Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Mid-Season Review: Defense

Episode Date: November 14, 2019

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Welcome to the Locked on Titans podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Rowland. Titans fans, it's a bye week. I've officially exhausted all of my happiness from the Kansas City Chiefs game, and now I've gone into just being sad that there isn't Titans football this weekend. So because we won't have your typical Thursday preview show, we won't have your typical Friday game preview show, we're going to get a little creative here and it is week 10, week 11 of the season. We are through 10 weeks and 10 games

for the Titans. So I feel like this is a de facto middle of the season for the team. I think this is a good opportunity for us to go back through, take a look at the defense, take a look at the offense and kind of assess how each player in the units in general are playing up to this point. So that's what we're going to do today. In our first segment, we're just going to look at a general overview of the defense, look at some of the key statistics that I was able to mine for the team so far on that side of the ball. In our second segment, we are going to jump into some position reviews. So we're going to go by unit there. We're going to take a look at the linebackers first, since what a talented studly group the Titans

have at linebacker, which will be our second segment. And our third segment will be the defensive line and the secondary and talk about their impact on the game. So we'll go player by player through each unit on the defense and kind of take a review of how they played so far this season. Excited to get into all of it with you guys. Let's get it. Your Tennessee Titans lead story. With the Titans on a bye this week, it's important to go back and review how each side of the ball has played through the first 10 weeks of the season. We are going to do that today by examining some key numbers from the Titans defense to get an idea how well they've played so far and what needs to happen through the next six weeks to make sure that the Titans can make the playoffs.

First, the Titans currently rank ninth in the NFL,th best in the NFL in points per game allowed at 19.7 points. Currently sits at 18th best in the NFL in yards allowed per game at 358.5 yards given up per game. They are 21st in passing yards allowed per game at 256 and 13th best against the run, averaging 102.5 yards rushing per game allowed. Those are decent numbers, but for the Titans to be as successful as they need to be, considering where the Titans' offense is, it'll be important for those numbers, at least the yardage numbers, to come down back to the dominant levels that we saw at the beginning of the season. Some of the more specific stats. Right now, on a positive note, the Titans are ranked in the top 10 sitting at 9th best in the NFL with 27

sacks. Also on a positive note, they are 8th best in the NFL with 15 turnovers forced as a defense. But some of these numbers are not as positive and they're definitely something that's concerning. When you look at the sack numbers, as I mentioned, the Titans currently have 27 sacks on the season. That's ninth best in the NFL. But you turn and you start to look at the stats that aren't necessarily sacks. As you'll hear from a lot of coaches, sacks are a very popular stat to follow. They're a very shiny stat. It's very fun to show off your sack numbers, but oftentimes the pressure you put on the quarterback when you don't get the sack

or the hit that you get on the quarterback when you're unable to get the sack is just as effective if not more effective down to down than actually getting the quarterback on the ground. And that's where we start to see some areas of concern for this Tennessee Titans defense and some things that I've been talking about and some key themes for me throughout the entire season. So those stats are looking this way. The Titans right now only have a 20% pressure rate. That means only 20% of the time that the quarterback drops back are the Titans able to get adequate pressure on the quarterback? That's 26th worst in the NFL. So that kind of spits in the face of the sack numbers. The Titans are getting sacks,

but they're not consistently down to down putting pressure on the quarterback. Another stat that shows us that is the amount of QB knockdowns that they've had. They've only had 17 quarterback knockdowns so far. That's 30th in the NFL currently, tied for 30th. So what we see from that is that, like I said, down to down, drive to drive, the Titans are not consistently getting pressure on the quarterback, even if it means not sacking the quarterback, which is really important. As I mentioned before, sometimes the knockdowns and the hits and the pressures are actually more important than the sacks themselves because they can disrupt an offense drive to drive,

