Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: What are expectations for Vrabel in year one?

Episode Date: May 29, 2018

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Another edition of Locked On Titans. I'm Jimmy Morris, joined as always by Terry Lambert. Terry, how are you tonight? Doing pretty well. What's up, man? Not too much. Doing good. Hope everybody had a good Memorial Day. Obviously a time that we have to remember the people that have given their lives so that we have the freedoms that we have. So we're always thankful for those people and thankful for those that are still active duty and veterans that are still

here with us again for just letting us have the freedoms that we have to you know mess around do this podcast so i hope everybody had a good day with that i got to spend time with family and friends and all that good stuff uh so tonight we're going to talk a little bit about just kind of expectations for this team and kind of what we think mike vrabel needs to accomplish in his first year to get the fan base behind him before we do that we'll remind you uh you can follow us on twitter i'm at jay morris mcm terry's at t lambert fb podcast account unlocked on titans you can also find our work at music miracles.com or recover the titans for sb nation so check us out there and you can

subscribe to the podcast itunes spotify stitcher any place you get your podcasts you can find us there as well all right so uh this this idea terry brought up from uh a jim wyatt mailbag and um just kind of an interesting conversation as far as what the expectations are in this first year and what we would consider a success. We were just kind of talking before we jumped on the podcast here about last year and how the Titans were winning. It was ugly. They were heading to the playoffs with that win over the Jaguars.

And still, the fan base wasn't really bought in. There was still a lot of hesitation. If you listen to the local radio shows here, they were talking a lot about, you know, why is this town not more excited about this team? Why are they not behind the team like they were, you know, in those early playoff runs the Titans had when they first came to Nashville? And we know the reasons.

We talked a lot about them last year as the year went on with the offense and the coaching staff and all that kind of stuff. But just curious what we think the difference will be with Mike Vrabel and how we think the fan base will react to that. So we're going to get a little bit into that tonight. Before we do that, we want to tell you about a brand new sponsor we have on the podcast guys remember the days when you're always ready to go in bed now you can increase your performance and get that extra confidence listen up bluechew.com that's blue like the color blue bluechew.com brings you the first chewable with the same fda approved active ingredients as viagra and cialis so you

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Blue Chew is the better, cheaper, faster choice, and we thank them for sponsoring this podcast. Okay, so Mike Vrabel, first-year, first-year head coach, takes over a team that won a playoff game. That's not something that you see too often. Most of the time, if a team wins a playoff game that's not something that you see too often um you know most of the time if a team wins a playoff game their coach is not getting fired not going to you know rehash all that and why you know we thought that was the right decision but it does kind of have the bar set higher than it would be for a team that was coming off you know two or three wins season and a new coach just gets a job. Maybe it's not as much talent as the Titans have or whatever.

So there are going to be some expectations on Mike Vrabel with taking over this team. So, Terry, I'll kind of kick it to you to start off the discussion. What do you think determines a successful season for the Titans? I think it's entirely tied to Marcus Mariota. And that's weird to say. It's all about wins and losses at the end of the day. But how do you get to wins? And that answer is having a quarterback.

And having a quarterback that's playing at a very high level. That's something that me and you both think the Titans have, and Marcus Mariota didn't necessarily see it last year. And like you said, we went into it a lot during the season. What's wrong with number eight? What's up with this offense? Why is he throwing so many interceptions? But me and you both believe it was all scheme related.

So at the end of the day, Titans won a playoff game, got to the final eight in the NFL, and it wasn't good enough because Marcus Mariota wasn't playing well. So that's where I think this is. I think this fan base would be happy with an eight-win season, but you no longer have the question of whether or not Marcus Mariota is the guy. If Mariota comes out and proves it without a doubt and convinces every fan in this fan base, which will never happen,

but if he does that and the Titans miss the playoffs, I think Titans fans are going to be okay with that. Yeah, and I guess it's hard to speak for everybody, but I'm with you. If you go back and listen to our shows from last year during the season, they had the trip out west, the Titans did, where they played the Cardinals and the 49ers and lost both of those games, two games that should have – I mean, the Titans were better than both of those teams, games that we really thought they would win.

