Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - NFL Scouting Combine Schedule, What Does A GM Look For & Friday Mailbag

Episode Date: February 21, 2020

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Welcome to the Locked on Titans podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Rowland, Titans fans. We have a jam-packed Friday episode to get to. The Combine officially kicks off on Sunday when the first group of players arrives in Indianapolis. So I'm going to tell you guys what happens each day, the exact schedule for the players, when you can be watching on television for some of the on-field drills, when you can be watching on television for some of the on-field drills, what some of those drills are,

and ultimately why the combine is so important to the draft process. So we are going to do that. And then we are going to go over an awesome article that John Glennon did for The Athletic with John Robinson talking about what he looks for from each position and what drills he focuses on for each position at the combine really great article there want to make sure that you guys get all of the insights from that from john robinson as what he looks at probably be a good idea for all of us to look at as well and then it is friday so to send us off into the weekend, we are going to jump into a Friday mailbag. You guys sent me some good questions on Twitter, at Tic Tac Titans, on Facebook, in the reviews.

So I want to make sure that I get to all of those. Jam-packed episode, like I said. So let's get it. While the on-field drills don't actually begin to take place until Thursday of next week, the NFL scouting combine officially opens on Sunday when the first group of players arrives in Indianapolis and does not finish until Monday, March 2nd when the last group of players departs from Indianapolis. The NFL has four different groupings of players that they run through a six-day schedule at the Combine to make sure things move as efficiently as possible.

Those four groups are broken up like this. The first group is tight ends, quarterbacks, and wide receivers. The second group is place kickers, special teams players,, quarterbacks, and wide receivers. The second group is place kickers, special teams players, offensive linemen, and running backs. The third group is defensive linemen and linebackers, and the final group is defensive backs. So they will start the tight ends, quarterbacks, and wide receivers first, and they will arrive in Indianapolis on Sunday, go through registration and orientation, which if you have ever started at a new school, gone to college, started a new job, you know exactly how tedious and frustrating that process

can be, but the players will do that and then head immediately into interviews with teams. They will wake up on day two. They will have their measurements taken. They will do a pre-exam at a hospital for their medicals, and then they will go do more interviews. And if anyone's ever been a long wait at hospitals or gotten measurements and things like that, it can also be very frustrating of a process before you have to go into the most critical interviews of your life for these players.

On day three, they do a session with the media to start. Then they go into their actual medical exams. After that, you have an interview with the position coach who will be running your drills on the field and then go into psychological testing and that's where something like the Wunderlich test would be given. On the fourth day, you have a meeting with the NFL Players Association. You go into more interviews. You do your bench press and do some more psychological testing. Then on the fifth day of the process, you finally begin your on-field workouts. After you complete all of those, you get a rest. And then the very next day, which would be the sixth day for your group, you depart from Indianapolis. So that

first group will depart on Friday, and then each group starts one day later than the next. So that'll mean that the last group will conclude on that Monday when they actually leave Indianapolis. So quite the rigorous process for these players to go through. But once they get out onto the field, you will have the ability to watch each of these groups one day after the next they have moved those so that they will be in prime time on NFL Network so starting on Thursday night with that first grouping from 4 p.m. Eastern time to 11 p.m. Eastern time you can watch all of the drills on NFL Network same on Friday same on Saturday and then Sunday which has actually been the case for previous years the drills will take place from

2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time to 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time so you can check that out like I said on NFL Network it'll be very interesting to watch all of these players live and the change to make it in prime time makes it more accessible for more people and the NFL is definitely hoping that more people will tune in because of the change. While each position does have their own specific drills to test the skills needed for that particular role, there are seven drills that every combine attendee will participate in and that is the 40-yard dash, the bench press, the vertical jump, the broad jump, the three cone drill, the 20-yard shuttle, and the 60-yard shuttle. And it should be mentioned that these drills aren't a be-all end-all for who these players are and if someone has a

slower than expected 40 time or a worse than expected bench press that it totally changes the evaluation of who they are as a player a lot of people will counter that pretty harshly and say that it doesn't matter at all but I want to tell you why the combine does matter even if it's not going to change the evaluation that you had about a player from watching the tape the tape will always reign supreme the film will always be king but what the combine does is if a guy runs a certain speed on tape and you just want to verify that he's as fast as your eyes tell you that he is you look at that 40 test you look at the 40 yard dash and you don't look at it as an individual number either you look

at it as a comparison tool. Some other guys who you thought that that speed may compare to, go back and look at their 40-yard dash. Does this current prospect match what you thought on tape and then match a comparison of a player who you thought he might be as fast as? Also, there are certain benchmarks that you historically have to hit to be able to be successful at certain positions. So you can go back in time and compare certain players' test scores to a baseline of production that you see in the NFL from certain roles. So it's really more used as a comparison tool. Take those numbers and compare them to previous outcomes from previous years and use that