down to down. Another number that kind of echoes that is they have only knocked down the quarterback 4.6% of dropbacks. It's just not acceptable. It's not going to be enough for this Titans defense to just get sacks here and there. They're going to need to consistently get pressure to help out the defensive backs who are doing a pretty good job. And this is one thing that we do need to point out is that the Titans have only allowed opponents to score on 31.4% of their drives. That's the sixth best rate in the NFL. When you take a look at that stat and you combine it with the points per game stat and the yards per game stats and everything that we have mentioned here

what it tells you is the Titans defense is doing a really good job of bending not breaking they are giving up yards from 20 to 20 they are giving up tons of good drives to the defense but as we saw against the Kansas City Chiefs and the Titans being able to hold them to five field goals, the Titans defense is just not letting opponents score as often as you would think based on how successful some of these drives have been. That's a bend don't break mentality that we see a lot from modern NFL defenses. It's just impossible to keep offenses in the NFL today from going up and down the field. But what matters is being able to stop your opponents from scoring touchdowns, and the Titans have been able to do that. Now, they'll be more successful at becoming a more dominant defense from the 20 to the 20 if they're able to increase some of these concerning metrics that we talked about, the QB sack rate, the QB pressure

rate, the QB knockdown rate, things like that. If those can increase and the defensive line can begin to get more pressure on the quarterback, we'll see the Titans defense be as dominant as it was at the beginning of the year. That's going to do it for our general defensive review. We are going to jump into each position group next to give you guys an idea of how each individual player and group on this team is playing. Before we do jump into that though, I do want to remind you guys that Peloton has a limited time offer. Get $100 off your accessories when you purchase the Peloton bike and get a great cardio workout at home. Go to onepeloton.com and use promo code LOCKED to get started. Attention, past, present, and future MyBookie players. During Thanksgiving week, MyBookie is offering a risk-free bet on the Bears-Lions game.

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Rashawn Evans currently leads this team with 82 tackles. He's played 88% of the defensive snaps. Had a little bit of issues with some injury that caused him to miss some of those snaps, but Evans has been rock solid in the middle. He has one and a half sacks, six tackles for loss, five QB hits, a forced fumble, and then of course the fumble recovery and touchdown against the Chiefs for 53 yards. Evans has given the Titans everything they could have asked for out of their first round pick.

He's brought in physicality. He flies all over the field with his athleticism. He definitely does have a tendency to bite on play action and get a little lost in pass coverage and in zone coverage sometimes, but he's still a young player who has taken on a lot of responsibility this year, making the calls, talking to the coaches, getting people lined up. So he's just taken a massive leap on the defensive side and you couldn't be more happy about the way that Rashawn Evans has played this season. A true force in the middle of the Titans defense, and exactly what was expected when he was drafted in the first round. Jayon Brown has

missed two games with some injuries, but he has 52 tackles on the year. He has one sack, one tackle for loss. He's got three QB hits, and the biggest thing, he has six pass breakups as well. So, Jayon Brown, as we all know, wasn't expected to be a thumper in the run game. That's why we just talked about Rashawn Evans and everything that he brings. Jayon Brown is meant to be a quick twitch, fast athletic, pass coverage linebacker, and for the most part, he has gotten that done for the Titans this year. Wesley Woodyard didn't have a lot of playing time at the beginning of the season, had some games inactive due to some injuries. He's obviously an older player, a veteran who's been around the team for quite some time, but in his spot duty for Jayon Brown and when it looks like it's going to

be a rushing down and they bring in Woodyard for a little extra muscle in there, he's been pretty fantastic lately. 36 tackles. He had the sack against the Broncos in his revenge game. Three tackles for loss. Two QB hits. One forced fumble. So Woodyard has been exactly what the Titans need as a veteran, as a leader, to get some

spot snaps in there for either linebacker when they go down with injury. So very important role that Woodyard has played for the Titans this year. Lastly, I want to mention David Long. He's only played 5% of the snaps this year. Most of them came last week, but in last week's game, he had eight tackles, a tackle for loss, that big force fumble for the Rashawn Evans touchdown. He's been great on special teams this year as well. So just a really good draft pick by John Robinson. Again, another late round linebacker like Jayon Brown, who's just completely excelled. As we know, Darren Bates, Batesy, as the coaches like to call him, just a special team stud. It doesn't really feel right to talk about him in

