Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: UDFAs announced; Nashville the front runner for the 2019 draft?

Episode Date: May 11, 2018

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome in to another edition of Locked on Titans. I'm Jimmy Morris, joined as always by Terry Lambert. Terry, how are you today? Doing pretty good, man. What's up? Not too much. We have confirmation, finally, of the undrafted free agent, so we'll talk about that a little bit. And then some news on the possibility of the NFL drafting in Nashville, as we mentioned last episode. And then Titans have already signed a couple of draft picks, so we'll talk a little bit about that. Before we do that, remember, we write for muniscibemiracles.com, so you can check out our work there covering the Titans for SB Nation. Follow us on Twitter.

I'm at jmorrismcm. Terry's at tlanbertfb. The podcast account, at LockedOnTitans. You can find us there as well. All right, so like we said, the Titans finally confirmed their undrafted free agent list. There are 22 players total that will be taking part in the rookie mini camp. It's going to happen, I think, this weekend maybe, but at least over the next couple of weeks. You know, and look, we'll fall in love with a couple of these guys as the process goes along.

Throughout the summer, we'll have nothing else to look at but, you know, college highlight tapes. So we'll find a couple of these guys, and we'll be like, oh, man, this guy's the next whoever. And then there'll be a guy that makes some plays in training camp, makes some plays in the preseason, we'll fall in love with. Ultimately, they'll probably end up getting cut. 22 names on the list. I would point to one or two, and we talked a little bit about this before,

but Akram Wadley, the running back from Iowa. I think he makes a lot of sense for this offense I think it would have made a lot of sense for them to draft him and they might have had they have had another pick But they you know, there's all the training they didn't have multiple picks there at the end They he's a guy that seems to be a system fit for what Matt LaFleur is going to want to do here Yeah, and just from a number standpoint Wadley makes a lot of sense. A guy that carried the load. A guy that was talked about on that day three, late day three radar.

He falls out. He's undrafted. It makes sense to come in and sign him. And hopefully he can come in and be that third running back. You know, Flewellen has his moments in preseason. He is what he is, though. He's pretty limited. He's just kind of a big bruiser guy that's not going to give you much athleticism.

Wadley's a little smaller, a little quicker, going to offer you a different type of skill set. And, you know, we've said before, it's not to say that Flewland doesn't make this team. I think Mike Keith told us that the best. You know, he does so much on the special teams side. But, yeah, if I had to bet, Wadley would be my pick to make this team of this group of free agents.

What is the knock on Wadley? Like, why did he fall out of the draft? Because the production's there. He just didn't do very well at the combine. Smaller guy. There's just not that one trait about him that you can point to and say, hey, this is why he's going to succeed in the NFL. And, you know, we see that with players every year.

The production's there, but they do nothing at the combine. The athletic upside is not there with him. Smaller guy, but you've seen the tape. You've seen the ability to run in between the tackles. It's worth taking a shot on as an undrafted free agent. Yeah, and probably a guy that can succeed in the right spot. Deontay Burnett, I think, is another guy, a receiver from USC, that's going to stand out to people.

I think when you've got a guy that played at USC, had a very productive senior season, but he's smaller and didn't run really fast at the combine. So that's kind of a combination you need to have, either the size or the speed, and he doesn't necessarily have either. But, you know, we've seen before guys that if they can run a route, you know, if they're good at running routes, you know, they can find a way to play faster than their speed,

play a little bit bigger than their size. He's got to keep an eye on it. And, again, just when you talk about numbers at a position, you know, a guy that could make some noise and maybe make this team or maybe they could you know put him on the practice squad and see if they can get a little bit more out of him but i still think and we talked about this the last couple shows if they're going to add a receiver to what they already have it needs to be a veteran guy i'm not sure how much it helps you to have another unproven guy in there yeah and if burnett's going to make this team,

it's going to be as kind of a backup slot guy, 6'185", kind of similar to Taewon Taylor. Taewon's obviously got the top end that Burnett doesn't. But clearly he did something right in college, putting up 1,100 yards last season for USC. Just not impressive, again, in the postseason circuit. But the ability is there. Interested to see the back end of this receiver rotation kind of take shape.

There's just not a lot there. So the door is wide open for Burnett or, you know, Titans on three more receivers that no one's probably ever heard of before. So I think there's an opportunity there, regardless of who takes advantage of that opportunity. Yeah, and just a couple more names of note. You've got two defensive backs from Ohio State, Elijah Goins and Damon Webb. Goins is a cornerback, Webb's a safety. I know Webb posted some good numbers.