as another piece in the puzzle when you are trying to figure out a prospect. So no, the combine isn't something that you should change your evaluation based on, but it's also something that you have to pay attention to, you have to give importance to, as it is a huge piece of the puzzle when you were trying to figure these complicated matters out as to who to take in the draft who can you count on and who projects to be a great NFL player or at least a decent NFL player when you're talking some of the later rounds you're looking to get some hits that John Robinson has proven he can do so speaking of John Robinson let's jump into that great article from John Glennon of The Athletic,

breaking down what John Robinson is looking for at the Scouting Combine. John Glennon of The Athletic wrote a fantastic article where he spoke with Titans General Manager John Robinson about what he looks for at the combine for each position when he does his evaluations. I wanted to make sure to bring you guys some of my highlights from that article that I think are super interesting to listen to and to get first know firsthand information from Robinson as to what he's looking for so maybe we can look for those things as well so I encourage you guys to check out that article once again by John Glennon from The Athletic so jumping into the quarterback position Robinson says that he's looking for footwork in those quarterback drills how do they

do with their pocket movement seven step rollouts each side, their touch and accuracy on the deep routes? Robinson had this to say, You're looking for their functional athleticism. They don't necessarily have to be the fastest, but they do have to have enough functional athleticism that when put under pressure, are they going to be able to escape and keep the play alive? They do a lot of movement stuff with those guys, like boots moving in the pocket so you look at that thought that was very interesting and when you think about what Robinson will be targeting for a quarterback it makes sense

that he would want to keep Ryan Tannehill around as all of the rumors do say he will looking at the running back position Robinson talked about the three cone drill, watching guys move at a high speed in and out of the cones. Some other position specific drills, when the position coach will have a bag, the running back will have to run straight at the bag. The coach moves the bag to one side. The running back has to react quickly and run to the other side and make that cut and accelerate.

Robinson likes to watch that as well. He even says, I like the cut drills where they kind of press the hole and they run, and then the coach moves the bag one way or the other. How reactive are they to the movement of a supposed linebacker making the right cut and accelerating? So that's the type of stuff that we see from Derrick Henry very well with the zone scheme that the Titans run. They have Derrick Henry press the hole, press the hole, press the hole, make a decision on where he wants to go, make one cut, and then accelerate right up the

field. So it makes sense that Robinson would be looking for that as it does match the Titans scheme. Talking about the wide receivers, he says that the 40-yard dash is obviously key. It's not going to be make or break, but it is important. They want to look at the vertical jump as it is a good indicator of explosiveness and then see how they react to the quarterback throwing them the ball in those wide receiver specific drills. Robinson has this to say about the position. I think you look at certainly their 40 time. How fast do they run? And you try to equate that to their game speed. Does it look similar? Do you need to go back and watch it So that was a very interesting quote as well as to what he's looking for from the wide receiver position. Moving on to tight ends. He talked about the different kinds of tight ends. You have tight ends who specialize in blocking, tight ends who are

more pass catchers. So you kind of got to look at those two types of tight ends differently when you're watching at the combine and Robinson echoed that with his quote here. First off, you have to look at is he really a pass catcher? Is he more of a third down or passing target type of tight end or is he more of a wide type, more of a blocker? Is the functionality of movement as a blocking tight end good enough to run a short underneath pass? Does he have the quickness to snap around and catch the football? You're not going to ask that guy if his strength is as a blocker to really run a bunch of choice routes or stretch the field or anything like that. Now the pass catching types, the F types, you're going to look more at the athleticism. Can he drop his weight in and out of his breaks? How quick does

he snap around at the top of the cone and work back down? The shuttle times are important for those guys, especially if they're running those choice routes underneath. How quickly can they get through the shuttles? More so the short shuttles than the three cone. Then to round out the offense, you look at the offensive line. Robinson says he's looking for the 10-yard dash, the first 10 yards of the 40-yard dash. Then vertical jumps are a good indicator of whether or not offensive linemen can explode out of a set stance. And then also with some of the positional specific drills that the linemen do, Robinson says he likes to check those out and see if linemen are able to flip their hips and sprint upfield. So he said that that is pretty important.