this context. He is mostly just a special teams player. Jumping to the outside linebackers, the edge rushers here, and we have to start with Harold on a roll. Landry, 85% of the snaps he's played in all 10 games, 47 tackles, 7 sacks, 10 tackles for loss, 8 quarterback hits, a forced fumble, 2 fumble recoveries, an interception, and a pass breakup. What more could you want from the 41st pick in the draft? What an absolute steal by John Robinson. Right now, Harold Landry is in the top 15 in the NFL in sacks.

He has been phenomenal for this Titans team this year. Hopefully, he can continue that and get over the double-digit sack barrier that I really want to see him get over. Sheree Finch, only 25% of the snaps has dealt with a lot of injuries through the middle of the season. 13 tackles, two sacks, three tackles for loss, two QB hits. Want to see him get back up to speed and see him get healthy to know exactly how he can impact this team. His limited snaps haven't really given us a good idea of what he's going to be able to do going forward. Cameron Wake, only 22% of the snaps, dealt with some injuries as well, but he's had four tackles, two and a half sacks, two tackles for loss, 10 quarterback hits,

which leads the team, and the safety that he got against Baker Mayfield in week one. So as we see with the tackle numbers, obviously Wake isn't being asked to do a lot in the run game. He's being used as a situational pass rusher, which at his age does make sense. With the 10 quarterback hits and the two and a half sacks in his limited time, he has been pretty effective when he's able to be out there, even if he's not getting the quarterback to the ground. Reggie Gilbert, a really nice addition to this team and pretty excellent in run defense. Well, I don't know about excellent, but he's better at run defense as an outside linebacker than anybody else on the team except Harold Landry. He's played 31% of the snaps, 14 tackles, 1 sack, 1 tackle for loss, and 3 QB hits.

Jumping to Carlos Correa, 17 tackles, 1 sack, 2 tackles for loss, 2 quarterback hits, and 32% of the snaps. He's had the second most snaps of any player in the edge group other than Harold Landry, so he's only second to Landry there with 32, Gilbert's at 31, and he missed a few weeks at the beginning of the season. Pretty obvious that other than Harold Landry, this is an area of weakness for the Titans. They need to find a second consistent edge rusher on the other side of the field. I think that'll be somewhere that they attack in the draft and possibly in free agency as well.

Cameron Wake was a nice veteran addition, but the Titans need another stud on the edge to be able to lift this defense and lift this pass rush to another level, which goes into the stats that I talked about in our first segment. The 20% pressure rate, 26 in the NFL. The 17 quarterback knockdowns, 30th in the NFL. Those numbers need to be improved upon, and this is exactly where it needs to come from. The second edge rusher, the opposite of Harold Landry, the Titans will need to focus on that soon and put a lot of importance and a lot of weight towards that in the offseason. That's a big area of weakness right now this team needs to clean up. So that's going to do it for our review of the linebackers. Generally very happy with the linebacker group on the edges and in the middle.

Like I said, we just need another edge rusher to pair with Harold Landry to really complete this defense. So we are going to jump into our third segment where we're going to talk about the defensive backs in the interior defensive line, go over those numbers and assess how they have done so far. Before we do get into that though, I want to remind you guys that you can use your football knowledge to prove you have what it takes at mybookie.ag where they make it easy to play and even easier to get paid.