I saw something from Pro Football Focus on Twitter about his efficiency in college. You know, and the familiarity there with Kerry Coombs, the new Titans defensive backs coach, you know, was at Ohio State last year. So it makes sense to bring a couple guys in that he's familiar with and just kind of see how they shake out. And then Ethan Wolfe is a name I'm sure we're going to hear a lot about, the tight end from Tennessee. Again, this fan base is kind of irrationally obsessed with tight ends.

And, I mean, it makes sense because they've kept so many on the roster the last few years. But I just, again, I urge you, go look at Matt LaFleur's offense. It's going to be completely different than anything we've ever had here before. And when you talk about that, you're talking about different personnel groupings, and they're just not going to have the need for the numbers at tight end that they've had in the last couple of years. Yeah, and real quick on Webb, I think there's an opportunity for him there.

And, again, like receiver, it's kind of just based off numbers. You sign Kendrick Lewis. You've got Crookshank there now. Brendan Trawick's there as a special teamer. So there's a shot, at least a shot, that Webb could come in and kind of get in that fourth safety picture. Again, we don't know too much about these guys other than their names and where they played.

But we're just looking at opportunities and shallow spots on the roster, and safety is definitely one of those. Yeah, absolutely. So, again, I think, you know, if any of these guys are going to make the team, it probably comes from the list of the guys that we've touched on here. And there always could be a guy that surprises us in camp. And, I mean, hopefully, you know, hopefully you find a couple quality players in this group because, you again they only have four draft picks this year so really uncommon for

that so there's a little bit of opportunity at least as far as that's concerned so uh but the titans did finally make the the list that we had you know kind of compiled saturday night sunday after the draft they finally kind of confirmed that so So that was good to see, I guess. All right, coming up, we'll get into a little bit of the possibility of the NFL draft being in Nashville. Okay, so we touched on it last episode that the NFL had narrowed down the selection of cities for the draft to possibly be in. And then Adam Schefter tweeted on Thursday that it seems like Nashville is the leader to get the 2019 draft.

So, again, we talked about the possibility and that kind of stuff before, but I think now that it seems like it probably is going to happen again, the decision will be made at the end of May at the NFL League meetings. Talking a little bit logistics about where we think it would be, and I don't think, I mean, you know, the first thought you have is Nissan Stadium, but I don't think that makes a lot of sense. And for what they've done, I mean, you know, in Dallas they had it at the AT&T Stadium or whatever it is, Jerry Jones World.

It makes sense there because that place is huge and it's got all that other stuff going for it. You know, if you're going to have it outside, which you would obviously have to in Nashville, if you were going to have it outside, which you would obviously have to in Nashville, if you were going to have it in Eton Stadium, I think it makes sense to take advantage of some of the stuff they have right along the river downtown, an Ascend amphitheater, or just the other stuff they've got down there.

I think it would make a good backdrop for the draft, and I think you could also – there's a lot of room down there to have the different things that you need to have going on around the draft. Yeah, Ascend looks exactly kind of like the stage that they set up in Dallas and in Philadelphia. It's really open outdoors. There's grass area behind it. There's grass area in front of it. There's kind of a spot where you could set up tables and kind of set up your your team headquarters there and then behind it you could have the fans out in the grass i don't

know what you do for seating there if you want any sitting seating at all but that would be a really unique place to have it it's kind of out in front of the city so you've got the entire skyline backdrop behind i think that's really cool and i don't know logistically if you can make this work, but I think you have to consider the things that the Titans and the Predators have done on Broadway. Setting up that stage for the uniform unveiling and some of the watch parties for the Preds, that might be tougher to pull off.

And maybe they utilize both areas. You saw them kind of set up like a draft city in Philadelphia and Dallas. So I think it's going to be a citywide event. But, yeah, I'm hoping for a send over Nissan Stadium because, I mean, honestly there's not anything real unique about Nissan. Yeah, and it would be, you know, boring to look at on tv um you know that's why you're watching the draft but a nice backdrop is cool it's like you said i think it makes a whole lot more sense to do it down there instead of at the stadium because yeah i mean nissan stadium

looks like any other nfl stadium um and with this with the cool stuff that nashville has it would just it would make sense to highlight that stuff over a stadium that's not anything special. So anyway, like I said, we'll get confirmation on that at the end of the month. But Schefter said that it looks like Nashville's going to get it, so that'll be fun. So they're going to announce 19 and 20 at the league meetings, and then that would leave your Canton slash Cleveland, Kansas City, Denver, Las Vegas would be the spots that would be in the mix for 2020.

