Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Playoff Wednesday! Titans Window Closing, Rewatch Wednesday Notes on Ravens & Texans

Episode Date: January 6, 2021

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You are Locked On Titans, your daily Tennessee Titans podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome to the Locked On Titans podcast. I am your host, Tyler Rowland. Titans fans, this Playoff Wednesday edition of the Locked On Titans podcast starts with an admission. You may have noticed already listening to the show every day, but if you haven't, I'm here to come clean. I have an addiction to alliteration.

Tic-Tac Tuesdays, Rewatch Wednesdays, Football Fridays. This issue runs deep and it is not new. I've always had an odd fascination with language. I was a journalism major in college, and those closest to me may even describe me as the grammar police. But this curse that I bear is also a blessing for us today on the Locked on Titans podcast because segment number one is going to be window Wednesday. Today, we are going to talk about the Tennessee Titans championship window and why some recent events let us know just how limited these windows in the NFL really are. So I'm going to give you some Tennessee Titans news and tie that into kind of a bigger picture

topic that we will discuss to open up today's show. And then, of course, as we always do, I couldn't leave you without some film notes to step to. We are going to have Rewatch Wednesday. Dive into my notebook for all of my additional schematic notes and my additional analysis from rewatching the coaches taped of the win over the Texans on Sunday and then we will finish off today's show with a way back Wednesday hop in the time machine and take a look at some of the things I noticed that really popped out to me

from our previous two matchups with the Baltimore Ravens so diving into a bunch of alliteration on today's show, feeding my addiction on this Playoff Wednesday edition of the Locked On Titans podcast. Let's get it! Ladies and gentlemen, it is Wednesday of a playoff week. The Tennessee Titans coaching staff and the players have moved on from celebrating that victory in Week 17 that led to an AFC South title. And as a fan base, it would make sense to do the same. But today has been all about honesty.

Today is a day for truth. And the truth is, I I've rewatched my Sam Sloman video with the Titanic music in the background about a thousand times. I keep watching the 15 minute condensed highlights of the game. Of course, I've rewatched the coaches tape multiple times as well. It is rewatch Wednesday indeed. But one thing that I thought about while watching the highlights and kind of reveling in the victory a little bit more, despite the fact that I knew in the back of my mind I needed to start scouting the Baltimore Ravens and re-watching that tape, it reminded me that these windows close quickly in the NFL.

It doesn't take long before the core of a team is broken up and they don't resemble what they once did. We saw that take place this year for the Titans. Jarrell Casey, Wesley Woodyard, Delaney Walker, Marcus Mariota, all gone. So the window closes quick, and enjoying what we're seeing and enjoying the level of football that we get to see is something that we all need to do. And speaking of that window closing quick, one of the reasons that it does is because successful people in the NFL get promotions. They get new opportunities.

And when your team is as successful as the Tennessee Titans have been for five straight years under John Robinson now, it's only a matter of time before the talent in your organization gets plucked to run others. And we're starting to see the workings of that happen. Obviously, you guys know about Arthur Smith and his demand on the coaching market right now. We talked about that in the first segment of yesterday's show. But today, we got even more information about Arthur Smith being a leading candidate at certain places and Charles Robinson even reported that most teams consider Arthur Smith the number one coaching

candidate on the market this year now there are some other reports that contradict that but what we can glean from all of this information is that clearly Arthur Smith is highly sought after as he should be if you watch the tic the Tic Tac 4 pack that I put out last evening on Twitter or circulated around Facebook, you would see everything that Arthur Smith does to put the Titans in an advantageous situation. So it makes sense that a creative offensive mind like Arthur Smith that has really come up the ranks in the NFL at every single spot you could possibly be from quality control coach to a tight ends coach, and now to an offensive coordinator.

So it makes sense that his name would be really hot this time of year, and you add that to the performance of the offense, obviously, and it makes even more sense. So Arthur Smith may be on his way out the door, but that's something that we expected. Something that may not have been expected from the Tennessee Titans is some losses that the Titans could see in the front office. There are two names for the Tennessee Titans that are under John Robinson that have been

circulating as possible GM candidates at the openings that are available. And the first name that we are going to discuss is actually someone who interviewed for one of those GM openings on Tuesday. And that is Titans director of player personnel, Monty Ossenfort. And Ossenfort hasn't been with the organization long. He was hired last offseason. He interviewed for GM openings last year, was considered a top candidate, but didn't actually get one of the spots. So John Robinson brought him on to the Titans organization.