Use promo code LOCKEDON and mybookie will match 50% of your first deposit. Let's take a look at the interior defensive line before we get into the secondary. So, we're going to go by snap count here. The person on the interior defensive line with the highest percent of snaps is Daquan Jones I am his biggest fan if you follow me on Twitter at Tic Tac Titans I interact with Daquan quite a bit well he retweets my stuff which I appreciate but I like to show Daquan love he had a tumultuous beginning of his career here for the Titans, dealt with some pretty serious injuries at times. And he has come back, and since his role has basically been changed from a five-technique defensive end like Jarrell Casey

into a full-time 0-1 nose tackle. And when I say 0-1, I'm talking about the gap in the offensive line. 0 would be a regular nose tackle directly over the center. 1 would be in the one gap, which is going to be on the outside shoulder of the center. So either way, he's acting as a nose tackle in rundowns. He's even been used during, you know, Jarrell Casey's injury and why some other folks have been injured. He's been used as an interior rusher as well.

But I want to just focus on his role as a run stopper. He's been excellent holding up in run defense. He's really made an impact on this team in his 60% of his snaps. He has 28 tackles, one sack, one QB hit. I know that the numbers don't pop off the page or pop out of the speakers for you guys, but I try to make sure to retweet or myself personally break down the plays where he makes a big difference. So Daquan Jones has been fantastic this year regardless of what the numbers show. 60% of the snaps he's been out there as primarily a run defender so he's being used in a multitude of different ways and he's being asked to drop

back in coverage which is incredibly impressive for a man his size. So Daquan Jones has been an excellent player for the Titans in his role this year. Jarrell Casey who's obviously missed a few of the last games has only seen 59% of the total snaps this year. Jarrell Casey, who's obviously missed a few of the last games, has only seen 59% of the total snaps this year. He has 25 tackles, 2 sacks, 2 tackles for loss, 4 QB hits. Casey has had a disappointing season. Seems he's been banged up or just hasn't been up to snuff quite a bit. And this is something as Titans fans we had to expect.

Casey is getting older. He's been a productive player for this team for a long time. But after some time, you can't rely on him to be his prime self. I'm not saying that we need to close the book on Casey, and he's never going to be the player that he was, but it's obvious that he'll start to decline at some point in this season, maybe the beginning of that, which is why the Titans went ahead and got Jeffrey Simmons, who has only played 9% of the snaps at this time, obviously because he missed so much of the beginning of the season, but he already has 12 tackles, one sack, two tackles for loss, and a QB hit.

We've seen some of the conditioning issues that were expected happen. He came out like gangbusters in that first game and gave the four tackles, the sack, the two tackles for loss. He was fantastic, and there was no plan for him. There was no tape on him in the NFL. Well, now teams kind of understand where Jeffrey Simmons is. With Jarrell Casey being out, he's starting to see some double teams and some things that we can expect that he'll get for the rest of his career.

But with his conditioning, his football shape, his experience in the NFL, all that's kind of combining to hold him back a little bit in the last few games. So I expect Simmons to do nothing but get better and to continue to progress. And I expect a huge leap from him next year after a full training camp, full offseason with the team and some NFL experience and those vets being in his ear. But I'm really impressed with Simmons so far in his limited action. And just obviously we're going to have some ups and downs with him coming back from injury. Austin Johnson, one of the worst picks of John Robinson's era. Using a second round pick on Austin Johnson was just absolutely miserable drafting.

And John Robinson, if you had him in a private moment with some truth serum, I'm sure he would tell you how disappointed he is in that second round draft class of Kevin Dodd, Austin Johnson. And Derrick Henry's been great for the team, but when you have a second round pick, you can't absolutely whiff on two guys like he did Austin Johnson and Kevin Dodd. But Johnson does serve his purpose in the run game. He is primarily a run defender in heavy packages.

He's played 25% of the snaps and has 13 tackles. Not really much to report on there. Isaiah Mack, one of my favorite young players from the preseason. I was championing him the whole entire time saying that he should make this roster because he can be disruptive in the middle. While obviously an undrafted free agent rookie like Isaiah Mack isn't going to come out and be an all-pro immediately, I think in his limited snaps, he's done a very good job. So 20% of the snaps, as I said, four tackles, two and a half sacks. So in his limited snaps, he already has more sacks than anybody else in the interior defensive line group. One tackle for loss, two QB hits. Pretty happy with his performance so far. I expect him to get a lot better and stay with this team for a few years.

