Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Reacting to Bowen/Downing Promotion, Statistical Analysis & Senior Bowl Game Standouts

Episode Date: February 1, 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, on Friday, we finally got the news that we had been waiting on since the Titans season ended against the Baltimore Ravens in the wildcard round. We finally got the announcement of who will be the offensive and defensive coordinator for your 2021 Tennessee Titans.

And boy, do the Tennessee Titans know how to ruin your weekend. Ladies and gentlemen, the offensive coordinator will be Todd Downing. He will be promoted from tight ends coach. And that hiring is okay. And then the real kicker came just a few hours later on Friday afternoon. And that was Shane Bowen, the outside linebacker coach for the Titans, being promoted officially this time to defensive coordinator. And when I tell you that I was disappointed, I am thoroughly under-exaggerating how I feel. I've gone through an emotional gauntlet over the weekend.

Ups and downs, manic rage, nihilism, depression, denial, all of it. After hearing this news on what we should consider a Friday news dump. This was choreographed to come out at this time to take away as much pressure as possible and as much heat from the organization. So we are going to talk about those two hires today. What else would we focus on? I'm going to start out just giving you my broad thoughts on the hires, what I think they mean, what I think they mean for the direction of the Tennessee Titans, and of course, have to bring up the Twitter conversation that's taken place over the last week to 10 days that has painted me as some joker-like

crazy person for my concerns, only for my concerns to be fully realized on Friday. So I think a lot of people maybe owe me an apology, but I won't wait on that forever. But we are diving into these two hires today. Like I said, what they mean for the Titans going forward. these two hires today, like I said, what they mean for the Titans going forward. After we thoroughly break down the hiring of Todd Downing and the hiring of Shane Bowen or the promotion of those two guys, after we are through with that, we will take a look at the Senior Bowl that did take place on Saturday and go through a quick recap of the top performers from the game.

So a lot to dive into on this Monday edition of the Locked On Titans podcast. Let's get it. To think, I woke up on Friday morning excited to watch the Senior Bowl on Saturday, ready to have a peaceful, casual weekend. No football on this weekend, kind of reset, clean the house, take care of any loose ends. I was really excited for the kind of peace that I may be able to enjoy, but the Tennessee Titans woke up on Friday morning and they chose violence and they cut off any chance at a peaceful weekend very early on when they announced the

promotion of tight ends coach Todd Downing to offensive coordinator and more disappointing, the promotion of outside linebacker coach Shane Bowen to defensive coordinator. And my big takeaway here, one of the first things that I want to mention is the timing of these announcements. And there is a term in the industry called a Friday news dump. And first off, what a Friday news dump is, is when a corporation or in sports, a team will release important news late on a Friday or on a Friday afternoon or just on Friday in general.

And the reason for that is sports talk and sports discussion, while a lot of sports take place on the weekend, the prime time for sports discussion is at the beginning of the week, coming in off the weekend. Everybody's ready to talk about all the sports that took place. Well, if you drop your news on a Friday, there's the chance that all of the other news of the weekend kind of flushes it away. If you announce the coordinator hires on a Monday, that gives plenty of opportunity for your decisions and your moves

to be criticized in the media by local media sports talk. So a lot of teams and corporations in general will release negative news on a Friday afternoon or on a Friday in general and hoping that it gets washed away as I mentioned. And make no mistake, that's what the Titans tried to do here. And it's even more obvious when you consider that Todd Downing's hiring as the offensive coordinator took place earlier in the morning, and then the Shane Bowen news, which is much more damaging and much more divisive, took place much later in the day and into the afternoon. So not only did the Titans use a Friday news dump to announce both hires, but they coordinated

so that the Shane Bowen announcement would possibly have a chance of getting washed away even more. And there's a reason for that. I mean, we're going to dive into the pros and cons, well, mostly cons, at least with Bowen, of each hire in our second segment. But overall, it just, it's concerning to see that the Titans, and we did get reports about outside names that the Titans were looking at. They talked to Tony Elliott, the offensive coordinator from Clemson.

