Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: Wrapping up the loss to the Cardinals

Episode Date: December 12, 2017

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Welcome in to another edition of Locked on Titans. I am Jimmy Morris of MutancyMiracles.com where we cover the Titans every day. You can also follow me on Twitter at jmorrismcm. Joined by Terry Lambert at TLambertFB on Twitter. Terry, how are you tonight? Doing alright. What's going on, man? Not too much. Doing a little bit better than last night when we hopped on here. The wounds were still fresh from that game in Arizona yesterday. Before we get started, I do want to remind everybody, please go on to iTunes or Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to Locked on Titans. That way you'll get the new episode pushed through to your phone

or whatever device it is that you're using to listen every day. So do that, help us out, push through to your phone or whatever device it is that you're using to listen every day. So do that, help us out, and we'll try our best to keep coming up with good content that you will enjoy listening to. So today we've got a few things to talk about from the game in Arizona, and then we'll kind of hit on some points that Mike Malarkey made in his Monday conference call. If you remember, the team stayed in Arizona. They're going to stay out there this week since they play in San Francisco on Sunday. So it's going to be a final way back and a final way back out there.

It's out on the West Coast, which I think makes a lot of sense. We were talking a little bit before we jumped on tonight about the fake punt call. And I don't really think we touched on it very much last night because it was just there was so much stuff last night and it was the offense was so bad it was hard to like focus on anything else really but terry we're talking a little bit about give me your thoughts on the the fake punt call the play all that stuff you know kind of as it went down in the game yesterday. Number one, I'm always for aggressive play calling. I'm always for if it's fourth and one, you should be able to get a yard. If your offense is stagnant, you know, you need some energy, I don't mind it.

But, you know, kind of like we were saying before the show, when you line up to do that, you're looking for a look in the defense. You're looking for a mismatch. You're looking for an easy path. The Cardinals looked ready for that. And I don't know if they got tipped off, but clearly something happened. They loaded up the box, and it just kind of seemed like chaos along the line of scrimmage.

So it was weird. It just kind of seemed like chaos along the line of scrimmage. It was weird. You would hope that some coaches on the sidelines or even somebody in the game would see that and say, hey, this is going nowhere, call timeout, or change something. So it was kind of odd. Like you were saying, this team's built to run the football this team's built on power the power run game you can't go get a yard um so that that's a little odd to me and to do it kind of deep in your own territory uh with the game seeming like it was already

teetering like it was it was just kind of weird all the way around. Yeah, that's kind of my thing there is I don't mind it. I'm like you. I mean, if I were a high school football coach especially, I'd be the guy that never punted, went for two every time, onside kick, I mean, all that stuff just because I think that's fun. I think more often than not, if you do it right, you're going to come out ahead. Fourth and one, I mean, I line up and go for a qb sneak every time that's just me that's what i would do if i were calling that um but at worst

case scenario i think you you keep your offense out there this is a team that's supposed to be like you're saying built to to get short yardage exotic smash mouth right um run down people's throats and obviously that that's not that hasn't been how it's played out this year but you know i don't know to me it just makes more sense to do that i think that if you're going to call a fake punt in that situation uh number one you need to have something that you see on film or something that you know you can take advantage of from the way they line up to defend a punter you know whatever it may be you need to you need to have something that you say okay we're going to come this is a game plan specific thing to the way the Cardinals do

their punt coverage. And we've seen this hole that we think we can take advantage of, so we're going to run this play in this situation. I mean, to me, that's the only way that it really makes sense to do that. You know, and again, I mean, I'm with, you know, Mike Malarkey, what he said kind of yesterday for the game, and reiterated

it a little bit today. You know, I don't understand how the spot gets moved just because you can't tell and you just don't see spots overturned very often. And we've talked about NFL officiating and the issues that are there. So, I mean, all that stuff, I do kind of agree with him there. But I don't know that that's the best time to do that and the other thing is and you know i know some people don't believe in momentum but i do and i think that when you have a play call like that if you get it i think it's a huge

momentum boost momentum boost for your team but if you don't get it it's a huge momentum boost for the other team and in a game like you like said, that was kind of teetering there, it seemed like one little thing could set it over the edge. And so, sure, if the Titans get it, they get fired up, they get to come back out on offense and all that stuff. But it seemed like that really energized the Cardinals. And the defense, again, like we talked about last night, they held up well, held them to a field goal coming off of that.