Possibly be able to replace Jarrell Casey as they do have a similar body type and play style. Matt Dickerson, not really much to write home about. One tackle, one quarterback hit, 5% of the snaps. More of a special teams player, a depth piece to help you out. Not much, like I said, to write home about there. So that is going to cover the interior defensive line. Let's get into what could possibly be the most talented group on this football team, and that is the secondary. So let's start first with the leader of the secondary, Logan Ryan. 74 tackles, second on the team, three interceptions, three forced fumbles, three and a half sacks, three tackles for locks,

six quarterback hits, 15 pass breakups, constantly being basically an extra linebacker when the Titans are in nickel package and the other team's trying to run the ball. His physicality and versatility allows him to act as a weak side linebacker. He can play slot corner. He can play safety. He can blitz. He can do anything you want on a football field, and Logan has been fantastic this year. I think he should get consideration for all pro, definitely for Pro Bowl. He's been

one of the most consistent, dynamic players on this Titans team since he was signed in the beginning of the John Robinson era. Kevin Bayard, 99% of the snaps, just like Logan Ryan, 99% of the snaps. 49 tackles for Bayard, 3 interceptions, 2 tackles for loss, 6 pass breakups. Maybe not quite the production that we've seen from Kevin throughout the previous few years of his career, but that's because teams don't want to throw to Kevin Bayard and teams don't want to challenge Kevin Bayard, whether it's the guy he's guarding in man coverage coverage which we've seen him get matched up on tight ends

and like the pass breakup he had against the Chargers and Hunter Henry fantastic play so Kevin Byard has been great this year he's just not getting thrown at as often as he had in previous years moving on to his battery mate at safety Kenny Vaccarcaro. 98% of the snaps played. 52 tackles, 2 tackles for loss, 2 quarterback hits, 3 pass breakups. Again, the versatility here. Kenny Vaccaro will come down and put his nose in the run game and smack an offensive lineman or a tight end or a wide receiver trying to block or a running back trying to find the crease. He doesn't care about being physical and putting his nose up in the action. He's also adept in man coverage and in zone coverage. He can play both.

Now, Kenny Vaccaro did struggle at times with certain tight end matchups that the Titans have had. Hunter Henry did give him a lot of problems out there. So that's something to consider. Kenny Vaccaro has never been an ace in pass coverage, but he's versatile enough in zone and man to make this defense work. And having that versatility and being able to play so many different coverages and disguise and show certain coverages and then transition to other ones pre-snap,

being able to do those things and having that continuity between the secondary is what allows this defense to have the success that it does. So Logan, Kenny, Kevin have been fantastic this year, and they've been on the field, all of them, for 98% or more of the snaps, and that's for a reason because they're versatile and they're incredibly impactful for this defense and this team. We'll move to Malcolm Butler, and obviously he's going to be out the rest of the season. He didn't play in the previous game against the Chiefs,

so his snap count numbers are a tad bit skewed, but he had played 83% of the snaps at this moment in time, which without the Chiefs game and the crazy amount of snaps that the Chiefs had last week, that's probably in the 90 range for Malcolm Butler. Basically, he wasn't getting taken off the field. Malcolm struggled at the beginning of his career as a Titan the first half of the season last year. He did struggle immensely, and he's given up a few plays in one-on-one man coverage at the beginning of this year as well, but for the most part, Malcolm Butler has been incredible for the Titans. He was one of the top cornerbacks in the league in the second half of the season last year. He single-handedly shut down Julio Jones as best as you could possibly do against the Falcons, which was a really

important win for the Titans as we see now based on how the rest of the season unfolded. So just really incredible for Malcolm. 32 tackles, two interceptions, a tackle for loss, nine pass breakups, the touchdown return against the Browns. Just really impressed with Malcolm Butler and he's gotten a little bit of a bad rap, but he's been mostly excellent and lived up to his contract. Adoree Jackson, 68% of the snaps. He obviously dealt with some injuries and missed about a game and a half. 31 tackles, two tackles for loss, five pass breakups. And although, like I said, he really had a tough assignment last week with Tyreek Hill, the fastest player in the NFL, maybe one of the fastest people on the planet. He had enough plays against Tyreek Hill where he won he won the play against Tyreek