They had familiarity from their time together in New England and Austin Ford actually had a very similar path to John Robinson he was a scout for a long time and then was the Patriots scouting director for a long time actually won three championships with New England in that sense but now it looks like he's going to be able to move forward get that GM opportunity that he's been looking for and has been grinding for for so long. Again, Monty Ossoffort's a very talented mind, but hasn't been with the Titans for very long. So although it is a big loss in terms of talent in the front office, it's not someone that has been here for quite some time.

Now on the flip side of that, someone who has been with the Titans for quite some time is the vice president of player personnel, Ryan Cowden. So the way that this works, John Robinson is the president of player personnel for the Titans. Ryan Cowden is the vice president of player personnel. And then underneath him would be Monty Austin for the director of player personnel. That's a tongue twister saying player personnel a million times.

But Ryan Cowden right now is somebody who will be considered for GM opportunities he's been John Robinson's basically second in command for all five seasons that Robinson has been with the Tennessee Titans he wasn't always the vice president of player personnel he was actually the director of player personnel and he got uh promoted in 2018 that's how Monty Austin Fort was able to kind of slide into that position under Ryan Cowden but Cowden is somebody who's going to be highly regarded on the GM market and actually Albert Breer for Sports Illustrated does a list of the GM candidates who will be hot on the market every year and he

had both of these guys on his list. And this is what he had to say about Ryan Cowden. Quote, Cowden's been GM, John Robinson's top lieutenant for five years. And Tennessee's going to finish this year with its fourth winning season in that stretch and is very much ascending. It's actually five winning seasons in that stretch, nine and seven, four years, and now 11 and five, but whatever. He's now got those five years in the office experience

and was a road scout in Carolina before them. The expectation is he'll be a very real candidate for the Washington GM job given his five years of experience having worked with Ron Rivera with the Panthers. So Cowden is somebody who's maybe not gonna go this year maybe he does but eventually in the next two off seasons Cowden's gonna get hired as a general manager so when I talk about the window closing quick it's not just players you see Ryan Tannehill's contract is gonna end two seasons after this well the Titans will probably get out of Ryan Tannehill's contract two seasons after this. Derrick Henry's contract is going to be up again in terms of guaranteed money a year

after this. A.J. Brown is going to be getting to the end of his rookie deal. Jeffrey Simmons, Rashawn Evans, Kevin Byard's second deal is going to be up. Taylor LeJuan's second deal is going to be up in the next few years. So these windows close very quickly. And not only do I tell you that to tell you to enjoy all of these moments that we're seeing but also to tell you that the Titans need to get this job done soon the Titans have basically this playoffs and probably next season and that's probably their

real window to win a Super Bowl which is what this is all about. So the Titans definitely need to have a better offseason from a player perspective than they had this year with the draft and free agency. But either way, from an optimistic side, a bright side, enjoy all of this stuff. It will be gone before you know it. And then on the pessimistic side, the Titans need to take advantage of the window that they have because this is probably the best Super Bowl window that they've had since the early 2000s for 20 years. So take advantage of it, Titans.

Let's start this playoff run. Speaking of that playoff run, we need to dive into what this Titans team is doing from an X's and O's perspective. And that means it's time for my rewatch Wednesday notes. So we're going to step into the film room, dive into my notebook, and go over everything I saw on offense and defense schematically from the Titans' victory over the Houston Texans. Before we dive into that, though, I want to tell you guys that this episode is brought

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and I will give you all of my additional analysis and my extra tidbits from rewatching the coach coaches tape multiple times since Sunday when the Titans defeated the Houston Texans. We started today's podcast talking about the Titans title window and how quickly it could close because some of the departures from the organization. One of the main departures that we talked about was Arthur Smith going on to be a head coach for another team. What makes Arthur Smith so special as a play caller and a play designer was on

display on Sunday against the Texans. We are going to start talking about what the Texans defense tried to do. So the Texans defense came out in four man fronts originally running a 4-4. They kept their base defense on the field against the Titans. Even if the Titans went to three wide receivers, the Texans said, we don't care. We're leaving three defensive linemen, four defensive linemen, three linebackers, a strong front seven. We don't care. We're not falling for your three wide receiver formations. Doesn't matter.