But the first play right after that, Kerwin Williams ripped off a big run. So I don't know. I just think there's a lot at play there. And again, my thoughts would be just keep your offense out there and try to get the yard. And listen, this team started off the year with an onsides kick,

if you remember all the back to the Oakland game. And people hated that. I didn't mind it. I mean, do something aggressive. Take a chance. I'm fine with all that. But you need to do it to the Oakland game. And people hated that. I didn't mind it. I mean, you know, do something aggressive. Take a chance. I'm fine with all that. But you need to do it in the right spots. And it just didn't feel like that was the time for that type of fake punt call.

And maybe he was talked into it with the way his defense was playing. They were lights out yesterday. You know, the Cardinals had nothing going. The Titans just handed him that game three, four times. And the Cardinals had nothing going. The Titans just handed him that game three or four times and the Cardinals just didn't want it. It was kind of funny. After all the mistakes

that Mariota made and the offense made, the Titans still had a chance to win it in the end, which is just kind of crazy. Maybe that made his decision easier. It's just it's a timing issue with all of these exotic

runs you know these trick plays these bold calls it just seems like the Titans do it at the worst possible time you know a couple weeks back they called up a pass for Eric Decker on second

and medium and it set up a pass for Eric Decker on second and medium, and it set up a key third down the Titans didn't get. So it's just a timing deal. They don't pick their spots very well when they want to be bold. And it's frustrating. It just goes back to even more frustration with the staff overall. Yeah. frustrating it just goes back to to even more frustration with the staff overall yeah and that like you said it's kind of a symptom of a larger problem that they tend to have and i think paul karski's called it fancy play syndrome at times it's like when when you can line up and get yards

why don't you just line up and get yards you know and they want to be smash mouth but i think sometimes they're afraid that they're not getting in exotic enough. And so they try these different things. And so that kind of leads me into just the last thing that I have, and if you have anything else from yesterday's game, that's fine. But the last thing that I have from yesterday's game is the fourth down play where, you know, it ends up that Dory Jackson gets the target. I don't understand why Dory Jackson is out there on that play.

I mean, we've talked a lot about them using him on offense and how we like that in certain situations, certain packages or whatever. The drive at the end of the game where you have to go down and get a touchdown to win, and if you don't, the game's over, is not the time to get cute and have him out there on offense. I don't know what the reasoning behind it was. All I know is that Cameron Wol cameron wolf of espn tweeted last

night that dory jackson said he's never practiced that play before and that the coaching staff told him what route to run on the sideline before he went in now malarkey came back and said today that he has practiced the play but it hasn't been for a couple weeks regardless i don't understand why in that situation you're going to take a chance on throwing the ball to a rookie cornerback when you have invested all this stuff in weapons like Corey Davis, like Eric Decker. You have Rashard Matthews. I mean, even guys like Johnnie Smith that are out there. Now, I think Delaney Walker had taken the big hit on the play before, and so I don't think he was in the game for that play.

But why are you putting, at this is a point you made, why are you putting Adore Jackson out there over Taewon Taylor? I mean, even Eric Williams, who I don't think should ever get a touch, at least he's played receiver before. So I don't understand in that situation. Again, I like Adore on offense in certain packages, but I just don't understand in that offense, I mean, in that situation, why he's on the field right there.

Absolutely bizarre. don't understand in that offense i mean in that situation why he's on the field right there absolutely bizarre uh yeah we we haven't seen the adore jackson package for a couple weeks and i don't know why it went away uh it was working you know you're getting 10 yards a clip it seemed um but to throw him out and on a fourth fourth and ten game on the line and let's be real they weren't going to go win that game. The offense was out of sorts but still it's the principle of the thing. You're going to have your rookie corner go out and run a route that he hasn't

practiced before and you're going to throw him the ball with the game on the line and say I got nothing. It's just one of those things. Why on earth? Who thought this was a good idea? Yeah, absolutely.

