little bit about that and then maybe get into a problem that the Titans might have that they don't know they can get rid of and hopefully they can fix.

Before we do all that, I remind you, we write for Mutant City Miracles.com, covering 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. And you can get the podcast wherever you get your podcast. Just search out Locked on Titans. Subscribe to the show. You'll get the new episodes as soon as they're available. Numbers

have been good lately. We appreciate everybody listening. Welcome in new listeners. Hopefully as the Titans continue to play well, they will continue to get national recognition, and that's good for all of us. Hopefully we'll continue to see that. The only injured notes from yesterday's game,

Wesley Woodyard, who I didn't realize, I mean, I knew he got hurt early in the game, but I didn't realize it was only two snaps in, had a shoulder issue. We spent a lot of time talking about Mike Vrabel and injury. He's actually loosened up, I think, a little bit during the season. But today basically said he's got a shoulder injury, or I don't even think he said it was a shoulder injury, but that's what they said in the game yesterday. And he

said he's going to be fine, but he couldn't promise he wouldn't miss any time. So I guess we'll kind of have to see how that plays out throughout the week. And then the other injury of note is Keneva Carter, who dislocated his elbow, and he's going to miss, I'd say, probably about a month. So when you look at that, really, the Titans have probably, they're probably going to have to get some help at safety.

Because now you're down to Kendrick Lewis, who also can't seem to stay healthy. And then after that, you've got, you know, rookie Dane Cruikshank. You've got Brennan Trawick, who's been here for a while, but hasn't played much on defense. So, I mean, I would expect them to make some type of a move to get some help with safety. They're not going to put Vaccaro on IR. So if they're going to bring somebody else in, they'll have to make another roster move. But I think that's definitely a place they're going to have to look for help early this week. Yeah, there's just no way that you can rely on Kendrick Lewis. Just the little amount of time we've seen on the field, we've seen him immediately leaving

the field with an injury. He's just an older guy, out of football. Last year, it just doesn't seem like he's going to be in there for the long haul. And I don't think you can rely on Dan Crookshank either. Trawick, we were talking about that. I don't think that he's played much on defense since he's been here. He's been just almost 100% on special teams. So, Damon Webb, a guy on the practice squad, there's an option.

You know, Eric Reid got signed by the Panthers this week. It's a thinner market now, obviously, heading into week five. But I would definitely expect the Titans to make a move. I don't think they can go in with what they have right now. Yeah, and I'll have to go back and look. They brought in a couple of safeties when they signed Vaccaro, other than Eric Reid was supposed to come in and wasn't able to. We had a plane delay or whatever it was. So we'll go back and look at that list because that could be Mike Mitchell.

There are a couple guys on that list that they might look to bring in this time. And like I said, just probably for just a couple weeks until Vaccaro is back, and then you see what shuffling needs to go on from there. They've still got some guys like Aaron Stinney and those types of guys on the roster that wouldn't kill them to release. They were really just carrying extra offensive tackles with Conklin being

down. I didn't see an update on Dennis Kelly today, but maybe if they could get him back this week, then you've got more offensive linemen than you need at that point. So they do have some extra guys they're carrying at those positions, so that would be probably where they would look to make a move if they do end up signing a guy. The other note, Blaine Gabbert still in the concussion protocol.

That's not surprising. He obviously didn't make it out by the end of the week last week, so they'll see where he is this week. And then you've got Austin dams on the roster too who wants gabbert is back i'm assuming they won't keep him around uh just because they weren't interested in carrying three quarterbacks before i don't know why they wouldn't now so uh and you know obviously marcus looks healthy so you don't have to worry about that um one interesting note uh you, they've been asking Bray Bull a lot about game balls. He made a joke about having a budget, but he said he was going to give the whole team a game ball for this win.

If you look at it from that perspective, I think usually he gives an offensive, a defensive, and a special teams game ball. It would really be hard to narrow down. You've got plenty of guys that stood out and made huge plays on offense. Obviously, Mark Smarjota, Corey Davis, Taewon Taylor with the big fourth down catch. There's a lot of guys you could give it to there. Same thing on defense. Jayon Brown had a great game. Harold Landry had a great game.