They clearly talked to Pep Hamilton, who was the quarterback coach for the, I almost said San Diego because that's just where they should be. The Los Angeles Chargers ultimately took a position with the Houston Texans, not the offensive coordinator position, but the Titans did talk to outside candidates. And you look at, you know, on defense, the Titans talked to Dean Pease about coming back. The Titans talked to Terrell Austin about joining the staff.

And the Titans didn't ultimately go with any outside candidates. And that's concerning for me from a larger perspective of is Mike Vrabel going to give any kind of control or give any kind of respect to an outside candidate to come in here and actually run what they run or is Mike Vrabel just going to have his thumb over everything and say hey you have to run what I want you to run. And let me tell you one thing. I've talked all week leading up to that decision about how Mike Vrabel wanted control over the defense, so much control, and having an ego and thinking, no, what I have in-house is good enough. No, the coaches that we have in-house are good enough.

That's an ego thing. You got to look yourself in the mirror and realize the truth that maybe we need some outside help. Maybe somebody outside this building needs to come in with some fresh ideas and maybe I need to listen to an outside source. Well, these hires reinforce my concern that Mike Rabel's ego is getting in the way here. No, Shane Bowen's good enough. That's my coach. That's my guy. And Jim Wyatt even said this over the weekend in an article that Mike Vrabel wanted someone to come in and run his defense, not their defense.

Again, no, my defense is good enough. No, my coaching staff is already good enough. We have everything we need in this building. We don't need anything else. Well, one, what you're doing by saying that and by making that claim, you're putting a lot of pressure on John Robinson saying, hey, the coaches we have in this building are the right coaches. It's the players that were the problem.

We need better players to run this defense. Shane Bowen did a good job. He needs better players, and then he'll be better. That's basically what you're saying. Also, not only does it put the pressure on John Robinson, but it puts the pressure on the players. You're basically saying, hey, it wasn't Shane Bowen's fault last year. It was the players' fault.

And to me, that's ego-driven. And then not bringing in, so his reasoning for hiring internal is ego- ego driven talking about Mike Vrabel and then the candidates that he selects show that he wants a large amount of control over what happens and he doesn't want to adequately listen or give you know enough control and respect to someone else. These are valid concerns now. And it's funny watching everybody on Titan's Twitter call me crazy all week long.

And then when the announcements got announced on Friday that these were the two hires, all of a sudden, okay, it's okay to panic. Okay, now we're allowed to be concerned about Vrabel's hires. Yeah, I tried to tell you all week the writing was on the wall. Also, I want to say a lot of people said this Bowen hire was to be expected. I'm sorry, but if you watched the Tennessee Titans defense last year and it was your expectation that Shane Bowen would get hired,

then your expectations are simply too low for this Tennessee Titans football team. So I have to say overall, the Todd Downing hire, I'm not upset about. That makes sense. The continuity on offense, I can at least buy that. But on the flip side, the Shane Bowen hire, it's negligence. It's malpractice from Mike Vrabel. And we'll talk a little bit more about each of those individual hires next. Before we do, though, I want to tell you guys about TurboTax Live.

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picture of my dog on Twitter this weekend, that is something that I may have to consider. But whether you want to file with the help of an expert or let an expert file for you, TurboTax Live tax experts give you the confidence to know that your uniquely you taxes are done right. Into it TurboTax Live. You know, a lot of you guys were reaching out to me on Friday when the news broke, talking about, you know, you're excited for a Roland's rant, excited for me to kind of go crazy on the podcast. And I got to tell you, I'm actually pretty happy that the news happened on Friday and that I had a chance to kind of cool down, think about things, process, go through all the different little emotions.

I started out in just a manic rage. I was just in a terror, basically. That kind of slowly moved into a slight dull of nihilism. You know, nothing matters. Doesn't matter anyway. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's just a game. You know, telling myself those simple things. I moved to just a boiling frustration, and that's kind of where I'm at right now.