So that made it kind of difficult on the Titans because the Texans not only were doing that, but they were keeping their defensive formation balanced. Like I said, they were in four manman fronts starting out early in this game. So four defensive linemen and then four second-level defenders. And that makes it tough on the Titans because they want to kind of bend the formation back and forth to get an advantage. The Texans did a good job of staying balanced in those formations. But because of that, the Titans went ahead and started out with inside zone if you're going to stay balanced and not give us an advantage to the left or the right then we're just

going to run straight up the middle and the thing is in a four-man front that gives you bigger holes on the interior anyway so why do we need to go outside to find a hole when the hole is bigger on the interior so the Titans start out with inside zone. And the first Derrick Henry touchdown that we saw was inside zone. It put the Titans up 10-3. But the Texans, of course, countered. They're not going to stay doing that all day long. So they countered and started using more five-man fronts after that. Think of a traditional 3-4 alignment.

So they started going with more five-man fronts, and it makes it difficult to run outside zone, and it makes it difficult to run outside zone. Now it makes it difficult to run inside zone there because now you have more people on the line of scrimmage. The holes aren't as big between the defensive linemen. It can make it more difficult to run outside zone as well because the whole point of the Titans outside zone is for either the guard in the center one way or the other to do a combo block. We've talked about that a lot. They double team one defensive lineman,

and then one of them get up to the second level after the job is done on the line of scrimmage and get up to a linebacker, a combo block. You get two guys. So that's the whole point. Well, it makes it more difficult to get up to the second level when basically every offensive lineman has a defensive lineman directly ahead of them. It's going to make it more difficult to get up to the second level when basically every offensive lineman has a defensive lineman directly ahead of them. It's going to make it more difficult to accomplish that. So that's when Arthur Smith went to the fullback run because what happens is if the Texans defense

is staying balanced on both sides, think they were running eight men in the box. So a five man front with three linebackers and they're staying balanced. They're not crowding one side or the other, even if the Titans do. So, if the Texans are doing something like that, how can you create an advantage to the weak side? You're always going to have a slight advantage to the strong side, but the Texans know that, so they're putting their better run defenders on the strong side. Texans know that. So they're putting their better run defenders on the strong side. Well, how do you create an advantage to the weak side then when the Texans have four in the box?

They have four on one side, four on another. It makes it difficult for the Titans to find an advantage. Well, that's when you bring in the fullback. The fullback isn't like a tight end who's on one side or the other. The fullback's right in the middle. He can go left or right. So if you can create an advantage on one side or the other. The fullback's right in the middle. He can go left or right. So if you can create an advantage on one side or the other, and then you have the fullback, now you've knocked it out of

the park. So that's how the Titans got their second huge Derrick Henry run that set up the Ryan Tannehill rushing touchdown to put it up 31-15. After all these counters are going back and forth, and this chess game is getting played out in the run game now the titans go to outside zone with a full back and it helps eliminate the advantage the defense has created with the five man front and it was just a great job great execution on that particular play that i'm talking about that i broke down in the tic tac four pack so a great job there but that's how the kind of the chess match goes you're going to go four man on the line of scrimmage. I'll run inside. You want to keep it balanced? Okay, I'll bring in a full back that allows me to create an advantage either direction based on when the snap happens. So

that's Arthur Smith playing the chess game. Another additional 3D chess snap. The Texans were loading up the box. Loading up the box. Didn't matter the formation or personnel the Titans were running. And when you load that many people, like nine people into the box, it doesn't give you any advantage in the run game. Now, how do teams with running quarterbacks create these explosive plays? Well, when you have to account for the quarterback as a possible runner, now you give yourself an extra blocker on the play. Because if you think about Ryan Tannehill, when he's handing off the ball to Derrick Henry, he's not a blocker. So now you only have 10 versus 11. So what the Titans started doing was, they saw the way the

Texans were playing and they're like, you know what? We could probably get Tannehill loose. So what they started doing was, they went with two tight ends and then they kept Derrick Henry in the backfield, went into shotgun and ran a read option where Tannehill would go to one side of the field and the tight end that was on the other side of the formation would pull with him as a lead blocker, a train blocker. They call it a lot in read option football. So just a great job there by Arthur Smith in the passing game. the Texans did what a lot of teams do. They brought a lot of pressure, and they played a ton of man coverage, and it makes it hard because Questenberry was so, so bad.