There's just a lot of notes that Rashawn Evans, I thought, played really well, played a bunch of snaps. Special teams, Brett Kern made a game-sending tackle. A lot of notes that Rashawn Evans, I thought, played really well, played a bunch of snaps, special teams. Brett Kern made a game-standing tackle. It wasn't a great punt. But it's a good problem to have when you've got so many guys standing out and you really do have a complete team win. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's pretty easy to narrow it down to Mariota

and Corey Davis on the offensive side of the ball. But defensively, it was a total team effort outside of Malcolm Butler. We'll talk about that a little later. But, yeah, we talked about Harold Landry making that huge play. So that's where my defensive game ball would go. Even if it's just a handful of snaps he's playing he's just impacting the game it's really crazy to to think about um and you know his his snap counts he's not that far off of of arachpo and uh derrick morgan uh so that's interesting you know they're

kind of treating those three uh more so as equals as time kind of goes on here. So, yeah, we said when they drafted him, I don't think you're going to be able to keep that explosiveness off the field. You're already seeing that. You're already seeing him push for more playing time. I think you can make the argument that he's the best pass rusher on the team, at least on the edge. Maybe Jarrell Casey is more productive inside,

but at least right now on the edge, if I've got to go beat somebody one-on-one, I'm sending Harold Landry out there. Am I wrong on that? No, absolutely not. And when you look at it, if you go, like I said, my Twitter timeline, I retweeted a couple of plays that Doug Farrar had highlighted. I think he's with Yahoo now earlier this evening.

Not only, I mean, you know the edge rush and the bend and all that stuff that we spent so much time talking about, but he made a couple of other really nice plays in this game where one time he tried an inside move, didn't win, but Wentz bounced it outside and, you know, later just gets off and goes and tackles him. I mean, I think Wentz picked up a couple yards on that play. And then there was another play where he basically read a screen

and went and tackled Jay Ajayi for like a two-yard loss. I mean, he's out there making plays that you don't typically see rookies making. And, again, especially a guy that was considered as, you know, just this edge speed guy, that was his thing. And, again, if he just does that, you know, just this edge speed guy. That was his thing. And, again, if he just does that, you know, and does that well, obviously he makes a huge impact. But he's just doing a lot of things really well. And, you know, we were talking about this before we jumped on.

I mean, every year there's, you know, there's these guys that draft Twitter is in love with, and they fall. And then when you see them playing well, they're taking their victory laps. And so it's been fun to watch that, you know, yesterday, last night, Sunday night, and then when you see them playing well, they're taking their victory laps. And so it's been fun to watch that. You know, yesterday, last night, Sunday night, and all day on Monday, these guys, you know, they were big Harold Landry people, and then you see what he's doing now. So obviously great the Titans were able to get that guy,

and it's always fun when that guy's on your team. So, yeah, he's absolutely the standout from that game. And, you know, the strip sack fumble, that's the game changer right there. If they don't get that play, they probably don't win. So, absolutely. All right, so we'll talk a little bit more about the snap counts and stuff here in just a second. Before we do that, tell you about MyBookie.

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All right, so snap count notes. You said about Harold Landry getting up there in snap counts. Yeah, I mean, he played 47 snaps in this game. Arak Poe played 49, and Morgan played 56. So, yeah, he's right on par with those guys right now. And I think, I mean, wouldn't you say that happened probably a little bit quicker than we thought it would? Absolutely. You know, we didn't know what we were going to get.

Because when that ankle injury happened on that special teams play, I think it was in Pittsburgh, you know, that's scary because that's what he had at Boston College. That's what affected him all year long. He was never right. That's probably what caused him to fall. So when I heard that, I thought we were going to be in it for the long haul. I thought they'd nurse him back in. But, no, Houston, they kind of eased him in.

And then after that, it's been a full go. So really exciting stuff seeing him playing almost a full workload. Yeah, and then the other really interesting note, I mean, we said Wesley Woodyard went on the second snap of the game. Jayon Brown played a ton in this game. He played let's see, 77 of 78

defensive snaps, so 99% of the defensive snaps, Jayon Brown. And I went back and just looked at last week and could go back further, and you'd probably see more of the same. And last week he played 67 percent of the defensive snaps and i would say that was up from what he was playing last year especially he's a guy that had a great game came in played really well um so you got to be thrilled about him and we saw you know he was kind of up and down a little bit last year but you saw his potential you saw why they drafted him to be able to cover

