Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: Tennessee battling the injury bug already

Episode Date: August 2, 2018

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Welcome in to another edition of Locked on Titan. I'm Jimmy Morris, joined as always by Terry Lambert. Terry, how are you? Doing pretty well. What's up, man? Not too much. Tonight we've got a few things to talk about. The Titans were back on the field on Wednesday after having an off day on Tuesday. So, a couple injuries today that we'll get to. A little bit of maybe a cause for concern,

but we'll have to wait and see how it plays out. Before we do that, we will remind you to be right with me at CMiracles.com where we cover the Titans for SB Nation. You can follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmorrismcm. Terry is at tlambertfb. And the podcast account is at LockedOnTitans. You can also subscribe to the podcast.

Just search out LockedOnTitans. Wherever you get your podcasts, iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, wherever you listen to this kind of stuff, look for us there and you will be able to find us. Alright, so the injury bug has started to bite the Titans just a little bit. Jonathan Ciprian was really the one of note today. He went down and from all reports, it sounds like it was a non-contact deal uh from from what everybody that was there media wise was saying it was kind of hard for them to see because it happened on the other side of the formation from where all the media was but cibrian was down

for a little while they actually stopped practice for a few minutes um they started to bring the cart out but he waved them off and got up walked out under his own under his own power but you know threw his helmet in frustration uh it sounds like it's a knee again uh we'll talk a little bit we'll get a little bit more into the titans in their injury reporting here in a sec but we're not gonna get any kind of information about you know what it is or how severe it is unless they put him on IR probably. But, you know, listen, I'm not the biggest Cyprian fan. If you listen to this podcast, you know that. I was talking about drafting a safety.

But, you know, I mean, he's a serviceable player, and if he's not there, it does create a bit of an issue because safety is maybe one of the places they're the thinnest on this roster. Yeah, so the question becomes, what do you plug into that? And there's not a great answer there. You've got Kendrick Lewis, who was out of football last year. You've got Dan Cruikshank, the rookie, and we haven't heard much out of him. Don't really know what to expect.

Outside of that, I don't know. I mean, maybe the answer isn't on this team. Like we said, we don't know the severity yet. We may not ever know. But it's a spot where the Titans really couldn't afford to lose a body there. And, you know, for as much as we ragged on him last year, it's a new scheme. Well, kind of.

It's a new coordinator. So you don't know that he was going to be put in those single high situations like he was last year. Maybe they were planning more of a box role for him, which is where he's good on the field. He's good in run support. So, I don't know. You don't know the plans that they had for this guy. So interesting.

The good thing is the safety market is still very much – there's a lot left on the table in the free agent market at safety position. Kenny Vaccaro, Eric Reid are both sitting out there for whatever reason. So if the Titans need to make a move, they certainly can. Yeah, it does seem like a position where there are actually some options available if they choose to go that route. You mentioned Kendrick Lewis. He hurt his arm breaking up a pass and left practice early, didn't finish.

Again, we have no idea what's going on with that. But, yeah, it's going to be something they're going to have to take a long, hard look at because, you know, if you're down both of those guys, and even if you're just down Ciprian for the year, again, we're speculating here. We have no idea what the injury is or how severe it is. You know, you need somebody, and they could wait and see what happens with roster cuts. Like you said, there are a couple of guys out it is um you know you need somebody and they could wait and see what happens with roster cuts like you said there are a couple of guys out there that you know

have at least had some had some good moments in their nfl careers so that might be a place the titans are willing to go then just on the other injury front richard matthew's still not practicing but he did run routes before practice today so So, I mean, hopefully that's a sign that he will be back soon. Who knows? We still don't know what his injury is or when it happened, but he's on PUP. He hasn't practiced yet. Rashawn Evans missed practice for the third straight practice. So it's four days now since he's practiced.