Hill he had enough of those plays that I'm willing to call Sunday a success for Adoree Jackson he definitely had more success than he had last year and even if the numbers don't support it it's obvious from the tape I retweeted something today from Brian Baldinger who's one of the best film breakdown guys in the industry who works for NFL.com, and he was lauding Adoree Jackson for his performance on Tyreek Hill, who understandably, like I said and like the coaches have said and like anyone who knows anything about football will tell you, an incredibly difficult matchup against Tyreek Hill and his athleticism and speed. So just want to commend Adoree for his effort there. He's played pretty fantastically this year. I said this on Twitter, and it's the truth. Adoree's mistakes are loud. When he messes up, it's very clear that he messed up bad.

But what that does is it overshadows how great he is on most down-to-down, series-to-series, drive-to-drive. Adoree Jackson has been fantastic this year, and if you take out some of those big mistakes that really pop out to you, it's been pretty obvious he's been one of the better players on the team. I want to mention LaShawn Sims here, who's going to have a lot more work now that Malcolm Butler is out for the season. 15 tackles, one pass breakup, one fumble recovery, and 26% of snaps. He has been a very solid fourth corner for this Titans team for a few years now.

Expect to see him do his job. He's not the player Malcolm Butler is, but I do expect him to do his job. The last person I want to mention in the secondary as it pertains to actually playing defense is Amani Hooker. Been impressed with him. Only nine tackles on the season. No real other stats to point to. He's only played 28 percent of snaps he's being brought in and that diamond package where the the titans are going dime

with six defensive backs out on the field they'll have one linebacker or two linebackers and three defensive linemen whatever combination but they're going to have six defensive backs out on the field and Imani Hooker has been very serviceable as a rookie in that role. So really impressed by what he's able to do in limited snap this year. Do want to mention Chris Milton and Joshua Kalou. Obviously, like Mike Vrabel said in his press conference this week, they are forming an incredible tandem along with Darren Bates as just a great special teams unit and a core unit that the Titans can keep around for years to come.

So really excited for the addition of Milton this year. Really excited for the plays that Kalou has been able to make, especially, you know, the blocked field goal last week to win the game. Those are the type of plays that let those guys know that they're really part of the team and they do have a major impact on the team and that'll just push them to work even harder for their teammates. So really impressed by the entire Titans defense for the most part. Like I mentioned in the first segment, there are some things that need to be cleaned up. Some of the yardage numbers are a tad bit concerning, but when you look at the turnovers, you look at the sacks, you look at the points, you can't help but come away impressed with

this defense and excited for the future of this defense if they're able to keep people like Logan Ryan around after this offseason. So that is going to do it for today's show. I do want to let you guys know that my dogs have been acting a tad crazy today. If you heard any background noise with my pit or my B. Sean barking, I really apologize about that. I don't think that it was noticeable, but just in case any of you with bionic ears do pick that up, they were just trying to say hello. Anyways, we went over the defense as a whole in our first segment. In our second segment, we covered the linebackers outside and inside. In our third segment, we did a review of the interior defensive linemen

and the secondary for this team. Tomorrow, we will jump into the offense and make sure we break all of that down and review the offensive side of the football for you guys. Take advantage of this bye week to look back at how things have gone so far. The team sits at 5-5. The defense has been somewhat of a strength. Hopefully, they're able to build on that and get back to their more dominant ways at the beginning of the season.

As always, I am your host, Tyler Rowland, and this was Locked on Titans.