And then once Saffold went out and Aaron Brewer was in, now you have two practice squad players playing on the offensive line in the playoffs. It's just impossible to hold it together when you, you know, when you have four quality linemen and one bad one, you can kind of make things work, use your tight ends, chip, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But when you have two non-starting caliber offensive linemen, I mean, it's going to make it incredibly difficult to accomplish anything in pass protection. And that's kind of what we saw

take place. Tannehill's not going to have a lot of time in this game against the Ravens, and I'll talk a little bit more about that in the next segment as to what the Titans need to do. On the defensive side of the ball, not going to waste a lot of time here. The Titans are terrible, whether it be the scheme, whether it be the execution, there's not a lot to like, but the Titans, opposite of the Texans, they stayed in their nickel package with five defensive backs on first and second down. That's because they were so worried about the passing game of the Texans they stayed in their nickel package with five defensive backs on first and second down That's because they were so worried about the passing game of the Texans rightfully. So Deshaun Watson completely Shredded the Titans zone defense anytime they went in zone defense. He killed him He found the mismatch whether that be going downfield and cover three whether that be going

Underneath in different zones the Titans play terrible zone defense they cover grass instead of man they don't have a lot of good instincts in my opinion in zone defense a lot of that is coaching as well but the Titans had much more success in man defense and that's how they're going to be able to win in the playoffs if they could but I will say Amani Hooker had a great game he was one of of my Titan ups. Specifically that interception he had, it came out of man coverage with a robber underneath, which is where one of the safeties or one of the linebackers plays kind of line of scrimmage, the 10 yards deep as a zone defender. And then there's usually a safety deep as well.

Well, what the Titans did there is they played man coverage across the board. And then they used Kevin Byard as a deep safety. and they used Imani Hooker as the robber underneath and Deshaun Watson didn't see him saw that it was man coverage thought he could get an out breaking route to the sideline but Imani Hooker slid underneath it so really impressed there the Titans are better in man coverage better in in cover one, robber with man. They need to focus on, they can't overly commit to those because then they're showing their hand, but it's definitely where they're going to have the most success going forward. It's their only chance they have to win a Super Bowl, essentially. Even in man coverage, though, the Titans just get cooked on crossers.

That's team's answer to man coverage for the Titans. Titans just get cooked on crossers. That's team's answer to man coverage for the Titans. The Titans don't have cornerbacks who are fast horizontally or laterally. Like Malcolm Butler is not a guy who you want going across the field. Kevin Byard and Kenny Vaccaro, while they're decent safeties, good safeties, they're not great moving across the field. They're better coming downhill. Adory Jackson is decent in that realm, but he's just been a shell of himself since coming back from almost missing the entire season. So Desmond King, he is like a Logan Ryan type. He is not the guy that you want in man coverage.

That's why they take him off the field on third downs now and bring in Christian Fulton or bring in Ty Smith or bring in Adory Jackson to play slot corner. Whatever they're doing with that rotation, they take Desmond King off the field on third downs because he's not good in pass coverage. He's not one of their better corners in pass coverage. So you consider all of that,

and that's why the Titans get killed on crossing routes when they're in man coverage. Even Kevin Byard and Kenny Vaccaro playing zone and doubling Brandon Cooks on crossing routes over the middle of the field weren't able to keep up. The Titans couldn't keep up doubling Brandon Cooks on crossing routes over the middle of the field weren't able to keep up. The Titans couldn't keep up with Brandon Cooks, even though they were double teaming him in that game. Just not a great sign.

Not a great sign. But we knew that already. So not going to dwell on that any longer. We are going to move forward into what's more important. And that is our Way Back Wednesday segment where I break down what took place schematically in the Titans' last two matchups against the Baltimore Ravens to get us ready for this playoff matchup and begin our preparation for that game. Before we get into that though, I do want to remind you guys to check out the Locked

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Use that promo code LOCKEDON, that's one word, LOCKEDON, for a 50% welcome bonus. Once again, you've got the NFL playoffs, college football national championship, college basketball, NBA. Don't sit on the sidelines anymore. Get in on the action. Don't forget, use that promo code LOCKEDON and you'll receive a 50% welcome bonus on your first deposit. BetOnline, your online sportsbook experts. We started watching the Tennessee Titans title window, talking about Arthur Smith being a leading head coach candidate, talking about Monty Austin for interviewing with the Carolina Panthers for their GM job and being a likely candidate to get a GM spot this offseason.

We also talked about Titans VP of player personnel Ryan Cowden and how he'll be a hot name on the GM market whether it be this year or next year and how all of those departures along with some player contracts coming up and expiring could change the way we view the core of this team and then we dove into my rewatch Wednesday notes talked about my additional schematic analysis from rewatching the coach's tape, talked about the Titans offense, what makes Arthur Smith so special on that side of the ball, and then talked about how the Titans defense got dismantled by the Houston Texans.