Again, still don't have any idea what's what's going on there uh i guess ravel speculated that it could be heat related uh when it actually happened on saturday but that seems a little bit crazy to for him to miss this much time because he was dehydrated or whatever so you know again it doesn't none of this really matters as far as winning football games on the field, but it's frustrating as fans to not know what's going on, to not have any idea what's going on. You know, Todd Smith is on IR. We talked about that. But even today, Mike Vrabel wouldn't say what injury landed Todd Smith on IR,

just that he had a long-term injury. So, again, these are the things that some people get real fired up about. They don't ultimately really matter. It's just frustrating, especially this time of year when it doesn't seem to matter whether or not we know what the injury is and kind of a table for a return. Yeah, I'm one of those people that gets fired up over that because what does it matter what Ty Smith hurt?

You know, he's out likely for a long, long time. Are the Colts, you know, watching this press conference and taking notes? No. They're worried about their own problems. So I don't understand the secretiveness of Vrabel. It really makes me mad. And the whole Evans thing, you Evans thing you say it's heat related and he's out for a week

I don't understand just say what's going on and give the fans some information we talked about how the team was starting to let fans in more and connect more and then you've got this crazy injury policy

which like you said doesn't matter in the big picture. But I don't know if you want to generate interest in your team. You know, shunning information doesn't seem like the way to go. Yeah, and, you know, we get it. If a starting manager gets hurt in the last week of camp or if he gets hurt in the Dolphins game, and you don't want to give a timetable you know between weeks one and two because you want the next opponent to have to

just scheme for him you know i i get that that makes sense and you understand that gamesmanship all that type of stuff but we're but we are you know multiple weeks six weeks whatever it is away from an actual game on the field so i just know you know again it matters on the field so i just don't understand what the point is and at this point but yeah i mean it's just the new reality apparently like it's apparently not going to change so i i don't think there's any reason to you know keep going on about it but it's just funny like i said the whole pup thing with richard matthews just so crazy and it's like everybody's just like oh yeah he's always been on pup but he was anyway

so um you know so hopefully we'll get an update on cyprian uh at some point like i said but you know i think the only thing that we're gonna get is either you know he's hurt and he'll be back sometime or he goes on ir so we'll just have to kind of see how that goes. The other injury, Brian Arakpo, who hasn't practiced since the end of last week. But very well did say when he got hurt that he hurt his shoulder and that it was, you know, about a week thing. So I don't know why he's willing to give information on that, but nothing else. But anyway, so we could see Arakpo back in the next couple of days.

So the Titans are on the field again thursday morning you know the 950 deal and they've got the the friday night lights practice at centennial high school on friday night and then they're at nissan stadium on saturday afternoon so a couple chances to catch them uh here in the next few days um all right so we've still got a couple things to talk about john theus retiring um and you know kind of what that means for the offensive line as a whole. Then a little bit of talk about rule changes and how all that's going. Before we do that, we're going to tell you about NordicTrack. Guys, it's hard to get to the gym sometimes.

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Workouts are led by the world's top personal trainers to ensure you meet your fitness goals. Special offer for Locked On Titans listeners. Get $75 off of your NordicTrack purchase by visiting nordictrack.com and using the offer code LOCKEDON. Again, visit nordictrack.com and use the offer code LOCKEDON during checkout to save $75 off of your purchase. So John Theus retired this morning. He had been injured earlier in camp or maybe even before camp started.

I can't remember. Not a guy that was going to make a huge impact on this roster, but it does make the Titans pretty thin at offensive tackle. I mean, obviously, you got your top two guys, right, LaJuan and Conklin. But Conklin's recovering from the ACL. We don't know when he's going to be ready again no updates on that um so you've got dennis kelly who is this is the swing guy at this point um you know kind of back up to both tackle positions um after that it looks like it's kevin pamphile uh he worked i think when the day that lawuan didn't do team drills, the first day of camp, it was Pam Field working on the outside.

So, you know, they're a little bit thin at that position. I don't know how much you want to go into the season. I mean, it's pretty terrifying about Dennis Kelly and Kevin Pam Field being your starting tackles. I don't know how you address it or really fix it at this point in the year. But I think now that they've got a little bit of an issue that they need to address or at least look at, especially depending on where Jack Conklin is in his rehab. And I'll add, Dennis Kelly's there.