the tight ends and the running backs and did a pretty solid job with that last year the other note here is rashaun evans played 60 defensive snaps so you basically have your top three inside linebackers now as woodyard who was out for the majority of this game and it sounds like he's probably going to miss at least another game um so then you're going to see a lot of jayon brown a lot of rashaun evans and it sounds like he's probably going to miss at least another game. So then you're going to see a lot of Jayon Brown, a lot of Rashawn Evans, and it looks like Will Compton has been bumped to fourth in that rotation, which, again, you know, it's good to have a guy like Compton who can be your fourth linebacker. You're not feeling good about it when he's one of your top two or three,

but he only played 16 snaps in this game. So, you know, again, when you draft a guy in the first round like Rashawn Evans it's so funny with everything that's going on and with as good as Harold Landry's been and all the other stuff that we've that we've had around this team with injuries and all that kind of stuff we haven't spent that much time talking about Rashawn Evans who was the first round pick but it seems like they're at least comfortable with comfortable enough with where he is now that you know they're they're going ahead and plugging him into that role and so probably at least you know next week in buffalo you're going to see jayon brown and rashaun evans as your inside linebackers and

again after he missed camp with that injury and all that stuff it's just good to see that he stepped into that role yeah and their hand was kind of forced this week. Rashawn Evans probably was not planning on playing the amount of snaps that he did. And I'm interested to see Mike's post later in the week when he breaks down the All-22. I want to see how he played. It's kind of hard to pay attention to a linebacker

in the heat of a game, so I'm interested to see what he did. But, you know, you say that, and then you look at Jayon Brown, and Jayon Brown just flashed all over the place. He stepped into Woodyard's role, it seemed. Dean Pease dialed up some blitzes. He was coming up the middle.

I remember that delayed blitz. So Jayon Brown looked the part. So suddenly the Titans have three pretty good linebackers, I think, which Avery Williamson was fine, but I think they've upgraded there. I don't think we've talked about that enough, but again this is our first exposure to Rashawn Evans. So interested to see how that kind of plays out once Woodyard comes back. They've got three guys worthy of playing.

They obviously rotate. But Evans is a guy that we've talked about a lot. He can play multiple positions. He can kind of get after the passer off the edge a little bit. So interested to see the versatility that kind of emerges from that linebacker group. Absolutely, and it's always a good problem to have too many guys to play not enough spots. So, I mean, I think that, you know,

I think that's something that they're going to be looking forward to. And, listen, they're not going to push Wesley Wood on the field. I mean, you go back to last week in Jacksonville, he was great, probably the defensive player of the game in that one. So, you know, he's not going anywhere anytime soon. But, again, to have three guys rotate between two spots, like you said, you've got Rashawn Evans who can do some different things. So, I mean, that's a but again to have three guys rotate between two spots like you said you've got rashaun evans who can do some different things um so i mean it that's that's a good thing to have and with this defense getting more acclimated to the to the scheme and working

these new guys in um i mean i just think i think they're going to continue to get better uh offensively uh just a couple notes you know johnny sm Smith played 69 of 71 offensive snaps, did, you know, basically nothing with them, dropped a pass. That's really the only thing I remember him doing. You know, it's interesting. I mean, obviously, they didn't have a problem moving the ball yesterday. They didn't have a problem in the passing game. But, you know, it's a big shift from what we expected, at least, and I'm sure what they expected, too, coming into the season when, you know, Delaney Walker was going to be a big, you know, focal point of this offense,

and now you really don't have anything at tight end. So, I mean, just they're going to have to shift their scheme and their perspective, and they've obviously already done that. But they're going to need Johnnie Smith to step up and be able to do some things, because when they drafted him, they drafted him to, I'm not going to say necessarily replace Delaney Walker, but they drafted him to be another piece like Delaney Walker, and he's still not there yet. It's kind of wild that you play 97% of the snaps and have zero impact outside of one negative play on the game. So that's just not good.

It's not what I expected. I thought we saw enough from John Yoo at the beginning of last season to warrant being excited for him, and it just hasn't happened. So, again, they might not be game planning for him right now. They might not be comfortable throwing him into the thick of the offense right now. But he's playing a lot. So, clearly he's out running routes. But just not getting open or, you know, when he is getting open, he's dropping balls.

So, it's just not there right now for Jonu. And that's disappointing. So, the Titans are operating with virtually zero impact from the tight end position, at least in the passing game. So that's a spot where the Titans have to get better. You know, I said that yesterday. Corey Davis and Taewon Taylor were great. Tajay Sharp was okay.