So now it is time to go into the way back Wednesday portion of our show. Let's talk about some of the schematic things I noticed from the Titans' last two matchups against the Baltimore Ravens. Number one, we are going to start with the Titans' offense. And in those games, the Ravens played a ton of man coverage or cover three. They didn't play a lot of cover two. They like to have Chuck Clark, their strong safety, down in the box. So the Ravens are going to give you a lot of cover three and a lot of man coverage. And that's where we started to see some of those adjustments by Arthur Smith on the routes. I've talked about how the Titans love to run the drift route with A.J. Brown, that end route that's about five to eight yards after the play action fake.

They like to run deep crossers off of play-action fakes as well, going from one side of the field to the other side of the field. Well, teams started to notice that. Well, the Titans started to counter against cover three, where the cornerback has the outside third of the field, and man coverage, where the cornerback has a wide receiver one-on-one. And they started faking those routes that break inside and then breaking back outside.

It's something that Arthur Smith added to the playbook. It's absolutely brilliant. Well, that was something that was big against the Ravens because of their propensity to run cover three and run man coverage. So we're going to see a lot of that probably, and I'm sure that the Ravens will be ready for that as well and will probably mix in a little bit more cover too than they have in the last two matchups.

So Tannehill needs to keep his eyes open and not get confused by that and not throw an interception into the flat. The Titans also really focused on three tight end sets and kind of like we saw from them against the Texans. They would use three tight ends, but they would vary the formations. They would use Anthony Ferkser out as a wide receiver and then have one tight end with a fullback in the backfield. They would go three tight ends to one side of the field in a traditional heavy set.

They would do one tight end on one side, one tight end on the other side, a fullback in the backfield. Heck, sometimes they'd even spread out and go completely spread formation with Derrick Henry in the slot, Anthony Ferkser out wide, Jeff Swaim at the tight end next to the offensive tackle, and then John U. Smith in the backfield. They had a ton of success in the red zone with that personnel package and varied formations. Anthony Ferkser and Jonu Smith had a lot of success in these games, if not completely

in the box score, just from what the Titans were trying to accomplish from a scheme standpoint. I will tell you that because of what the Ravens were doing on defense, the Titans really focused on inside zone early in these games against the Ravens. And that's something that we should be looking for. Again, the Ravens don't want to allow Derrick Henry to get out onto the perimeter with outside zone. So they really focused on stopping him outside, really being aggressive on the edges, shooting in with their cornerbacks and their defensive backs from the outsides so the Titans will have to be able to be successful with inside zone if they want to not be blown up by some of those plays that the Ravens defensive backs have

made in these matchups also speaking of man coverage the reason that the Ravens are running man is because they're bringing these exotic pressure concepts and then tying them in with man coverage where the assignments who's guarding who is mixed so now not only are you confusing the offensive line with an exotic pressure you're also trying to confuse the quarterback by not allowing him to know which assignments are which so the Titans are going to need to use a lot of motion on third down to identify those matchups get the Ravens out of the formation that they want to be in. Also, Arthur Smith's going to have to use a lot of bunch routes, a bunch formation, getting wide receivers tight together because it's no secret.

Not only do the Ravens like to do this anyway, but this is also what beats the Titans. Play tight man coverage and bring pressure on Ryan Tannehill. If Roger Saffold is unable to play, that's going to make it even more difficult for the Titans who really struggled last week when the Texans went to that game plan after Saffold left the game. So, kind of nervous about the Ravens are the best team in the NFL at blitzing and playing man coverage like that, and the Titans are pretty bad at stopping it even when they're healthy.

So, that is something to watch. That's a big point in this game. One thing that the Titans did do in this game to deal with that is they went with a lot more max protection and two-man routes. The Titans are leaving in the running back, leaving in the tight ends, everybody to block except two guys who run out in routes. While that can be successful if those guys get open, against the Ravens who like to run man coverage, especially on early downs,

they used man coverage. They put a cornerback on Jonu Smith. So when you have A.J. Brown running one of those routes or Corey Davis, and then Jonu Smith running one of those routes, but Jonu Smith is not covered by a linebacker or safety. He's actually covered by a cornerback. You're not going to get the type of advantage

that you need to get when you're running a two-man route. And some of the times it doesn't give Tannehill anywhere to go and that's when you see him kind of dump it out to Derrick Henry in the flat and those have made me nervous all year long that there's going to be a pick six on one of those or it's you know going to get Derrick Henry killed on one of those medicine balls or hospital balls that Ryan Tannehill would throw so those things are things to watch. They're going to need a big week from Darrington Evans, from Cam Batson, from Jonu Smith in the flats. Like I talked about, the Ravens like to run cover three, they like to run man. And when you run those coverages or you run cover four, anything like that, you don't have anybody specifically designed for the flat. So the