Dennis Kelly's not good. He's a backup at best, and I don't even think he's a high-level backup anymore. You see these highlights of Harold Landry, and you hear the good things that he's doing. I don't know about you, but every time I've heard of one, it happens against Dennis Kelly. So a guy that seems super slow to me, a guy that really the offensive line seems to fall off when he's in the game. So Titans could do better there, I think. Maybe Pam Fiel is that guy. Maybe there's a guy that's going to float on waivers.

But, yeah, the numbers right now are scary thin up front. And the Titans have been pretty fortunate on the offensive line by way of injuries, but the NFL seems to have a way of correcting that. Yeah, so, I don't know. It's something interesting to watch, and again, you feel good about where they

are at the top, but, I don't know. We'll just have to see. And like you said, that'll be another position that they're going to be watching on waivers. And now we're getting to the point to where we've got quite a few things that we expect them to maybe not address fully or even address at all on waivers, but if you're looking at offensive tackle, you're looking at possibly a safe, you're looking at a wide receiver. They've actually got some pieces, some holes they need to fill. And, you know, just the more you get into that, it's a little bit scary

because, again, you're talking about guys that were cut off of other teams. And, sure, you can find some quality players there. It's been done in the past. But it's just not really a position you want to be, having to add a bunch of pieces after that 90-man cut down. No, and we thought they were going to do that with receiver all along. But you're right, you know, you add safety into the mix. You add defensive line, I think, is still in the mix.

And then you look at backup tackle. There's some things for John Robinson to take care of. We both felt like this roster was in pretty good shape. You know, we mentioned the tackle thing and how Dennis Kelly wasn't great around draft time. But I don't know how much they were relying on John Kis. Hopefully not too much because that would be pretty stupid. But, yeah, there's three or four holes I would definitely like to see plugged before the Titans take on the Dolphins.

Coming up, we'll talk a little bit about rule changes and how those are going over so far in training camps. So the Titans had officials on the field today. I think that was the first time at their training camp that they had that. And they were meeting, I i think with rules officials after practice to get some of the points of emphasis for this year uh and you know we've heard a lot of talk about the catch rule obviously last year that was an issue and they they've simplified that sounds like they've gone back to the you know two feet or another body part in a football move

uh just so put it back back to where it kind of makes sense, as to where last year you never could tell what was going to be ruled a catch and what wasn't. Now this year they've implemented a rule where any player, any point on the field lowers their helmet to initiate contact. It's going to be a penalty. And so offensive player, defensive player, doesn't matter. There's no defenseless anything.

It's just if a guy initiates contact with his helmet, then it's going to be a penalty. And so I'm interested to see how it's called in the preseason because we know that rules that they start for the new year, they're always over-called in the preseason. It's quite an emphasis so that you're going to see it called a lot but this rule to me just seems like a nightmare to try to enforce because i mean how are you going to do a running back coming through the hole um and and he puts his head down to brace for contact see part of the video that they're

showing the players and they did say that if you if you're bracing for contact. I did see part of the video that they're showing the players, and they did say that if you're bracing for contact, that you can lower your head. But I don't know. That gets into such a judgment call and stuff like that. Just think about it. You could be on a game-winning drive, or a drive where you're attempting to go win a game, or the team against you is attempting to win the game and you have that penalty go one way or the other it could be a huge swing and it just it seems like something the league doesn't need with all the you know controversies that they have around officiating it seems like taking an objective rule like this and tacking on a 15-yard penalty to it seems like a bad idea for the league yeah the key word there is judgment uh so you're putting

more on the referees when the referees have kind of become the focus over the past couple of seasons uh most people would say there are there are too many rules uh so you're putting more on the refs and you're going to take away uh from the product of football so uh i think it's going to be an absolute disaster i think it's going to be the talk of preseason i think it're going to take away from the product of football. So I think it's going to be an absolute disaster. I think it's going to be the talk of preseason. I think it's going to absolutely take over headlines during preseason. So I have no idea how you're going to police helmet-to-helmet contact. It's football. You're wearing a helmet for a reason.