If they win one of those, they win the division. I mean, just win the division. I mean, you know, just all the stuff there. But if you go back and listen to the shows, we felt better after those two games than after a lot of the wins because it was in those games we started to see Marcus, like, look like himself a little bit more. It looked like he was out there making decisions quickly, was processing things more quickly, played better.

And we talked about that, how you know we would rather have a 9 and 17 that misses the playoffs but feel good about where marcus mariotta was than a 10 and 6 team that is a wild card team or wins the division or whatever it was and that may sound a little bit crazy but like you said i mean in this league it's all about the quarterback it's all about having that guy. We think Marcus is that guy. I think we saw enough of him in the years prior to last year. I don't know what happened. He looked good in Terry Biscay's offense two years ago, but last year, it was a disaster. You go back and watch those games, and if you watch the Titans, you understand we don't have to go, like we said, real in-depth about that.

But I think maximizing the talent on the roster is i guess really the first expectation i have for this for this new coaching staff and the thing that i will determine it as being a success if they are able to do that because we've talked about the schedule is tougher at least as we sit here in in at the end of may um you know obviously a lot a lot will change between now and september a lot will change from september to october to november i mean you know teams change with entries and all that kind of stuff and sometimes teams just aren't as good as we thought they would be but the schedule looks tougher on paper right now than it did last year so you know i i think it's it's on one hand it's going to be tough because if they don't if they don't win 10 games again,

then you think, okay, well, they've taken a step back. But I think there's a whole lot more to it than that. And I think that, like you said, you're not ever going to, I mean, unless they win the Super Bowl, right, you're not ever going to have the entire fan base feel like it was a successful season. But I think that the majority of the fan base, the ones that really watch the game and understand what's going on, I think if the offense looks better, if, you know, I mean,

the defense looks better, you've got all this talent, if it plays up to the level, you know, week in and week out, if we don't see those lulls last year that we would see in games where just inexplicably they would come out just entirely flat and get themselves in a big hole, if we don't see that kind of stuff that we saw last year, I think to me you have to say it was a success almost regardless of record. Now, if they go 6-10, that's a different conversation. But if you're in the 8-9-10 win range, I think they could go 8-8 and have a different conversation. But if you're in the 8-9, 10-win range, I think they could go 8-8

and have a successful season. That might sound a little bit ridiculous, but I really think that's a possibility. No, I'm with you, and you've got to keep in mind regression to the mean is a real thing in the NFL. Titans played a lot of close games and won a lot of close games. That Ravens game, Bengals game bingles game uh brown's game i'm sure i'm missing some but any one of those uh could have been losses for the titans uh so nfl is so fickle to uh you see playoff teams go uh you know nine seven one year and

next year they're in the running for the first pick in the NFL draft. That's just how things work. So it's hard to make generalizations. But at the same time, you know, look what you added on defense. You've got Harold Landry now. You've added Rashawn Evans. You've added a top corner in Malcolm Butler. So you're loaded on defense. And then suddenly you're hoping this offense can be better with a new scheme. Deion Lewis is going to bring something that DeMarco Murray didn't, so you're hoping Marcus

Mariota is going to take a step forward. It's a really strange situation, and last year was a really strange season, so I think the Titans got better on both sides of the ball, And it wouldn't surprise me if they won less games. So that's really weird to say, but that's kind of the nature of the beast in the NFL. Yeah, and like you said, so many times I think people just look at box scores, just look at records, and that's the way they make a determination. And, you know, it is a razor's edge between ten wins and seven or eight wins a lot of times. Like I said, close games last year.