But with my body, my mind, my soul, my general well-being in mind, I'm going to talk about the Todd Downing hire first here to kind of dive into some things. So Todd Downing has been a coach in the NFL, an assistant offensive coach for a really long time. So, you know, a ton of experience, especially for a young guy. Todd Downing is still only 40 years old. So he's had a lot of experience, like I said, for being such a young guy. And that's valuable. and obviously you got the the pro here of being a tight ends coach we get a similar thing with Arthur Smith the tight ends coach is involved in in the run game planning he's involved in the passing game planning so

there's a lot there and there is some positive history here with Todd Downing at least how he's viewed I remember back in 2017 if you go back with me, the Oakland Raiders had Bill Musgrave on their staff as their offensive coordinator coming out of the 2016 season. They let Musgrave go so that they could promote Todd Downing, and per Ted Wynn, who covers the Raiders and has for a long time, basically the reason that they did that is because they valued Downing, and they didn't want because they valued Downing and they didn't want anybody to poach him. They didn't want anybody to be able to hire him as their offensive coordinator. So, you know, he was valued previously before, as I mentioned, he was an NFL assistant

for six different coaches. But that year in Oakland, well, you know, they were in Oakland at the time, is kind of the year that we're going to look at the most. And let's talk about the pros and the cons here, at least statistically. So yards per play, they were in the top half of the league in 2017, 13th to be exact with 5.4 yards per play. Now, they were only the 16th best passing offense in the NFL and the 25th best rushing offense. So that's a little concerning there weren't great at scoring points either only 18.8 points per game that was 23rd in the NFL

that season they were 7th best in the red zone though that's very encouraging 58.8 percent touchdown rate in the red zone and they were pretty solid on third downs as well 40.2 percent conversion rate on third downs that was 11th best they were the 13th best overall offense per DVOA from football outsiders and then here's a stat that two stats that are kind of deeper stats than those those are just your general basic statistics but two stats that really caught my eye that are kind of off the beaten path here with Downing's offense. They were 30th in play-action usage. Now, you could tie that to they were the 25th best rushing offense. So if you can't run the ball, then play-action isn't going to be as effective.

But to be 30th in play-action usage, you also have to have a propensity to not run play action. And with this Titans offense being so heavily based on play action, you got to hope that Todd Downing doesn't bring that play action usage or reluctance to use play action over into the Titans offense as they need that. But one thing I want to see added into the Titans offense is more RPO elements. And that's something that Downing did incorporate into the Raiders offense with success so in 2017 the Raiders were the second best offense in the NFL in yards per attempt on RPO so they averaged 8.8 yards per attempt on RPO

throws so that's a that's a positive sign for me. I want to see more spread and more RPO elements added into this offense while not taking away from the foundation that is the outside zone run, the inside zone run, and then the bootlegs that go off of that. So I want to see some additions build on the foundation that Arthur Smith has laid, that Matt LaFleur has laid. One other positive here from Downing is only 24 sacks were allowed that year. Now, to color things more negatively, though,

the Raiders dropped from the 7th best scoring offense in the NFL in 2016 to 23rd in 2017 under Downing. They also dropped from 6th to 17th in yards per game. And Derek Carr had his second lowest career quarterback rating with an 86.4. So definitely some major regression from the Raiders offense from 2016 to 2017. Now there are personnel reasons for that about the offensive line,

the running back with Marshawn Lynch being on his last legs. You can make all the excuses you want, but mixed results when Todd Downing has run his own offense, hopefully with the talent on the Titans offense and the foundation that's already been laid schematically by Arthur Smith and LeFleur, that'll allow Downing to have more success than he had with the Raiders. So continuity on that one, I'm not very upset. I wanted somebody who could come in and add some more RPO elements to this offense. Downing had some success with that with the Raiders. So if you add continuity, you add his shown experience with using RPOs, I can be pretty happy.

While it's not a hit out of the park, in my opinion, I'm also not upset about that hire. Now on the other side, Shane Bowen. Last year, the Titans defense. Third worst in the NFL with 19 sacks, and they had four in the last game that put them in a position to not be in last place. 17.6% pressure rate, second worst in the NFL. 277 pass yards per game allowed fourth worst in the NFL 120 rushing yards a game allowed that's 19th in the NFL 27.4 points per game allowed that's 24th worst in the NFL 69.2 red zone touchdown percentage allowed that's third worst in the NFL 51.9 percent on third down allowing opponents to convert for first downs that's worst in the NFL 51.9% on third down allowing opponents to convert for first downs that's worst in the NFL