Again, I don't think he's anything too special. But outside of that, you know, you're going to have to have some guys emerge. Darius Jennings dropped that ball. You've got Nick Williams, who did some things in the preseason. But Johnnie Smith is the guy that really needs to come on for this Titans offense to pop. As far as the wide receivers went, with Rashard Matthews obviously no longer being here, Corey Davis played 60 of the 71 snaps.

No surprise there, he's been leading the receivers in snaps this whole season. Taewon Taylor ran behind him, 45 of 71. The entire day, Sharp with 31. Nick Williams with 30. And Derrick Jennings was 16. So not really a surprise there as far as those guys were used. The only other thing of note, Deion Lewis played 48 snaps. Derrick Henry's 28.

And, you know, again, that was, if you're looking at it from, you know, if you're trying, like, if you've got these guys on your fantasy team, you're trying to take anything away from that, from that perspective, I think that was more of a game plan thing here. They were not planning on running the ball very much. We're throwing the ball a lot. So you're going to see a whole lot more of deon lewis in that in those situations i don't think that the the the gap between those guys is going to be that big uh pretty much any other week uh and i think you could see even like this week in buffalo i think you could see derrick henry out snap deon lewis just because i mean i think that they'll be

more willing to line up and run the ball a little bit more. But, you know, you talked about it last night, and we've kind of been talking about it all year. It just seems like there's so much more this offense can do when it's Deion Lewis in the backfield instead of Derrick Henry. Yeah, and I don't know about you, but I guess you weren't screaming at your TV because you were listening on the radio. But it was frustrating when Derrick Henry was in the game. You know, you want to get him those carries because he can pop one off,

but, man, he just didn't have it. You know, he just looks slow out there. The offense just seems so dull when he's on the field, and that's not what I was expecting because, you know, in an extended role down the stretch in the playoffs, you know, he looked great against Kansas City. So I was really expecting more. And, you know, I'm just tired of hearing him say, I played like trash.

You know, fix it. At some point you've got to fix it and you've got to stop talking about it. So, yeah, I'll stand by my statement. Deion Lewis is a better back. I think the game plan definitely went away from Derrick Henry there. Stacked Eagles front. Same deal with Jacksonville, same deal with Houston. So you're going to see some games where Derrick Henry is going to get the

workload, I think, perhaps this week against Buffalo. But this definitely was not one, and you saw the Titans go almost exclusively with Deion Lewis. Yeah, absolutely. So, again, just something to kind of keep an eye on going forward, and, you know, it would just be interesting to see, you know, when the Titans roll into this offseason, as they assess what they need to do with the skill positions on offense, they need more pass catchers.

I wouldn't be surprised to see them try to bring in another running back that can do some things because I just don't know if Derrick Henry is the answer. We'll get into all that down the road. Coming up, we're going to end up with a problem that the Titans have that I'm not really sure if there's an answer to. Before we do that, tell you about Swap.com. I talked about them a little bit last week uh kind of a new sponsor of the podcast and look if you go out to buy brand name clothes you know how crazy the prices are if you've got kids you know when you try to get clothes for them they

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The Titans had two big ticket free agent acquisitions in the offseason. Deion Lewis and Malcolm Butler. Deion Lewis has been great as advertised. You know, made a couple of huge plays in that game yesterday. Malcolm Butler has been nothing short of terrible. You know, we're entering Parrish Cox-level problem here. And, you know, the problem is that, I mean, and you had his contract stuff pulled up earlier,

so you can go through that again in a minute if you want to. But they're on the hook for him for a lot of money, and there's not anything they're going to do about it. I don't, I mean, I don't know what to say. He was a guy that, you know, we were, or at least everybody was raving about in training camp because he was making plays, he was bringing energy, you know, all that stuff. And I mean, I'm sure he's still bringing energy and stuff, but that's pretty much all he's been bringing lately.

In the game yesterday, according to PFF, he allowed seven catches on seven targets for 119 yards and a touchdown. So, you know, seven for seven, that's a problem. This season he's allowed 21 catches on 27 throws into his coverage for a league-high 397 yards and four touchdowns. Now, I don't know where his salary ranks around the league in quarterbacks or whatever. I mean, he's got to be pretty high up there

since this is one of the most recent ones done. But he's given up the most yards in coverage so far this season. He's given up four touchdowns. And, you know, listen, the Patriots didn't have him on the field in the Super Bowl. And that was a whole big thing, and nobody could figure it out. I mean, it turns out I guess it was just a performance thing. And, you know, it looks like obviously I guess it was just a performance thing. And, you know, it looks like, obviously, we've seen the issues carry over here. Now, he's done some good things.

