Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: What are Tennessee's chances in Kansas City?

Episode Date: January 3, 2018

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Hello and welcome in to another edition of Locked on Titans. I am Jimmy Morris flying solo tonight. Terry has a couple members of the family sick, so we'll be thinking about them, praying for them, hoping everybody gets better real soon. But in the meantime, we're going to talk a little Titans and Titans playoffs, which we talked about yesterday. It's been really exciting to be back there for the first time in nine years. And so obviously a lot surrounding that. Titans were on the practice field today, threw me off a little bit. Today being Tuesday, you'll be listening to this on Wednesday morning, but they were on the practice field on Tuesday, threw me off a little bit.

I was confused, but then remember they play on Saturday, so everything's kind of up a day from what it would be a normal week. Not really too much, I don't think, concern as far as practice today. DeMarco Murray didn't practice. Malarkey still didn't rule him out. But there have been some video and stuff of DeMarco walking around during the game, or before the game. I think Paul Karski had that.

I mean, judging by the way he was walking on Sunday, I would be shocked if he was able to go on Saturday. But apparently Adam Schefter had a report that Murray was going to try to give it a go. And so we'll see. We'll see how the week plays out there. But I would be kind of surprised if he was able to play. The Titans do have a couple of guys in the concussion protocol, which I guess I just kind of missed.

With all the excitement going on around that game, I wasn't really paying attention to who was in and out at the end of the game. But Kevin Reed and Johnnie Smith are both in the concussion protocol. Now, they both practice in full today, so it sounds like that as long as they don't have any setbacks, then they'll be clear tomorrow and should be good to go on Saturday. So obviously both of those guys are pretty key contributors at this point. So hopefully they'll be able to be out there.

Bryce McCain was limited due to a hamstring injury. And, man, we're going to have to at some point get some type of like medical professional some type of analysis on this team and hamstring injuries because they've had they've been they've been pretty much lucky as far as the injury uh you know as far as you've gone this year they haven't suffered a lot of missed games and they haven't lost you know a big name starter like quite a few teams have but everybody that's been hurt it seems like, has had a hamstring injury. Corey Davis, Jonathan Ciprian, Marcus Mariota, DeMarco Murray at the beginning of the year.

You know, Sean Sims went on IR a couple weeks ago because of a hamstring injury. Now you've got Bryce McCain limited. And we've had a couple other guys here and there that have missed a little bit of time or practice or whatever it may be with a hamstring injury. So I don't know if they need to look at their training program or what, but it's just a little bit weird that they've had that many guys that have suffered hamstring injuries in one year. But anyway, so we'll see how that plays out for the rest of the week. The best thing from today was the fact that Logan Ryan was not on the injury report.

So I think we can assume that he he practiced in full so he should be good to go and that will obviously need him out there uh just a couple things on the jaguars game real quick um brian baldinger if you don't follow him on twitter you should be baldy nfl is his twitter handle um he did a a series or a thread this morning about the Titans and Jaguars game. And it really was an indictment of this offense on a whole lot of levels. So we'll kind of go through each one and kind of break that down. each one and and kind of break that down one of the biggest things that i noticed in that was the fact that there was a lot of confusion there's confusion with derrick henry and which way to go obviously we saw that uh when he runs into mariotta you have the fumble jaguar turner

for a touchdown there was another play just a couple plays later where where henry goes the wrong way. I mean, I guess. There was a miscommunication. Somebody didn't know where they were supposed to go. Mariano was able to pull it down, break off a run that went for seven or eight yards. I mean, Abel actually turned it into a positive play. But that kind of stuff that we really can't have happening at this point in the season. can't you can't have happening um at the at this point in the season um so and there's a couple different times where you can see confusion with the offensive linemen and they're trying to figure

out who to block um a couple times where they have four guys blocking one guy and a couple guys running free um a couple of times where like cory davis for instance just just blocks the wrong guy um you know obviously when you're blocking on a run play like that, you need to get the guy that's the biggest threat. So the guy that's, you know, closest to the ball and Davis just lets him go and blocks the guy on the outside. Just a lot, a lot of different stuff like that. So on one hand, it's a Derrick Henry issue, right?

Derrick Henry is at the end of his second year. Um, he should know the offense. He should know where to go. Um, and so don't don't take this as you know me letting him off the hook here and i will say just as an aside to that point for just a minute we've been really hard on this coaching staff for not getting derrick henry on the field and talking about how ridiculous it is that they say well we don't you know we like murray better in passing situations and you know, whatever their excuse has been for running Murray out there a lot.