His quote here, when you get to actual on-field drills you watch their ability to change direction in the pulling drills how quickly can they get out of their stance and get around the cone can they adjust to someone holding the bag you're not necessarily looking at how they pop the bag or how much they move that person because i'd say that's not really realistic to what they're going to see in an in-game setting the drill where they flip their hips in a pass set i think is where they work straight back and flip their hips back and forth. You can see how loose their hips are, their lower body fluidity. On the defensive side of the ball, looking at the defensive line, Robinson likes to look at their vertical jump because it gives you a good idea of how they

can burst out of their stance similar to the offensive lineman and see how they uncoil from that stance and have the ability to knock an offensive lineman back. So Robinson had this to say with those guys it's really change of direction. You can't measure the power. I mean they do a couple drills where they hit the bags but that's basically useless. Can they play laterally? Do they have good footwork? Their 10 time the 10 yard dash is important too, as is their vertical jump. I think the short shuttle is a good indicator of their ability to change direction. Are they stiff in their hips? Can they bend and can they accelerate out of a squatted position and get back to full speed? So be looking for those drills for defensive linemen. If you want

to look at that the way that the Titans general manager is at the linebacker position where Robinson has had some amazing success with Evans and David Long and Harold Landry and Jayon Brown. He's looking for 40-yard dash because linebackers basically have to track back on all plays after a long run or a completed pass. you look at the short shuttle for their reaction time the quote again you can't measure the hand use the power and all that kind of stuff but just their ability to change direction for our defense can edge rushers transition and do some linebacker stuff how are they in space are their hips fluid enough to be a curl dropper and maybe break to an end cut can they wall and carry a potential tight end up the seam if you ask them to do that?

What about their ability to play a couple of different spots, maybe on the line and off the ball as a linebacker? So Robinson is clearly looking for versatility in the linebacker group, and we saw Harold Landry drop back from his edge rushing position into coverage quite a bit last year, so clearly that's something that is on the mind of Mike Rabel and John Robinson as they look for linebackers. And finally, the defensive backs, much like wide receiver, John Robinson is looking for the 40-yard dash, looking for the vertical jump,

and then looking at the position drills to see how these cornerbacks and safeties do. This was his take on defensive backs. Their change of direction is important. Their ability to put their foot in the ground and come out of a break or do they pump the pedals to try to get out of it. Vertical jump again is important. Short shuttles, stuff that shows their quickness, their explosion, all that and then ball skills. Can they track the football? Can they catch the football? When you're the only guy with all the eyes on you and the ball is up there, does it look like a marble or a beach ball? Some guys it looks like a marble and that shows pretty quick. Very interesting quotes from John Robinson. Like I said, I really,

really enjoyed this article in its totality. You get a really good sense of what Robinson is looking for from each position from his players. So I hope that you guys enjoyed the highlights from that article. Again, I implore you guys to go ahead and check that out. But I really enjoyed getting all those insights directly from the guy who was building this roster year in and year out, and quite frankly, the guy who came to Nashville and took this team out of perpetual, terrible football. So I really appreciate John Robinson in general but appreciate

getting this kind of insight from him as well we are going to round out today's show with our Friday mailbag so I'm going to come back with you guys give you guys some shout outs read your questions and then give you guys my answers to those. Friday mailbag time. Let's go into the weekend with a fun mailbag here. I asked you guys to give me some questions on Twitter at Tic Tac Titans. I'm always posting in the Facebook communities for the Titans as well. Ask for some questions there. And, of course, feel free to send in some reviews and ask me some questions in there as well,

and I will make sure to get those on the podcast. So we are going to start with a tweet from Devin Knight. Devin wanted to know what I thought about the XFL's extra point system. So I don't know if you guys have been watching the XFL. I'm the football junkie, so I can't help it. I can't help but have it on no matter what. If there's a game on, I will throw it on at least for a little bit and check it out. But the way the XFL is doing it, I do believe after you score a touchdown,

you have a choice whether to go from the one yard line for one point the three yard line for two points or you can go from the 10 yard line for three total points so one point two points and three points from the one three and ten yard line I love it I almost included it earlier in the week when I did my things I would change about the NFL segment, but I thought, you know, it's something just to take directly from the XFL like that. The NFL is never actually going to do that, so I felt like it was a little bit of an impossibility, but I absolutely love it. Devin even mentions an 18-point deficit just a two score game I really love that and more scoring more opportunities more chances for teams to come back the kicking and football is the worst

part it's the least exciting part I know you know you can have game winning kicks and things like that but I just hate when the game of football comes down to kicking so the more kicking that we can remove from the game probably the better at least for extra points and you know kick and field goals I want to see touchdowns I want to see offenses going for it that's why I even said instead of onside kicks we should try to replace that with a goal line play of some kind or a red zone play because I just want to try to take you know kicking out of the game as much as we possibly can without altering the fabric of football so really great question there from Devin next we have a question from Braxton Babbage he said no mention of Bridgewater in the

free agent QB talk pod he's better than Keenum so what gives so I went back to check out that segment because I swore swore that I talked about Teddy Bridgewater I have him in my notes I had him listed right under Phillip Rivers right above Jameis Winston figured I got every single person on my list in that first segment but ran out of time with the kind of five minute segment that I'm trying to keep the first segment to for for the Google update purposes and everything like that try to keep that to five minutes just the way that the show is expected to be structured so I guess I omitted Teddy Bridgewater well I will answer this question for you pretty simply. I like Bridgewater at a certain price. So he is per spot track.com.