And then one more thing before we jump into some of the stuff that Mark talked about today. You know, there's a big fire Robiski movement right now. I think I started a petition, which those things always crack me up. I don't really understand what the point in that is. But what you got to keep in mind here is if you want Robiski fired, if you don't like this offense, then you need to just go ahead and sign on for fire malarkey. And I'm not there yet. I'm getting closer every day. And the funny thing is I thought it was a terrible hire when they made it.

And I wrote a little bit about this today on MuseumMiracles.com. There's this stuff that, like how the different groups of people. And I don't think anybody liked the malarkey hire, but I think you had some people that were willing to take a wait-and-see approach and then some people that were just against it and are going to be against it no matter what happens after that. But the thing to keep in mind is, if they fire Terry Robiskey, which could happen. I mean, I'm not going to say that it's not going to happen right now.

But at the end of the year, that could be a move they make. They fire the offensive coordinator. Mike Malarkey is going to bring in somebody else that he feels confident will run the system that Mike Malarkey wants to run. So the fact that it won't be Terry Hrabisky anymore might make some people feel better. But this offense is going to look pretty much exactly the same because ultimately it's Mike Malarkey's offense. It's what he wants to do.

So if you want a different offensive system, then you need to be on the fire Malarkey bandwagon, not just on the fire Hrabisky bandwagon. Because, again, especially if you did it right now, the only guy that has any kind of experience is Jason Michael. fire malarkey bandwagon not just in the fire rubisky bandwagon because again especially did it right now i mean the the only guy that that is has any kind of experience is jason michael who's a quarterback's coach who's been here since you know the the the ken wizenhunt days um but none of these guys on on this offensive staff are going to have a different philosophy than what mike malarkey has and even if he does fire rubisky at the end of the year he's going

to bring in somebody that's going to agree with his philosophy and run the same type of stuff. So I know that it's a big, you know, fire Robiskie, that's a big thing right now. But you need to go all the way up if that's how you feel. Yeah, and a guy that I mentioned before we went on the air was Dirt Cutter. He's on a hot seat down in Tampa Bay. That's a guy that Malarkey's worked with in the past. That could be one of your names that you see, but would the offense be different?

We don't think so. It's still going to have Malarkey's fingerprints all over it. So maybe a solution, and maybe starting even this week, something they could do is let Malarkey call the plays. Maybe you put Hrabisky, you keep him in the box, and you strip him of that play-calling ability. Maybe that changes things. Maybe Malarkey gives a fresh perspective,

gives a fresh flow to the game. Something needs to change. You can't go score seven points. How on earth you ruin Marcus Mariota, who looks like he was on his way to being an all-world quarterback last year, I'll never know. Something's gone wrong. We've said all year it starts with a run game. In turn, it looks like it's broken Marcus Mariota. So something's got to change. I don't have a lot of confidence in these last three games offensively, which is not what I thought I'd be saying at this point in the season.

But, yeah, I'm totally with you. If Aaron Hrabiski isn't going to do much on the surface, you're still going to see the same system. You're going to see the same plan of attack. You're probably still going to see the same exotic smash mouse trick plays. You're going to see run, run, pass. So I'm totally with that thought. If you want change, you're going to have to get Malarkey out.

And, you know, it's tough because Malarkey, for all the crap that we gave him when he was hired, I feel like he's put together a pretty good culture in the locker room, a pretty good attitude around this team. I'm not sure there's a better locker room in the NFL. You know, just seeing with how these guys interact with each other and kind of following this team closely. But at the end of the day, if you're not getting it done on the field,

that's really all that matters. Yeah, I think you're 100% right on a couple things there. Number one, don't be surprised if at the end of the year, Dirk Cutter gets fired in Tampa, Terry Biscay gets fired here, and Dirk Cutter's your Titans offensive coordinator next year. Just remember that you heard that here. That was something that Terry brought up, like he said, before we went on, and I think he's spot on with that.

