Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: Suh Watch; Titans draft visitor and a Twitter spat

Episode Date: March 21, 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 good, man. What's up? Not too much. A few things happened today, so we will break down what's going on with Indomitian Sioux. Titans had a veteran quarterback in for a visit. We got news of our first, I guess, official NFL draft prospect coming in for a visit, at least the first one that I've seen, and then we had an interesting Twitter feud, so we'll talk a little bit about all of that stuff before we do that. I remind you

that Terry and I write for MusicCityMiracles.com, covering the Titans for SB Nation. Check us out there. Check us out on Twitter. I'm Matt J. Morris, MCM. Terry's at TLambertFB. You can follow the podcast at LockedOnTitans. I think we'll probably try to do a question and answer episode tomorrow night.

Assuming nothing huge breaks between now and then. But with free agency kind of slowing down a little bit, we'll have a little bit of time to kind of reset that kind of stuff. So follow us there and we'll tweet out that tomorrow and you can reply with questions and we'll try to touch on them on tomorrow night's episode.

And then, as always, just a reminder to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or Stitcher. You can get it on Spotify, wherever it is that you get your podcasts. So like we said, I mean the big story that we're all following right now is Nama Kinsu. I mean, the big story that we're all following right now is Nama Kinsu. You know, he visited the Saints. Then he came here to visit the Titans. And then on Tuesday was visiting the Los Angeles Rams. Apparently that was a pretty positive visit.

And then now there's a report that he's going to visit the Raiders as well. So, you know, I think this is just going to come down to however many teams he's going to visit. We were hoping that the Rams were going to be the last one. Now the Raiders are apparently in the mix. We talked a little bit about it last night. I think Terry said this, and I agree. I think he ends up signing with the Rams. It's a good situation there.

And not that it's that much of a different situation from here, and we can break that down a little bit but we talk about wade phillips talk about you know sean mcveigh he's a guy that's really relatable players really like him um you've got that line with aaron donald you got michael brockers i mean there's just a lot of talent there that he could kind of plug into in the scheme you know they were a team that was you know division champion and all that stuff and you know i think that the titans have a chance to be better than the Rams this year, but if you're just looking at it on paper based on what both teams did last year, if you're in Dominick and Sue, you'd probably feel like the Rams are closer than the Titans are.

Totally agree for all those reasons you just laid out. That Rams unit has a chance to be special with Sue in the fold. You know, he's from the West Coast. He's up there, I believe, from Portland. So it would make sense from that standpoint. And as good as the Titans are, you know, I think they're probably, you know, another season away. Sue could certainly help change that,

but I don't think they can offer quite what the Rams do. There's still questions about this offense. There's still questions on Marcus Mariota. We're big believers in him, but that doesn't mean the rest of the league is. He's got some doubters he's got to prove wrong. He's got a new offense to learn, and he's got to prove he can go do it. So those are all things that Sue's got to prove wrong. He's got a new offense to learn, and he's got to prove he can go do it.

So those are all things that Sue's going to weigh here. And just I think the thought of him playing with Aaron Donald is going to excite him. That defensive unit is going to be nasty if they do land him. So I don't know. I feel discouraged at this point. I'm just kind of taking the stance of I'm going to be surprised if it happens. Yeah, I think that's where I am too.

It's interesting, the parallels between the Titans and the Rams. You've got talent. You've got a talented guy. They've got Donald. We've got Jarrell Casey. Aaron Donald is about to get paid. Taylor LeJuan is about to get paid. So, I mean, the cap situations are kind of similar,

and then you've got your quarterback's on his rookie deal, so he's not taking up as much of the cap as he will be in a couple of years, you know, assuming, again, that Mario has a good year this year, that Jared Goff builds on what he did last year so it's just funny they're kind of in similar situations but it does seem like the rams are probably about a year ahead of the titans and you kind of saw that last year when they came here and again like you said we're all assuming that this office is going to take this you know enormous leap forward this year because they're going to have a competent staff um maybe we're i don't know if we're putting too much into that or not,

but I think for people that didn't see it every day, they might not have the same kind of positive feelings about this offense that we do. So we'll continue to watch that. Maybe something will happen, and maybe it comes down to – we talked last night about how Sue has said it's not about the money, but ultimately if he's got two situations that he feels are similar, he'll probably lean toward the one that offers him more money.