And look, Corey Davis missed a lot of the season. Jonathan Ciprian missed time. DeMarco Murray got hurt, slash kind of fell off. But the Titans were fortunate with injuries last year, too. Marcus Mariota missed a game and a half, basically, even though he was banged up for a good part of the year. And he was coming off of the severe injury from the year before. So, I mean, all those things play into it.

So, you know, you can't sit here and think, okay, well, they have to go 10-6 at least again, or I'm going to say it was the wrong thing to fire right in the larky year. It's not going to be a success unless they're 10-6 or something like that. I think you have to be careful with that kind of stuff because, like you said, there's just a lot of variables in the NFL. It seems seemingly more so than in the other league that you watch. So those are kind of things to keep in mind. Coming up, we'll talk a little bit about maybe some individual expectations

and how we'll judge success or failure on that okay so when you think about that obviously number one you think about marcus mariotta right i mean in in what determines a successful season for him um you know i i think it's it's kind of one of those things we'll know it when we see it um and i think again terry and i have kind of you know planted our feet in that was a bad scheme he didn't feel comfortable out there in that scheme i still think the injury played a little bit into it as well um just coming off of that that leg and how bad it was um and so we think things are going to look a lot different this year. I think when you,

when you put it, put him in a scheme that he feels more comfortable in play to his strengths a little bit more. Um, I mean, I think that you, um, I think that you see those things,

you'll see, you'll see him be a different guy. And, you know, I don't know exactly what numbers we would, and maybe you have an idea of what you would consider numbers success. But I think it will be a thing where we can watch him the first couple weeks of this season and be able to tell, okay, this is a scheme that he feels

comfortable in, they're ready to go, he's the guy. Yeah, I don't want to put a number on it. Yeah, that's kind of dumb you say 3600 yards and he throws for 3500 yards and called that a failure i want to see the eye movement i saw that in his rookie year i watched him undress linebackers uh just look them off take them totally out of play and snap back around and hit the open receiver that he just schemed open with his eyes, you know? So I want to see little stuff like that. That's the stuff that we didn't see last year.

Instead, we saw him stare down receivers. He looked unsure of what he was seeing, and, you know, it goes back to him not being on the same page as his receivers. How many times did we see Rashard Matthews get blamed after the game for running the wrong route? Same with Corey Davis, same with Taylor Taylor. Any receiver was guilty of that, according to Mike Malarkey.

So I want to see him trust what he's seeing. I want to see him look comfortable again. That was the whole deal last year. He just did not look comfortable. I think if he trusts what he's seeing once again, like he did in that rookie season, like he did in year two even,

that's where you're going to see him start putting up the big numbers. That's when we'll know Marcus Mariota's back. Confidence and trust, I think, are two key words. Confidence in the scheme and then trust in the receivers, everybody else to be in position as to where they were. And, again, I think it goes back to everybody being unsure

on what was going on last year. You know, I mean, I think the second biggest guy that we have to point to here is Corey Davis. You know, we saw flashes of what he could do uh especially in that you know the the game against the Patriots where he had a couple touchdown catches um you know I I think again that I I'm gonna give him a pass for his rookie year one he was injured a lot too it was a bad scheme but he's a guy that they need to get something out of. He needs to play like a number five pick.

And I think that if they're able to do that, again, work a scheme that fits his strengths, that he feels comfortable in. But, I mean, he's probably the second most important guy on offense. Is that crazy? No, I think you're right on that. And if you went back and watched the games, and if you watched Corey Davis from the overhead, the all 22, you saw him getting open.

It was just a matter of, again, not being on the same page with Marcus Mariota. I can remember three or four times I was talking to my head, Corey Davis being wide open and Mariota just missing him. So, yeah, I'm totally with you. And we've talked a lot about the Titans not adding another receiver, so they're putting a lot of faith in Corey Davis. I think that's the right move. I'd certainly feel better if there was another veteran present

just in case somebody gets hurt. But Corey Davis has that ability. You saw it against New England. You saw it in his first game against oakland his first catch was uh him you know just mossing somebody down the sidelines so the ability is certainly there it's just a matter of staying healthy uh and i'm so excited to see him in this offense and kind of that robert woods role role, just going up and being physical and catching footballs from Mark Smarretta.

Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, he's a guy, and then you look at the backs. I mean, you know, there was a lot of talk last year about the workload split between, you know, DeMarco Murray, Derrick Henry. And, you know, at some point it just got ridiculous with how stubborn the coaching staff was being on still running Murray out there, still giving him his touches, you know, that kind of stuff, when it was clear that he was done. Now, we talked about how Derrick Henry wasn't as good as everybody wanted him to be. And you saw that in a couple of the big games that, I mean, he wasn't very good in that Jaguars game.

He wasn't very good in the Patriots playoff game. Now they got kind of blown away there and didn't have as much of a chance. But I don't care about who starts and who doesn't. I don't even care about the workload distribution. I just want to see them be used smartly.

I want to see Derrick Henry get the type of carries that Derrick Henry should get. I want to see Derrick Henry run with more power. I hope they can get that out of him because you need a guy that can go get you a yard when you need a yard. Derrick Henry looks like he should be that guy, but we've talked a lot about how that's not necessarily his game. You can look back at some plays last year where he left those kind of those kind of yards on the field um so you want to see more of that of him and then you know just the way they use deon lewis that's the other thing that i'm interested in uh you know he he stayed healthy for the most part last year he's had some injury issues before last season but you know just the

way they're going to use him but i mean again if both of those guys are clicking if you're seeing them have a lot of you know successful carries by you know if you look at the metrics of what 60 percent of the yardage on on 40 percent of the yardage on first down 60 percent of the yardage on second down and then if you're getting third and fourth down carries getting you know whatever is required to pick up there and then just seeing Deion Lewis catch balls out of the backfield. You know, if we run a successful screen, you know, like in a few consecutive weeks, that would be awesome. I know they hit the big one last year, what, against the Jaguars.

Derrick Henry had the big one in that game. But, you know, this team, as long as they've been here, have never been able to run a screen and have gotten just murdered by them on the other side. So, I mean, I'll take that as a success. If you look back at their screen plays for the year never been able to run a screen and have gotten just murdered by them on the other side so i mean i'll take that as success if you look back at their screen plays for the year and the majority of them were actually effective i'm excited and it sounds kind of dumb to say i'm excited to have a running back that marcus mariotta can check down to yeah it just seems like everyone in the

league utilizes that little check down on third down, and it usually picks up the first down. Titans didn't do that. DeMarco Murray didn't do a whole lot outside of a couple plays from behind a lot of scrimmage. But I'm excited to see Deion Lewis in that role. I think that's going to be a huge, huge upgrade. I think he's going to be used more than Derrick Henry. huge upgrade.

I think he's going to be used more than Derrick Henry. You talk about how unique of a running back Derrick Henry is, the big body home run hitter that is not really a bruiser. He's a really interesting guy. So I think it wouldn't shock me to see the Titans kind of use Lewis in spots where you think they're going to use Henry to use him in that short area, short yardage down type situation. A guy that's going to use his agility to get to the hole and then kind of use Derrick Henry as a home run hitter. So that's a little bit backwards, but that's kind of who they are as runners yeah absolutely and so you know it'll be good to have

the combination of those guys and then just quickly on the deep end the side of the ball a pass rush you know like you said excited to see harold landry and rashaun evans i think rashaun evans is going to get an opportunity to to have chances to rush the passer um more so than a lot of inside linebackers would in a 3-4 i think they're going to use him that way uh landry make an impact those guys come in and and you just have confidence in where that leaves this defense when you know derrick morgan and brian reichpo are potentially both gone in 2019 um i I think a successful season is seeing them transition over to those guys, feeling confident about what you have in a pass rush with those two.