I mean, he had a sack yesterday. We've seen him, you know, be okay at times, but he's had a propensity to get beat by a deep ball. We talked about the play to Jordan Matthews yesterday. Again, I don't have any idea what happened on that play. I mean, he just got roasted. So it's an issue, and it's not something that they're going to be able to fix. He's just going to have to get better, or they're going to have to suffer through it because they gave him a bunch of money for a long time. Yeah, and you're not being dramatic at all when you compare him to Parrish Cox.

That's how bad he's been. It was comically bad that season. You know, if you played daily fantasy, you just fired up whoever the Titans were facing on the other side of the ball, and you won money. It's getting to that point with Butler, and he's not cheap. So he's going to count, you know,

he's got a bit of a back-loaded contract here. He's going to count against the cap, 13-1, 13-6, 14-2, 14-3 million. So that is a big chunk of the Titans' cap number that he's going to be eating up over the next few years.

There's not really an out in this deal until after the 2020 season. And look, you're four games in, so I understand they would want to be patient, but at the same time, you're four games in,

you've given up three long touchdowns. So that's a huge problem. It's got to get fixed. I don't know if there's something in Dean Peay's scheme that's not playing to his strengths, but that guy got roasted by Jordan Matthews,

who is not even close to being a burner. to his strengths, but that guy got roasted by Jordan Matthews, who is not even close to being a burner. So, yeah, I don't care if it's a scheme breakdown or not at this point. That's three out of four games. So something has to change. He needs safety help over the top at all times, which really limits your defense. You know, I don't think he's going to come off the field because your other options with Sean Sims, I don't know how good he is. But right now, I don't know how good Malcolm Butler is.

So clearly playing at a really, really low level, and it's got to turn around quickly. Yeah, and we talked about after that deal was signed that it gave them a thing where they could get out of Logan Ryan's contract after this season so they wouldn't be in a situation where they were paying that much money to a couple corners and you've got a Dory Jackson that's going to come up for a contract here in a couple years, whatever it may be. But at this point, you can't even entertain that idea

because, you know, Logan Ryan has been, you know, just worlds better than Malcolm Butler. You're not going to let him walk. You know, and listen, they had depth at corner, but then they suffered a couple of injuries there in camp, and it just hasn't, you know, played out the way that they hoped it would. I don't know. I mean, I don don't the next couple of

weeks will be interesting because you got you know a buffalo passing attack that's not exactly striking the fear in hearts of opponents and then um i mean the ravens have done some good things but it's still joe flacco but then you got the chargers in london and you know that i mean philip rivers is going to eat that up so i don't know we'll have to watch and see how it develops like you said maybe there's's something that they can – maybe there's something in the scheme that they can change. I don't know. But it can't continue on this way.

And, I mean, if it does, then you do eventually have to have – I mean, you've got to take a look at it and see if you've got somebody that can do better. But it's hard to imagine paying a guy that much money to stay on the sidelines. I mean, you hate to make any definitive statements or whatever after just four weeks. We know how quickly things change in the NFL. But it's going to be a big problem for them if it doesn't improve soon. Hopefully it will. But it's not a conversation, especially after early on in camp, it's not a conversation that I expected to be having.

Yeah, you're 3-1 despite all that. So that's the good news. But, you know, the Miami game, Kenny Stills touchdown, if that doesn't happen, you've got a pretty good shot at going 4-0. It's just not something you want to have to deal with week in and week out. And there's got to be some sort of fix. Surely he's not this bad. Surely the Titans just didn't pay Parrish Cox $14 million a year.

Surely. Yeah, you're right. You've got to have more faith in John Robinson than that, right? So hopefully, because he didn't sign with Parrish Cox. Anyway, that'll do it for tonight. We will probably have a crossover episode with the Bills people tomorrow, so take a look out for that. In the meantime, check out musiccitymiracles.com.

We'll have a lot of stuff going on there. Like I said, subscribe to the podcast. Search out Locked on Titans. Follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmorrismcm. Terry's at tlambertfb. Thanks for listening to Locked on Titans, and we will talk to you again tomorrow.