He's estimated to be getting around $20 million coming off a 1300 yard passing season with nine touchdowns, two interceptions. The Saints did go five and oh in the games that he was out there as the starter. So I think, and this is going to get us into our next question as well. So that's what I think about Bridgewater. He is better than Case Keenum, of course, but Bridgewater is going to be wanting about $20 million. He's not a backup option. So I didn't mention him with Case Keenum in that second segment because Case Keenum is a backup option who the Titans

could afford while Bridgewater wants to be a starter in the NFL and like I said get around 20 million dollars but the next question comes from Ian Livingston and he asked that if we for some reason let Tannehill walk and aren't able to get Brady or Rivers what quarterback would you like to see the Titans go after to groom well I'm going to combine the last two questions into one. If somehow, someway, which I think there's just 0% chance of happening, the Titans miss out on Tannehill and Brady, I think that Teddy Bridgewater would have to be the number one choice for the Titans. I wouldn't want to see Jameis Winston.

He's too turnover prone. Dak Prescott's probably not going to hit the market. Clearly not going to get Marcus back. That's not an option. The Titans could, in that scenario, try to maybe trade for Cam Newton. See if you could pull a trade for Josh Rosen of the Dolphins just to have somebody. But if the Titans did go down that darkest timeline without Tannehill or Brady, then I would tell them to go after Teddy Bridgewater and then the quarterback that I would go draft to groom would be whichever one of those top tier quarterbacks not top tier but kind of second tier quarterbacks with Eason or Love or someone like

Anthony Gordon is someone who catches my eye the Titans might be able to get a little bit later, but if one of those, Eason or Love or maybe Herbert, happens to fall to the Titans late in the draft, which I think is definitely not likely, but if for some reason they fall and the Titans are in the darkest timeline of not having Tannehill or Brady, then yeah, I would look at one of those quarterbacks, but I'm not too enamored by any of those names

especially not as first rounders in this draft but if the Titans were put in that position I think that's the route that that they would have to go so moving to another question from Zachary Navarette here he asked how big of a hit do I think the defense is going to take from losing Dean Pease and probably and possibly losing Logan Ryan what options do you see from you know replacing Logan Ryan if we do lose him well I think the defense will take a major hit quite frankly because Logan Ryan is not just a decent player he's a great leader and I think that that matters quite a bit Dean Pease had much more experience calling plays and developing game plans than Mike Vrabel.

Now they spent two years together, so hopefully Vrabel was able to soak up as much as possible, but you have to be a little less confident in his ability to call and run a defense. So losing a top-tier corner like that, who's a great leader in the locker room, having a defensive play caller who doesn't have

very much experience even though he is the head coach I think that the Titans defense will will take a hit I don't think that we will see the flashes from them this year of being dominant like we saw at points and times last season when everyone was healthy the offense will have to pick up the slack and if we're able to bring Tannehill back and bring Henry back with Arthur Smith back, A.J. Brown in a second year, Corey Davis in a contract year, Jonu Smith finally getting an opportunity to be a full-time tight end.

I mean, the offense will have to be as good as it was last year and throughout the entire season to kind of make up for the inevitable slippage on defense. Moving to the next question there, it is coming from Ivan J. Titans Astros. He says, boy, about those Astros, nobody asked me, but I really appreciate that most of the rest of the MLB and even some NBA players and some NFL players have a lot to say about how that was handled improperly by the

commissioner Rob Manfred of the MLB so everybody thinks Goodell is bad and he definitely has his bad moments but this will be a stain on the commissioner of the MLB's legacy for the rest of time quite frankly but getting to Ivan's question he said if the Titans lose out on Tannehill and Brady who could you see them going after in free agency? So I guess I kind of answered that already with the previous question about who they would groom in free agency. I would look at Teddy Bridgewater at that point in time.