Secondly, I agree with the culture. I agree with what the locker room is. I think that's a huge swing from where it was under Munchak even, but especially under Wisenhunt. Delaney Walker has said things before Mike Malarkey became the coach about how, you know, they finally got rid of the guys that didn't want to be here, that didn't care about winning and those kind of stuff. And he never came out and, you know, called any names or whatever.

But just talking about how the culture in the locker room wasn't good. He's done a good job there, and his record is good. I mean, look, I'm not going to count the interim record for him, but 9-7 last year, 8-5 at this point this year. No, what are we? 8-5. 8-5, yeah, that's right. 8-5 at this point this year, so that's a solid record.

You've got to be happy with that as far as what this team was two or three years ago to be where they are now. So it's hard to argue with that. But you've got to look a little bit deeper, obviously, and you've got to look at your franchise quarterback and where he is in year three and how far down he's gone. And that's a bigger conversation for a different day. Look at Derek Carr and what's going on with him this year.

Those guys had similar injuries at the end of the year last year. He's struggling. Mariota struggles. I think there's more to it than just play calling, just the system. But I don't think the system is doing Mariota or anybody else any favors at this point. All right, so coming up here in a sec, we're going to talk a little bit about what Mike Malarkey had to say today and kind of the injury outlook going forward for the Titans. Okay, so Mike Malarkey did a conference call today like i mentioned uh in the beginning uh because the the team is in arizona still um the the biggest news

obviously were the injury updates on marcus and on taylor lejuan uh marcus is a knee sprain was what mike malarkey called it today Doesn't anticipate him missing any practice this week. He's going to play. And I don't know how much it affected him in the game on Sunday, but I think you didn't see him moving around as much after that happened. But, again, he hasn't moved around as much this year in general anyway. So I'm not sure how much it affected him, but he does seem to just kind of have a few lingering things that are affecting him a little bit.

Taylor LeJuan was having back spasms, and apparently he kind of woke up with the problem on Sunday morning, tried to play through it, wasn't able to, but they don't anticipate that being a long-term thing. Marky said he'll probably even practice on Wednesday. So that's obviously really good news because we talked about, you know, how much this Titans offensive line has struggled this year. They're obviously a lot worse if Taylor LeJuan is not out there.

So, you know, good news on those two fronts. And then Derek Morgan, he still says he doesn't anticipate him practicing on Wednesday. So, I mean, I don't know. Hopefully there's a chance he can get back for this game. You know, the pass rush was actually pretty good on Sunday. They were able to get after Blaine Gabbert. But obviously, you know, the lack of depth at that position, they need him back out there as soon as they can get him back.

Yeah, and on Mariota real quick, Marky kind of, I don't want to say used it as a crutch, but he kind of sort of did on the Mariota injury. He said it kind of affected play calling. It affected, you know, some plays that they could call. And I'm sure it did to a certain point. It probably took the RPO stuff out of it, took the read option stuff out of it. So, you know, just watching from afar, it kind of looked like he was,

he wasn't really favoring it, but you kind of saw him lose his mechanics. He wasn't stepping into things. He flat-footed in the pocket, doing some of his old habits that have caused him to be inaccurate. So you just wonder how healthy is Marcus Mariota. And that's the X factor in all this Mariota talk. We just don't know how healthy he is. It seems like he's been banged up all year uh so just you know privately to me to myself i wonder if there's

not something more to that yeah and at some point like you said that they do it doesn't they kind of lean on it a little bit everybody at at the NFL at this point is banged up. Look at guys like Matthew Stafford this past weekend. He had a hand injury. They were concerned he wasn't going to be able to play through, and he went out and threw for 300 yards. Dak Prescott had a similar deal, and he goes out there and plays well. So, I mean, you've got to be able to play through some of that stuff,