Titans can have some success there. The tight ends also have to have a great day, not only because of the varied formations, the heavy tight end personnel, but also because the Ravens are so aggressive coming at the edges. So the Titans will have to set firm edges in the run game, have good kickout blocks from the tight ends and the tackles. On the defensive side of the ball, the Titans are running 3-3-5 the whole time to go up against that read option attack from the Ravens. Three down linemen, three linebackers, five defensive backs. A lot of the time they'll use Desmond King as that second outside linebacker so they can keep a balanced formation on defense. So if the read option goes right or left, they're ready to go.

And the way that they play this is the outside linebackers in this 3-4 formation with 3-3-5 personnel the outside linebackers Harold Landry Desmond King you know obviously we could get Brooks Reed in this situation it doesn't matter what happens on the read option whether they give it to the running back or whether the quarterback keeps it you have the running back so you'll see the Titans outside linebacker defensive end kind of squatting down in like a basketball stance almost, like defense and basketball and sliding down the line of scrimmage because his job is to take the running back no matter what. One of the ways you beat the read option is getting rid of the confusion that it causes. If you tell the defensive

end or outside linebacker, hey, you got the running back on the handoff every single time. Well, then there's no confusion. So the quarterback can't fool that guy with the mesh. And then what you do is you have your inside linebacker scrape over the top. So the inside linebacker, no matter what, like the defensive end is going to slide in towards the middle to take that handoff. The inside linebacker, David Long or Rashawn Evans, they're going to immediately slide to the outside of the formation

like the Ravens are running a sweep just in case the quarterback keeps it. So now no matter what the quarterback decides to do, give it or keep it, that option is covered by somebody by design. So that's the Titans plan on the read option. In the most recent game against the Ravens, they did a lot more three wide receivers

than I expected to see from them. They had Nick Boyle out, one of their top tight ends, out for the game the Titans played against them earlier this year, so maybe that had something to do with it. Later on in the game, they transitioned. They said, screw it, we're going heavy tight ends, going heavy personnel, which is what the Ravens prefer to do, and they were able to get some success in the run game going once they did that. So the Titans are eventually going to have to counter that by putting four thick defensive linemen out on the field on the line of scrimmage. They're not going to be able to stay in that 3-3-5, 3-4 alignment if the Ravens do go with

two to three tight ends, and that's what they did in the last game, so I expect to see that. The Ravens really got hurt in the red zone the Titans run a specific red zone defense where they play man coverage but they have the two safeties instead of playing deep because they're in the red zone they play as hook defenders the first 10 yards away from the ball so that's what the Titans did in the red zone and they really hurt the Ravens in the red zone in the last game the Ravens were one for four in the red zone and it allowed the Titans to win that game so the Titans are going to have to get turnovers on defense they're going to have to hold the Ravens in the red zone because the Ravens are going to move up and down the field guys the Titans aren't going to stop them from doing that both the last two matchups the Ravens moved up

and down the field but the Titans were able to have success in the red zone and force a couple turnovers and that's how they were able to limit the scoring. So that's the plan again. And one thing else that I do want to mention that the Titans are going to have to be ready for. The Ravens tried to test the Titans horizontally. We're talking jet sweeps. We're talking throwing the ball out into the flat.

We're talking outside runs. And that's because the Titans are running a 3-4, but they're using a safety or a slot cornerback as one of their outside linebackers. So of course you're going to test that player in the run game running outside on the perimeter and Adore Jackson isn't a great tackler. Breon Borders was a better tackler, but Ty Smith isn't a great tackler. Christian Fulton isn't a great tackler. So it makes sense that that's where the Ravens would want to attack.

But that's going to do it for this alliteration-inspired Wednesday. We had Window Wednesday to start, had Rewatch Wednesday in the middle, and then we had Wayback Wednesday to finish. So I hope you guys enjoyed this really scheme, in-depth episode to get you ready for what lies ahead. As always, I am your host, Tyler Rowland, and this was Locked on Titans.