Obviously, the drill case, he'll still be here, all that kind of stuff. And then just having a secondary that is not confused, is not constantly getting torched over the top. I don't think we'll see that from this group. I think they're a lot better. But, I mean, my expectation for this defense are to be a, what, I mean, top 10, 15 defense in the league. I don't think that's crazy.

And I think they need to be with the amount of talent they have on that side of the ball, with the amount of, you know, investment they put in that. You know, we talked about they've spent so many draft resources on the offense over the last few years and even in years when we really really thought they were going to go defense but now at this point when you're looking at adora jackson's first round pick last year rashaun evans first round pick this year harold landy they traded up to get in the second round this year they signed malcolm butler you. You signed Logan Ryan last year. You got Kevin Byard, who's an all-pro safety.

John DeCyprian, they gave a big free agent contract to two years ago. They've invested a lot on that side of the ball now, and they need to see some of that stuff come to fruition. And so this needs to be a team that is not led purely by the offense or led purely by the defense, which it seems like has always kind of been the case here, you need to see really two top ten units, in my opinion. Yeah, and they've got a lot more multiple. That's kind of been the buzzword since Vrabel got here.

He won't really commit to a scheme, but we know he's going to run a 3-4 most of the time. But now you've got Rashawn Evans, who's a middle linebacker that can get after the passer off the edge. He's got a really good burst and can get around the edge. So you throw Harold Landry into the mix with Brian Arakpo, Derek Morgan. A lot of different things you can do creativity-wise. So I'm really, really excited to see that, excited to see how they utilize Jayon Brown in year two.

I think he's a really good player that not enough people are talking about. But like you said, that secondary better be great. So much has been invested there. You now can go five deep. That's up there, tops in the leagues. I'd put the secondary up against just about anyone. In today's league where everybody's throwing the ball around, virtually everybody throws for 4,500 yards it seems,

you've got to have that secondary. So I'm interested to see how quickly Harold Landry comes along. I'm interested to see how quickly Harold Landry comes along. I think a successful season for him means that we're probably clamoring for him playing over Derek Morgan or Brian Arakpo by the second half of the season. Yeah, absolutely, and leading the rotation instead of just part of the rotation. Anyway, listen, I am very optimistic about this team. Like I said, the schedule is tougher. They're going to have to play well to win a lot of games.

But I think there's top to bottom, there's more talent on this roster than there has been in a long time. And, you know, again, will I be disappointed if they don't make the playoffs absolutely because you know that that's kind of what we feel like they should be um we saw last year and this team is more talented i don't have any doubt about that but i think they can have a successful season even missing the playoffs am i way off there that's that's about how i think you know we talk about how fickle the NFL. Things change. There's a reason. Some sports

books have Tennessee's over-under at 7.5. They've got the third best odds on Bovada right now to win the AFC South. I think a lot of people are going to come in with unrealistic expectations,

but it's not the end of the world if they don't make the playoffs. But with all that being said, I think they're going to be right in it. Texans have a chance to be really good. Jaguars are going to be really good with that defense. We'll see about the Colts, but this is a tough division, so not the end of the world if it doesn't happen this year. Absolutely. So anyway, that kind of wrap up the expectations

talk uh we'd love your feedback on that so if you want to hit us up on twitter uh or on the site or you know whatever uh we we'd love to hear your feedback on that and if we're crazy for saying you know that we could be sitting here at the end of december january whenever the whenever the season ends and saying that you know even though they missed the playoffs, it was a successful first season under Mike Vrabel. All right, so that'll do it for this episode. We will have our Kenya-Brit retrospective, so to speak, here in the next couple days. Keep an eye out for that. We'll probably do one more of those this week.

So we'll talk about who the next player will be. If you have suggestions, again, hit us up on Twitter. We'd love to hear it. So for Terry, this is Jimmy saying thanks for listening to Locked on Titans, and we'll talk to you again later this week.