But Derrick Henry showed on Sunday that there are some issues still with his game, and there are some situations where he can't really be trusted. And that's a Derrick Henry thing, and that's something that he's going to have to figure out and get fixed this week. I mean, there's no next week if they don't get it right this week. So hopefully they can do some things to – I mean, I don't know if they need to simplify things for him or simplify things for the offense in general. But anyway, so the reason that I point out all of those plays is because there were multiple times where multiple people didn't know what was going on.

At least that's what it looked like from the beginning of the play or from the pre-snap stuff. So it's not just on Derrick Henry. So that, to me, is on the offensive coaching staff, on Terry Hrabisky. The fact that this team still doesn't understand this offense in Week 17, that's a problem. And, you know, I mean, I don't know. I don't know who, you know, if the offense is too complicated

or if the guys just aren't picking it up like they should or whatever. But regardless of what the answer is there, it's the coach's job to get his players comfortable and to put them in situations where they can go out there and succeed. And that clearly hasn't been happening with this offense this season and we've talked so much about that um you know and and i i at this point expect there to at least be an offensive coordinator change after the season's over i don't know about the head coach mike malarkey i don't know what's gonna what's gonna play down what's gonna go down there you know we talked yesterday about

the fact that there was the report sunday morning that malarkey was going to go down there? We talked yesterday about the fact that there was a report Sunday morning that Malarkey was going to be out if the Titans lost to the Jaguars. I don't think that if that were true, I don't think that just being the Jaguars and getting to the playoffs will be enough to save his job. I don't know if they go on a little run here, or if they look better than maybe they will. But if they just be the Jaguars and they go to Kansas City,

the offense looks terrible, they lose by 20. To me, that's no different than losing the Jaguars last week as far as, you know, Mike Malarkey's job is concerned. So I think if that report from me and Rob's report were true last week, I wouldn't be surprised if you see Malarkey get fired if they lose, you know, a tough game or, I mean, if they lose badly in Kansas City this weekend. We know they like Mike Malarkey, and we've talked about the things that Malarkey has done for this franchise,

and I don't think that you can say enough about the influence that he's had on this team, the change that he's made to the culture of this team. team, the change that he's made to the culture of this team. You know, he's done so many things to take this team in a positive direction, and I don't want to take that away from him. Is there a scenario where he sits down with John Robinson and Amy Adams-Strunk at the end of the season, and they say to him, look, you can keep your job, but you've got to fire Terry Hrabisky and you've got to be willing to bring in someone that is going to come with a different offensive philosophy and you've got to

let them run the offense right because we talked you know weeks ago about how you know everybody wants terry rabisky fired that's fine and i and i agree but if you just fire terry rabisky and then mike malarkey promotes Jason Michael or brings in another guy like a dark cutter who we talked about, who I guess is not going to get fired in Tampa at this point, so he wouldn't be the guy, but just brings in another guy like Robiski, you might as well just keep Terry Robiski. I mean, it doesn't help anything if you're going to bring in another guy

that's just going to run the same offense that Mike Malarkey wants to run. Now, the offense worked last year. It hasn't worked this year. What are the reasons for that? I think there are too many to list at this point. I think you've seen issues with Mariota, whether it be health or him not understanding or whatever it may be, the offense. The offensive line hasn't played as good up front.

It's pretty clear that they need maybe two interior offensive linemen um the running backs haven't been as good demarco murray is not as good as he was last year he's lost a step wouldn't be surprised if we don't see him back here next year they need a dynamic guy they need a guy that can make plays there so there's a lot of different reasons that his offense has gone backwards like it has but it all starts with terry biskey terry biskey has got to be gone and you've got to have another philosophy in here you've got to have something that plays more to mario's strengths and we talked i mean like i said over and over and over about this stuff i'm not saying they that you know you come in and you be chip kelly and you go no huddle

every single play and you're up tempo the whole game um we know there are issues with that style of play but you've got to do something that makes the players on this team more comfortable you got to do something that plays to their strengths instead of playing to an offense philosophy that these guys want to play it doesn't necessarily work in today's NFL so we'll kind of keep an eye on how that all that plays out but if you go like I said you go back through my Brian Balding's tweets, you just see more of the stuff that we've been talking about. We've been complaining about all year long. The issues that we have with this offense had not gone away and they maybe

even have gotten worse. So that's something that the Titans are going to have to evaluate at some point. Obviously right now they're looking at getting ready for the chiefs as they should be, but if John Robinson, Amy Adamstrong, whoever else, if they're not having conversations about this, I would be surprised.