I think he would be a great option at $20 million, two years, $20 million. That way, if he was absolutely terrible, you're only on the hook for one more year after that. You can get out of it. That's really what I want with Tannehill as well. I really want Tannehill on a three to four year deal, but really just two years of guaranteed money so that if for some reason he does happen to regress and perform more like he did in Miami, then the Titans aren't committed for so long and kind of stuck for so long with that. So I'm hoping for a two-year deal, no matter, two years of guaranteed money,

no matter who the Titans end up going with as their starting quarterback. And then the last question from Twitter here comes from Colin, and he asked, did we overpay Taylor LeJuan and Kevin Bayard? Both weren't the stars last year that they were paid to be. He was just curious what I thought about that, thinking about how we could maybe use some of that money right now with all of the guys that the Titans have hitting the free agent market. And I'm going to say no, they aren't overpaid. While Bayard had to do some different things last season because of all the injuries that the Titans were facing in the secondary, he was still a rock.

And as I mentioned in some earlier shows, he came up big when it mattered most. In the playoffs, got an interception. In a lot of the big games that the Titans had to win, I think he had a ceiling interception in Week 17 against the JV Texans. So whenever it was a really big moment, and some of those games where the Titans played very, very poorly, you look at the Buffalo game, Kevin Byard is able to make a big play for this team when it matters most. So I don't think he is overpaid. LeJuan had the four-game suspension.

It took him a while to get comfortable with Roger Saffold as his left guard with the unit that he was in and the offense and the way that the plays were being called. So maybe I'm making a lot of excuses for Taylor LeJuan but once he finally got in a rhythm and once he got in a groove he was one of the best tackles in the NFL and without a suspension coming for him this year and being able to start in training camp and have the same kind of continuity with the play caller and his mates on the offensive line, I think LeJuan is going to be absolutely worth the money again this upcoming season. So I actually don't think that those guys are overpaid.

So I'm going to get into my last question here, and it comes from Facebook. We got a question from Samuel Morita. He asked me a non-football question here. Which I encourage guys. Music. Movies. Pop culture. Food. Other sports. Whatever it is that you guys want to ask me.

Feel free. But he asked me. Do I like animals? He said that he loves dogs. And then turn that into another question about the Titans. Who's the biggest dog on the team? Says he really enjoys A.J. Brown. And how he was able to kind of put Taylor LeJuan

in place at times last year. And Kevin Byard's a runner-up. Mike Vrabel is a dog as well. So thinking that a lot of the guys are learning that from Vrabel. It's something that I have mentioned quite a bit is that this team needed some more dogs. It's something that John Robinson mentioned as well. And I do think that A.J. Brown is a perfect example of how they focused more on having those guys with a with an attitude out there I think Jeffrey Simmons right now would be my number one pick I think he just plays nasty and physical and rubs guys the wrong way on the interior line as we could tell from the way Marshall Yonda felt about Jeffrey Simmons. So I think Simmons and A.J. Brown definitely have the dog in them

that this team needed, and they contributed throughout the entire season. Incredible year for those two rookies. And as for the original question about dogs, I love dogs. I think I have mentioned on the pod a few times, and maybe involuntarily when he decides to make some noise, but I have a seven-year-old dog who is named Kobe. Yes, after Kobe Bryant, rest in peace. So I love my dog to death.

I'm probably getting another dog here soon when I get more of a bigger dog. My sister has a full-grown Great Dane, huge dog that's about as big as I am. I love all kinds of dogs. I'm a big dog guy. I've been a big fan for as long as I can remember. Just the energy and the personality that dogs have really, really mesh with me. So I'm a big dog guy. I love dogs. I can't kind of help myself when I see a dog, but get really excited. So you got me on that one, as you guys can tell. I'm giddy just thinking about it. So I love my dog, Kobe.

I love all dogs. Yes, I am a dog person. And I love having some more dogs on this Tennessee Titans team. So that is going to wrap up this week's mailbag segment. We are going to get another mailbag going next week, so feel free to start getting those questions in early, whether it be on Twitter, Facebook, or on Apple Podcasts in the review. I hope you guys have enjoyed this week of content from the Locked on Titans podcast.

I'm going to be back with you guys next week. We are going to kick off the week, of course, with a mock draft Monday, barring some critical Titans news that could break over the weekend. Should have a vote on the contract negotiations between the NFL Players Association and the NFL. So we will start off the week with some mock draft Monday and some other news and then get into some combine previews as those on-field drills start to take place. And I'm sure there will be a bunch of stories leaking out of the combine from the weekend meetings and the medicals and all those different things that really matter,

like I said, to this puzzle and to this process. So I hope you guys will join me there. Make sure that you are subscribed to the show on whatever platform you do stream your podcast. So I hope you guys have a safe and enjoyable weekend. I will be back with you on Monday. As always, I am your host, Tyler Rowland, and this was Locked on Titans.