I understand they want to make the game safer, but you've got to draw the line somewhere, and you can't penalize people every time they hit someone with their helmet. And, I mean, I know you obviously watch a lot of college football. I do, too. I think college has done a good job of implementing their targeting rule, and you get that when it's the whole defenseless receiver thing and the fact that they go to replay to determine, you know, on the ejection or not.

Like, I really like what they've done with that because it basically gives the referee two chances to make the right call. And a call that, I mean, obviously it affects it more in a college game when you're kicking a guy out of the game. So, like you said, I mean, we understand the point. They're trying to make it they're trying to make it safer but i mean when you've got a i don't know just so many different things that happen within a football play and think about a linebacker kind of gets stroked up and he's going to make a tackle his head's kind of down if in that motion he hits the guy with his helmet first even if he's going to off to the side i just i don't know. It just seems like, like you said, it seems like it's going to be the talk of the preseason.

And the last thing the NFL needs is something besides, you know, the play on the field being the headline. They've had, they've definitely had enough trouble with that over the last couple of years. And so, I don't know. I just, like, again, get, you know, try to make it safer, all that kind of stuff. But I feel like they've done enough with the, you know, the defens make it safer, all that kind of stuff. But I feel like they've done enough with the, you know, defenseless receiver, with all that other stuff, and with, you know, having the independent doctors on the sideline and, you know, putting on the referees to notice if a guy is, you know,

gets up and he's stumbling and all that kind of stuff. Like those, to me, seem like the logical steps that would help with this and not take away from the quality of the product on the field i don't know i just feel like this new rule i just i don't know i just feel like it's going to take away from what we're watching i think that's a really good point that they've made strides over the past couple seasons uh you don't see that guy with an obvious concussion staying on the field uh so so that's positive steps forward. But these stories with the concussion and how it's affecting players after their playing careers,

they're not going away. But those plans, those rules weren't in place when they were playing, so they aren't going to go away. So I think the NFL needs to be careful not to over-adjust here. They may have already done that. So I'm kind of scared, honestly, to see the product, NFL needs to be careful not to over-adjust here. They may have already done that. So I'm kind of scared, honestly, to see the product, to see the future of football.

I'm surprised the kickoff is still around, all things considered, and how under fire it's been the past couple years. You'll probably see it disappear in the next five years or so. So the game is changing. I just hope it doesn't lose its identity along the way. Yeah, absolutely. And it's just, I don't know, like you said, they're going to take the kickoff away next and then, yeah. And then what kind of, you can't, the problem, the problem with taking the kickoff is you need the onside kicks, right?

I mean, that's part of the game, and that's part of letting the team kick back in the game. And so then they're going to have to come up with some ridiculous, like non-football thing to do for the onside kicks. I don't know. It's just like we said. No, we're not saying they shouldn't have done anything. I just feel like they've done a lot of said. No, we're not saying they shouldn't have done anything. I just feel like they've done a lot of stuff.

And you made the point of football. It's a violent game. You're wearing a helmet. And you hear a lot of these guys say that they understand the risks they're taking and all that kind of stuff. And, again, not back in the day when the coaches expected a guy to stay out there. He couldn't walk straight. That's not what we're getting at here. But I don't know.

I'm just worried about all these rules they're going to make and how much it's going to change the game. So we'll see how that plays out. That'll be something that we'll be watching, especially as the Hall of Fame game kicks off tomorrow night. The Thursday night you'll have that going on, and then obviously as the Titans enter their preseason play. So that'll do it for tonight's show.

We'll be back again with at least one more this week, just kind of keeping an eye on what happens and if we need to jump on here and talk about something. But in the meantime, newcitymiracles.com, a lot of good stuff going on there. Check that out. And then obviously, like I said, follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmorrismcm.

Terry's at tlambertfb and you can subscribe to Locked on Titans wherever you get your podcasts I'm Terry this is Jimmy saying thanks for listening and we will talk to you again later