But they were talking on the Midday 180 the other day about apparently they've done some kind of, like, theme park-type deal at Canton, making it more of an event place to go. And so that's supposed to be done sometime in the next year, year and a half. So if that's the case, and apparently the NFL poured some money into that, so I think it would make sense for them to have the draft there in 2020 when all that stuff's up and running. So that's just speculation there, but that could be where it ends up.

All right, and then last thing, Titans signed two of their four draft picks. On Thursday, Dane Cruikshank and Luke Falk both under contract. Thursday, Dane Cruikshank and Luke Falk both in her contract. Again, you know, the whole signing rookie things has become much less of a story over the last few years with this new collective bargaining agreement than it was before when you would have multiple first-round picks holding out at the camp. These days it's the rare exception where you have a guy that is not there when camp opens.

Now, the Titans have had some of that. Theirs have typically gone further than some of the other teams in the league. They've had some weird things with the number where they were picking. The guy the year before had some unique situation. Anyway, blah, blah, blah. So theirs have dragged out a little bit further than other teams in the last couple of years. But, again, the real story here is if one of these guys is not signed

by the time camp opens. It seems to be happening quicker this year. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong on that. But if there's one thing you don't want to hear this time of year, it's offset language. You know, that was the big holdup with Marcus Mariota. I think that got Corey Davis, too, that kind of drug things out.

Wormack going all the way back there. Yeah, it just, I don't know. I don't pretend to know about these contracts and stuff, but it just seems like nobody else has these issues. It's just kind of been the Titans the past couple years. So hopefully everything goes smoothly. You know, you get has these issues. It's just kind of been the Titans the past couple years. So hopefully everything goes smoothly. You know, you get to a four, so you're 50% there. So hopefully that gets wrapped up in the next week or so.

Yeah, and just real quickly on offset language, what that means is basically, you know, you've got pretty much every player, but every first-round player especially, signs a four-year contract with that fifth-year option. The opposite language comes into play if the team decides to cut a guy before that initial four-year contract is up. And then basically it says, you know, they can go and make – basically the Titans either pay him for that last year or the last two years

or they won't. So obviously the guy wants the language in there to where he gets his full four-year deal here, but then he's also able to go sign somewhere else and get paid by that team, too. That's where the holdup usually comes in. Again, I just think if you're drafting a guy in the first round, I feel like you should be confident enough to just go ahead and give him the four years guaranteed.

You should be confident in the fact that he's going to pan out now obviously not every pick does we know that but it just it seems to me kind of silly to get hung up on that kind of stuff but that is always what it ends up being and what did joey bosa he ended up missing like all a camp last year or something so you still have you still have the guy or two that misses but it's just much less than what it was before when every year it was a completely new deal based on when you were drafted and all that kind of stuff. But, I mean, that's good. We don't want to see that kind of stuff because it's the Titans.

It was the Jones, I think, and Tom, all that kind of stuff. Good to have everybody there and signed and not something that you're worrying about as you're leading in the camp. Yeah, I forgot about the bosa thing there was a there was a time where you thought that he was just going to skip and enter next year's draft is that right yeah something like that that's crazy so yeah i don't expect that kind of drama anymore i think that's going to be a rarity uh just because of how it's slotted off and and it's so much simpler now, and you don't see the big money, $60 million deals for the first overall pick anymore.

So it's good for us. The less drama, the better. Just get these guys signed, get them in camp. Yeah, absolutely. So, all right, I think that'll do it for today. Again, next week we're talking about, we're going to we're gonna do a 53 man roster projection uh just coming off of everything that we know now and then we're talking

about looking back at some some players uh whether it be an obscure guy or not uh just the guys that have been here in the last decade or so and kind of looking back at their time here and what happened to them after they left here and all that kind of stuff. There's some interesting guys. We specifically talked about Chris Johnson and Kenny Britt the other day as guys that we could do. But anybody else, if you have any suggestions, hit us up on Twitter, again, at LockedOnTitans or either one of our accounts at jmorphmcm, at TLambertFB. Anybody you want to hear about, kind of recapping their career here and what happened after

they left here. Let us know if you've got anybody that you'd like to put on that list. But that's kind of what we'll be looking at over the next couple of weeks, just to get us by this time where there's not a lot of information getting put out there before training camp happens. Anything else, Terry, we need to cover today? I think that's it. All right.

So, again, thanks for listening. You can subscribe to the podcast, iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, wherever you get to search Locked on Titans, you'll find us there. Rate us, leave a review. We appreciate that. And, you know, like I said, hit us up on Twitter between now and the next episode if you've got any suggestions or anything you'd like to hear us talk about. For Terry, this is Jimmy, and thanks for listening,

and we will talk to you again next week.