So maybe if it comes down to that, that could be a way the Titans could sway him. So anyway, we'll keep an eye on that as it continues to develop. All right, coming up we'll talk a little bit about the veteran quarterback that visited the Titans today. Okay, so this afternoon, fairly late in the afternoon, there was a tweet from Adam Schefter that the Titans had hosted Blaine Gabbert for a visit. Now, I know that the name Blaine Gabbert doesn't exactly excite you. He's not a guy that you would feel good about if he's your long-term starter that being said i think that he's not the worst that the titans could do for this system uh

with the options that are currently available uh as far as free agents are concerned gabbert had some had a couple of good games last year i mean mean, he beat the Jacksonville Jaguars, which was one of the greatest weeks of my Twitter life because that was just so much fun. But then he turned around and beat the Titans, so they kind of deflated that. But, you know, I mean, again, not a guy that you want as your starter, as the guy that you're counting on week in and week out,

but could run an offense similar to what Marcus Mariota is able to do. He's an athletic guy that can do some of that kind of stuff. So as far as that's concerned, it's not the worst fit in the world. I think he's improved a little since his Jacksonville days. That probably just comes with experience. But, I mean, six touchdowns, six interceptions last year, threw for 1,000 yards, and five games started. Two and three as a starter, including wins over the Jaguars and the Titans.

Again, not the worst thing in the world. Definite upgrade over Matt Castle. I just think you need to kind of reset your brain a little bit with Blaine Gabbert here. He's just kind of your run-of-the-mill NFL backup. He's going to put you in some slots to win some ballgames. He's going to lose you some ballgames too. But, you know, that's an improvement over Matt Castle, who Titans never had a chance with.

You know, he couldn't throw the ball anymore. So I'm interested to see if they do kind of go this low or if they're going to aim a little higher maybe on the trade market or something like that. But the quarterback market dried up quick. I mean, there's just not a lot out there. And, you know, the good backups got crazy money, and I don't think the Titans were ever going to do that.

But as we said before, it's a good bet that Mark Smart is going to miss a game, maybe a game or two he has in each of his first three seasons. So it's still a spot where the Titans need a big upgrade. I'm not sure that I'd be totally satisfied with Blaine Gabbert, but it's a definite upgrade. Yeah, and like you said,'s just the the guys that were available they went so fast and i remember yeah i remember tweeting a list um i think i retweeted a list from like clay and it was not to the blame gabbert geno smith level i mean it was you know bridgewater

and bradford and case keenum and Josh McCown, AJ McCarron. And you knew, I mean, some of those guys you could automatically cross off the list of Titans because they were going to want to go somewhere where they had a chance to start. So, like you said, some of them got a bunch of money. So, you knew that that wasn't where the Titans were going to go. But, I mean, a guy like Josh McCown got signed so fast. I mean, I just thought, you know, and I guess he went back to debts and has a chance to to play there so i mean that was attractive to him but then they signed teddy bridgewater too

it was just kind of it was kind of wild how that whole thing went down so um yeah i don't know i mean you know maybe they draft a guy um and he comes in and competes too and if nothing's putting him on the practice squad and you hope that he can be ready to be a backup down the line. So we'll kind of keep an eye on that. There was no contract offer, at least not that we know of today, so we'll continue to monitor that. We said at the beginning that there is a prospect that's going to be visiting the first one that we've seen, I guess that's been reported, that's coming here,

and that's Josh Sweat, the, you know, would play outside linebacker here, an edge guy from Florida State. So, Terry, what are your quick thoughts on him? Well, you want athletes on the edges. He's certainly that. 6'4", 251 pounds absolutely destroyed the NFL combine top percentages in just about

everything he did so one of the better athletes on the edges and you talk about this guy is going to go day 2 well now he's being thrown into that day 1 conversation so I think he's an absolute option at pick 25.