and at some point you can't use that as an excuse for for underperformance and again look you know it's funny i've been i think both of us really have been painted as you know apologists for marcus mariota and i think that you know i think he deserves some rope i think we saw last year what he's capable of doing um and so i i think that i don't know i'm making excuses for him maybe maybe i'd do that but i just i i defend him against the people that are like he's trash and we need to get somebody else like that that's ridiculous to me and and i don't care that's why it's gonna take like yeah it's gonna take another season of this before i'm looking at entertaining the thought of you know spinning, spinning a first-round pick on another quarterback, okay? So we're a long way away from that,

even if he doesn't improve over the next three games. Because honestly, I don't think he's going to very much because this is just broken right now. We've talked about that. You wrote a post about it today. I mean, if there was some easy fix, which I guess Marcus alluded to after the game, but, like, they thought the problems to fix were simpler or whatever. But if that were really the case, they would have fixed them by now.

There's something else going on here. Yeah, and that's what I wrote today. I've watched every snap of his career from 2015, 2016 twice. I've watched it live on Sundays. I've watched it back on the All-22. 2016 twice. I've watched it live on Sundays. I've watched it back on the All-22.

I just refuse to believe that this is who he is for the rest of his career. We're talking about a guy that looked off safeties, that 1, 2, 3, 4 through his reach, just quick. The dude was making no-look touchdown passes. I mean, just had linebackers and fits. So to see him go out there and lock on to his first receiver and look like Jake Locker, I just kind of reject that. And it's just hard for me to comprehend that he can't, that he's not trusting what he's seeing.

You know, he's just not seeing things develop. He's in a funk, and there's no denying that. Neither of us are denying that. But I'm firmly in the camp that he can work his way out of it. I think the people that are saying, you know, it's time to move on from Mario, it's way too early. And he deserves the benefit of the doubt. I mean, look at what he did his rookie year, his second year. Mario, it's way too early. And he deserves the benefit of the doubt.

I mean, look at what he did his rookie year, his second year. He deserves the benefit of the doubt pretty easily here. So, you know, is he going to work his way out of it in these next three games? No, he's not. I'm not sure if he works his way out of it with his coaching staff. You know, that's a very real possibility. But, you know, they're not moving on from him. So I think it's better to be patient and to look back at what he did the past two years

and kind of say, hey, he can do this. Let's just kind of ride out this rough patch here. Yeah, and that's what they're going to do. That's what they should do. But he needs to play better. He's got to get better. And I just hope we see some signs of it over these next three games. And then if we get a playoff game, whatever,

I hope we see some of that to make us feel a little bit better heading into the offseason. But like you said, his body of of work even just at this point um and you know just before this year and a year and a half or whatever it was that he played coming into this year it just it shows a different guy than what we're seeing right now so um if that makes me a marcus mariotta apologist then so be it um but i just i'm not giving up on a guy that clearly has the ability to be a franchise quarterback at this point. Because look at all the teams in the league that would give anything to have Marcus Mariota. Look at how much trouble teams are having finding franchise quarterbacks.

You don't just give up on a guy who's gone through a rough stretch of games. So anyway, that's kind of where we are on that. All right, so tomorrow we will be back. We will kind of reset the playoff picture a little bit because, you know, like we said, I don't know where this team is going to end up record-wise at this point, but they still are, you know, holding the number five seed in the playoffs right now, the first wild card team.

So there's still obviously a lot to play for. so we'll talk a little bit more about that tomorrow terry anything else before we get out draft season right around the corner terry's all about drafting i'm not quite there yet um but you know we're if you know you lost on sunday we'll be squarely in that camp but anyway so we're back tomorrow. Thank you so much for listening. Again, please subscribe to the podcast on whatever platform you use to get your podcasts. That really helps us out. And like I said, you'll get the new episodes as soon as they become available. Follow us on Twitter.

I'm jmorrismcm. Terry is at tlembertfb. And we write from ucmiracles.com. So check that out. We'll have a lot more on the Titans and on this game and on the game Sunday in San Francisco throughout the week, so check us out there. Thanks for listening to Locked on Titans, and we will talk to you tomorrow.