who reads that looks at that and says I want more not to mention the Titans players all year long talked about communication issues in their press conferences talked about communication talked about alignment issues guys being too far off the line of scrimmage, the rushing or the blitz packages not pairing with the coverage alignment. You want more? You want more of that, Mike Vrabel? See, this is where the ego and the control comes in and is a huge factor. Mike Vrabel didn't want another man to come in and maybe run a different defense than his

because he thinks his defense is good enough. His scheme is good enough. See, Mike Vrabel needs to quit thinking that he's a defensive guy defense than his because he thinks his defense is good enough. His scheme is good enough. See, Mike Vrabel needs to quit thinking that he's a defensive guy and thinking that this is a Buffalo Bills alignment where he's Sean McDermott as the head coach and he could have a really good offensive coordinator like a Brian Dable, but he's going to run the defense and he needs to get into more of a Jim Harbaugh, John Harbaugh, sorry, John Harbaugh mindset, where he is a leader of men, a CEO type, and he's got a great offensive coordinator and a great schematic. The Titans are going to need good schematic coordinators going forward

because Mike Vrabel isn't that, but Mike Vrabel still thinks he is. Mike Vrabel still sees him as a defensive schematic guy. So why would he bring in a defensive coordinator who's going to run his own system? Mike Vrabel wants somebody to run his system. And Jim Wyatt, state-sponsored media, even said that this week. I mean, this is just a colossal

failure, and my biggest concern is how did John Robinson let this happen? Where are you, J-Rob? I mean, I got more faith in J-Rob than anybody else in the entire football landscape for the Titans. I'm riding it out with J-Rob no matter what. And for the record, I think Mike Vrabel is a top eight head coach in the NFL. His pros definitely outweigh his cons.

But one of his cons is his ego and the fact that he thinks he's a defensive-minded coach and the fact that he didn't's a defensive-minded coach, and the fact that he didn't think he needed to hire somebody outside the organization, he can have Shane Bowen just elevate after the crap we saw last year so that someone can continue to run his defense and he can tell them what to do at any point in turn. This was an ego-driven hire,

and it's going to hurt the Tennessee Titans in the long run unless, to finish things out, unless I'm completely wrong, unless Shane Bowen has the ability to improve, which he could. Shane Bowen could just learn from his mistakes. He could get better. He could understand what he's done. He could make adjustments, and the Titans' defense could improve. The Titans just need an average defense to take advantage of how good this offense is.

So maybe I'm 100% wrong about Shane Bowen and maybe he changes the way he eats, changes the way he lives and maybe he turns into a decent defensive coordinator but there's a reason the Titans dumped that defensive coordinator news on Friday afternoon. Anybody putting a positive spin on the Shane Bowen announcement you can't trust their analysis we could all be wrong and Shane Bowen can end up improving and be a good defensive coordinator

but there is zero reason right now to be satisfied with this hire and that's how I feel so that's going to do it for my thoughts on the hiring of Todd Downing and Shane Bowen as the two coordinators for the Titans. It is what it is now, and we've got to move forward towards taking a look at how to make the team better and how to improve the roster itself. One of the ways that the Titans could do that is drafting some prospects that were playing in the Senior Bowl on Saturday.

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Let's cap off this Monday edition of the Locked on Titans podcast. Tap off this Monday edition of the Locked on Titans podcast. Now, typically, we would have a Monday mailbag, but with the big news over the weekend, just felt like it was good to dive into that, and we'll be back. I'll save all of your guys' questions for next Monday. We will have a Monday mailbag next week. I promise you that. And speaking of that, if you do want to get your question into me

for next week's Monday Mailbag, you can do that a couple of different ways. Number one, follow me on Twitter at TicTacTitans and tag me in a post, ask your question, and I'll make sure to read it. Also, you can go on Apple iTunes, leave a review, hopefully five-star review, put your question in there. I'll make sure to give you a shout- out and read and respond to your question as well. So that's two different ways.