A guy similar to kind of Lorenzo Carter out of Georgia. And that's the thing. We just don't know who's going to be on the board. You still see Harold Landry in mock drafts. I still say that that's not realistic. But Josh Sweat, Lorenzo Carter, Sam Hubbard, those are the guys I think the Titans are going to be picking from if they don't move.

So Sweat is a guy that didn't put up big numbers. I thought he underachieved in his time at Florida State, but there's no denying the athleticism there. So I think there's another level to his game in coming in and working with a guy like Mike Vrabel, who kind of specializes in linebacker play and pass rushing, that's an interesting target at 25. Yeah, and it's such a weird thing. The Titans have been so bad for so long

that it's been a whole lot easier to project a handful of guys that were going to be there when they were on the clock. And then the year before last when they were 9-7 and missed the playoffs, but they had the Rams first-round pick, so they had five where they took Corey Davis. So we were having that conversation about who was going to be there at five. This year, it's crazy. We have no idea what's going to happen in front of them. No idea. There's always a run on a position or two. And so there's a group of guys that you think will be there,

and they're gone because teams got spooked and moved up to a guy or took a guy that they weren't necessarily planning on taking because the other guy they liked got taken. So, I mean, all that kind of stuff happens in the NFL draft. So it's just really hard to know what's going to be available at 25. And I posted on the site today in Dan Kadar's latest mock draft, he had the Titans taking Rashawn Evans, the inside linebacker from Alabama. And, again, you know, I don't think that they necessarily are going to go into you

know the Thursday night of the draft thinking hey we got to come out of this with an inside linebacker but I also think that they could get in a position where you know the places they have needs like like at edge or whatever the guys that that that are still sitting there for them to pick could be guys that they have graded pretty far down their board and so they could get a position where they're taking you know best player available that's not a an offensive tackle or quarterback you know there's obviously a few things that they're not going to take in the first round but i mean i think that in that scenario you know you could see a pick like a Evans which maybe is not the biggest need that they have but if he's sitting there and he's a he's a guy that they had ranked as a top 15 player, he's still

there at 25. The guys in position of needs are further down their board. I mean, I think that's a real possibility that we could see this year. I agree with that thought. I also think that they've kind of locked themselves in to taking a pass rusher. I think they've kind of locked themselves in to taking a pass rusher. There's just not any out there on the open market, and there never will be. They've got to find a plan for next year when Derek Morgan and Arakpo eventually walk away.

So that's kind of what I'm thinking. But at the same time, you suddenly kind of sort of have a need on the defensive line. So you just wonder if you know the the edge rushers have dried up you can't have a deal to move up uh it's kind of worst case scenario i could certainly see them taking a guy that they think is going to make an impact on the defensive line if they don't land a guy like in dominican sue or jonathan hankins like we've talked about yeah and that's a that's a good point too. We're just kind of assuming at this point that they're going to get somebody else on the defensive line.

But if they don't, they have a pretty big need there. I mean, you've got some guys. Obviously, Jarrell Casey, Daquan Jones, Austin Johnson. I mean, they've got some guys, but they're pretty thin there right now. And so that with the release of Carl Klug, the release of Sylvester Williams, so maybe more of a need there than we thought it would be when free agency started. But again, if they sign Seward, if they sign Jonathan Hankin, then you can kind of move that back down on their list of needs.

So it's just this stuff is all so fluid during free agency, so we'll continue to kind of update that as we go along. All right, so to end the show tonight, we'll have a little conversation about a Twitter feud that got started this afternoon. All right, so if you're on Twitter, and I'm assuming most of you are, then you might have seen the back and forth between deon sanders and kevin byard uh just looking right now the big lead has actually uh written a story about it so you know you know you made the big time when you're on the big lead but um so basically deon sanders was having a conversation about uh the best safeties in the league and um there was around tyron matthew signing with the um uh with the texans and in the conversation he didn't uh he didn't or yeah he said he said the honey badgers

the best safety in the game and so kevin byard responded with you know basically hey how are you gonna say that and not include the first the-team AP All-Pro safeties. Sorry, get that out of here in a second. You know, and again, that wasn't – whatever. You know, I mean, that's a natural response from a guy. And, you know, Kevin Bayard probably tongue-in-cheek as much as anything else on that. But then Deion Sanders' response to that was, you're looking at who writers tell you