So that would be something to keep an eye on, and obviously we'll cover all that stuff as it comes. Hopefully we're not talking about the offseason for a couple more weeks, but you never know. I wrote a post today on museummiracles.com about how I think the Titans can win this game. And we won't get into the Chiefs, you know, more specifically when Terry's back tomorrow.

But the Chiefs are not very good on defense. If you look at their DVOA numbers, they're bad against the run. They're mediocre to bad against the pass. They've struggled with number one wide receivers so i mean there's going to be some things in this game the titans can take advantage of there's gonna they're gonna have some opportunities to make some plays they're gonna have some opportunities to control the clock to get derrick henry going um to keep alex smith tyreek hill travis kelsey kareem hunt Kareem Hunt. The Chiefs have got a dynamic

offense. If the Titans can control the ball with Derrick Henry, if they can run clock, if they can keep that Chiefs offense on the sideline, I think they've got a chance to win this game. They've been to Arrowhead. They went and won a big game at the end of the season last year in Arrowhead.

I think that it'll be a little bit overwhelming early. Playoff atmosphere, we only have a handful of guys on this team that have ever played in an NFL playoff game. Obviously Arrowhead's going to be rocking. So, I mean, they're going to have to sustain probably an early rush from the Chiefs. But if they can do that, if they can get settled in, I mean, I think they have a chance to win.

And I know that, like, you know, most people think that I'm crazy for saying that. I'm not necessarily saying I'm going to pick them to win at this point. But I don't think it's the most ridiculous thing to give the Titans a shot in this game. I think that there are some ways that they can take advantage of Jacksonville, especially, I mean, not Jacksonville, of Kansas City, especially in their defense. And some things actually set up well for the Titans. So, you know, obviously we'll talk, like I said, more about that and break down individual things when Terry's back tomorrow. But as a Titans fan, I think it's I think there is a little bit of reason to have some hope.

OK, like I said, I'm not saying they're going to go up there and win. I'm not saying I'm going to pick them to win. But it's not ridiculous to think that they could. And, you know, the narrative last week of, well, why would you want your team to get in the playoffs and save your coach that you don't even like just to get blasted in the wild card round? Well, I mean, I don't think that's going to happen. Now, I know Vegas disagrees with me. The line is all the way up to eight. It opened at seven.

It's all the way up to eight in some spots now. So, obviously, everybody's betting the Chiefs. I don't blame them. But what I will say is you have to remember that just like three or four weeks ago, the Chiefs were the team that everybody had given up on, that everybody left for dead. The Chargers were going to win the AFC West. They were coming back. The Chiefs had fallen apart.

Was Andy Reid going to get fired? Should they start Patrick Mahomes? I mean, all of these questions that were surrounding the Chiefs just a month ago, and now they can't lose this game. And so, I mean, yeah, they've been better, and they may be peaking at the right time, and we'll see how that plays out on Saturday. Those things do happen. You know, you do go through these patches in a season sometimes

where you hit a little bit of a lull, you some things and then you get back on course that's what we hope the titans were going to do for weeks and weeks this year but it never did it never did play out that way so we'll see but i just i think that the titans i think they have a chance here and i do think that they the matchup is not as bad as most people see it as being. I mean, okay, just briefly we'll touch on their offense, right? You got Tyreek Hill, a guy that's no doubt dynamic. I mean, we saw in that game last year where the Titans and the Chiefs played, he took a handoff, I think it was, for, I mean, just a huge play for a touchdown at the beginning of the game against the Titans.

So, I mean, obviously you know what he can do. But, hey, we got Adore Jackson this year who I think matches up pretty well with Tyreek Hill. Speed on speed. That's a guy that the Titans didn't have an answer for last year in the secondary, and they might now. If you check out, again, you can see miracles.com. One of our guys, Mike, wrote a post about how good Adoree Jackson has been this year, and he really has been. So, you know, hey, can they match up there?

Travis Kelsey, obviously a big play guy. But, you know, I think the Titans are better suited to match up with him this year when you've got a guy like Kevin Byard playing as well as he is, when you've got a guy like Jayon Brown who's been good in his role for this team. So, I mean, I think that they've got a chance to not just go out there and give a 15-out. Could they? Absolutely. We've seen this defense at times look just completely lost. Would I be shocked if that's what happened on Saturday? No.

But I don't think that's automatically what's going to happen. You know, Kareem Hunt, obviously a very good running back. Could be the offensive rookie of the year. It'll be between him and Alvin Kamara. But the Titans have been good against the run. They haven't had any running backs just kill them other than Todd Gurley. And, you know, maybe we'll see.