Also, while you're doing all of that, make sure that you go to the brand new Locked on Titans Facebook page. Make sure to like the page, follow me there, be putting up all kinds of good content and video content and different things. Going to really start expanding on the Locked on Titans Facebook page. So make sure that you're over there. And then ultimately, if you're going to give me a review, if you're going to follow me on Twitter, if you're going to like the Facebook, how could you not subscribe to the Locked

on Titans podcast on whatever platform you do stream, whether that be Apple iTunes, following on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, whatever platform it is, you can find the Locked On Titans podcast there. I am going to be bringing you guys Monday through Friday Tennessee Titans content throughout the entire offseason. Going to be getting into some schematic film-driven breakdowns of Todd Downing's offense from Oakland going forward throughout the weekend. Also start to get heavy into some NFL draft coverage.

Breaking down different position groups for the NFL draft. So make sure that you're locked in here with us at the Locked on Titans podcast. On whatever platform you do stream. But quickly just taking a look at the results from the Senior Bowl. I mean the game is the least important thing that takes place throughout the entire week. The practices are really what the entree is. And the game is mostly just a dessert, but the Miami Dolphins coach team, the national team, did win the game 27-24 over the Carolina Panthers coach team, the American team. Some of the standouts

from the game, quarterback Kellen Mond from Texas A&M went 13-25, had 173 yards and two touchdowns. Daniel Jeremiah even said on the broadcast that he's making himself quite a bit of money today. Now, Mond isn't going to be one of these quarterbacks that goes high in the draft, but he could have secured himself as a late mid-rounder. Fourth, fifth round, heck, even sixth round is going to give himself a good amount of cash over being a seventh-rounder or an undrafted free agent so good for Kellen Maughan had a really solid day one of the guys that he was throwing to was Dez Fitzpatrick from Louisville he had six catches for 90 yards an impressive showing out there of

course it's it the game like I said is the least important thing of the day the practices are what matter most but doing it in a game setting certainly won't hurt your draft stock. At the running back position, Michael Carter from North Carolina had a really good week of practice as well. Was able to rush for 60 yards, caught two passes out of the backfield for 15 yards, so displayed some versatility. A pretty good game for him to showcase his skills. On the defensive side of the ball, the defensive line saw a lot of really good defensive line play in this game, but the biggest standout was Cam Sample from Tulane he had seven tackles was involved in a sack as well although he didn't get full credit for the sack speaking of getting full credit for the sack though you did have Janarius Robinson he had five tackles on the day

had one and a half sacks and then in the backfield, you had Keith Taylor Jr. from Washington who maybe had one of the better days as a defensive back at the Senior Bowl in recent memory. So those were some of the standouts from the game itself. Last week on Friday, I talked to you guys about some of the standouts from the week of practice. Remember that 12 of John Robinson's 35 draft picks had some association with the Senior Bowl, so expect some of the players that participated in this week of practice and some of the players who participated in the game to be squarely on the Tennessee Titans radar. Now one thing to mention, 28 of the 134 players who attended did not actually participate in the

game due to being banged up during practice or whatever reason so that kind of limits the exposure and limits the quality of the game but there were some diamonds to find in there nonetheless but I hope you guys enjoyed your weekend even after we got the news of Shane Bowen being hired as the defensive coordinator I'm gonna try to be optimistic guys but it but it's very, very difficult. Ultimately, where I come down on is all of these people online telling me that I'm crazy for having concerns about Vrabel's ego, having concerns about the coordinator hiring process. Now you guys kind of see how it had more to do with, you know, trying to act like my opinion in the situation isn't valid than it had to do with the actual act like my opinion in the situation isn't valid

than it had to do with the actual situation itself because anybody who's given you fair analysis and has a fair view of this team and isn't colored by homerism and wearing two-tone blue glasses can clearly see that Mike Vrabel's need for control over the defense and his ego, his inflation of what his own coaching staff is capable of is squarely hurting the Titans in their hiring process this time so hopefully we're all wrong Shane Bowen can improve and the Titans defense can find its way to even just slightly below average

rather than absolutely worst in the NFL level defense I know it's not a positive way to end the show but guys I'm just having a hard time getting excited about the Shane Bowen news. Hopefully, as we dive into the schematic analysis of Todd Downing's offense in Oakland, that can boost our spirits. But that's going to do it for me today. As always, I am your host, Tyler Rowland,

and this was Locked on Titans.