who's the best I know who players and former players feel is the best so when I first read that I thought that he was just saying to Bayard basically he didn't think that he was on the same level as uh as Tyron Matthew at the honey badger and then so when but when you go back and read it it's pretty obvious that deon sanders deon's replying to kevin byard as if he is a fan who is just reading the ap all pro team and that deon doesn't have any idea that kevin byard is one of the two all pro safeties so it's just kind of bizarre and again you know Deion's a an analyst on the NFL network and he doesn't know who Kevin Byard is that it's kind of surprising and Byard comes back and says if you didn't know I'm a current player who watches a ton of films so trust me I know who's

and who's not talking about being a fan you know laughing emoji or whatever that's called um but it's just it was just to me it's it was a little bit mind blowing that Deion Sanders I mean I don't know who knows in what context he was reading that and how much so whatever but it was just like it's a little bit mind boggling that he would not know who Kevin Byard is

and he hasn't said anything about it he hasn't even addressed it so just really strange. And a buddy of mine just texted me and said that Deion had him on his segment on NFL Network after the three interception thing against the Browns. So I don't know. It's really bizarre.

So Titans fans have lost a lot of respect for Deion here. And I'm not sure how he hasn't come out and admitted his mistake and apologized. But, yeah, he looks really bad here, real bad look. Yeah, and, you know, again, we know that the Titans don't get a lot of attention nationally, and some people care more about that than I do. It doesn't really matter. It just goes back to you start winning football games consistently, and you'll get more attention regardless of what your market is.

If you're bad and you're in a small market, you're not going to get a lot of attention. But Bayard was a big story this year. Again, first-team All-Pro, Pro Bowl, all that stuff, all those accolades that he got. You would think a guy that works in the media business for the league would know who he is. And I'm sure he does. But for whatever reason, in this context, he couldn't place it. It's just, like you said, it's bizarre. It's just weird.

And again, it's also weird that he just left it hanging out there for so long. so weird that he just left it hanging out there for so long and then the next thing he tweeted was like hours later and he was retweeting you know like some t-shirt his son selling of deon's face when he got the call for the nfl draft so this is weird and again i mean i don't know about you but i don't watch any of the like nfl network espn like any of that pre-game stuff because to me it's just so it's so bad It's really unwatchable at this point. Oh, yeah, it's terrible. It's terrible. And Deion's been bad for a long time.

You know, you watch him at the Combine, and he picks out his favorite. He's usually a guy that comes from Florida State. So I've never been a Deion fan. But, you know, it's bad when Jalen Ramsey is coming to support a Titan. You know it's bad when Jalen Ramsey is coming to support a Titan. So Jalen Ramsey sent out a tweet and said, keep doing you to Kevin Byard. So, yeah, I think DeHong lost a lot of respect in the league today,

probably for some of his peers, current players and former players. So, yeah, all-around bad look. And, you know, why are you going to come at Kevin Byard like that? You know, do your homework. This guy wasn't invited to the combine. He comes from MTSU, and he's made himself into one of the best players in the league. So a really bizarre guy to come after. Yeah. So, anyway, there's just another reason, like I said, not to watch that crap.

So that will do it for us tonight um we will we'll do a q a tomorrow night again assuming that you know indomitian sue doesn't sign with the titans tomorrow which we're you know which is not going to happen but we're all kind of holding out hope that we we're going to get that news in a little bit but like we said as of tonight which is tuesday night we're recording this, Wednesday, Sue is planning on visiting the Raiders. So at least one more team in the mix here before we know where he ends up. So we'll continue to track that. And like I said, check out musicseamiracles.com. We'll have all the most recent information on that.

Again, follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmortensm. Terry is at tlimbertfb. The podcast account at LockedOnTitans. Like I said, look for that tweet sometime Wednesday morning. Ask him for questions, and we'll try to hit on those tomorrow night. So for Terry, this is Jimmy saying thanks for listening to LockedOnTitans, and we will talk to you again tomorrow.