Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Spooky Thursday - Return of Succop, #TicTacTitans & Rowland's Rewind

Episode Date: October 31, 2019

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Welcome to the Locked on Titans podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Rowland. Titans fans, it is a spooky kickoff to the NFL week. Happy Halloween. I hope you guys are all enjoying the festivities. And with that in mind, we are going to focus on some scary things today on the Locked on Titans podcast. In our first segment, we are going to look at some of the mind-numbing and baffling decisions made by Coach Mike Vrabel in relation to the return of kicker Ryan Suckup and how frightening things have been for Titans fans since he's been gone for the first eight weeks of the season due to injury. down into the creaky old basement and film room and take a look at some X's and O's in Thursday's Tic Tac Titans segment. We're going to talk about the turnovers from Sunday's game and how the Titans defense was able to create them and use those to turn the game around when the offense wasn't playing so well. And then in our third segment, we are going to take a look at the frightening

last time the Titans played the Carolina Panthers. And let me tell you, it is gruesome. So we will jump into this spooky edition of the Locked on Titans podcast. Can't wait to get into all of it with you guys. Let's get it. Your Tennessee Titans lead story is the return of Pro Bowl kicker Ryan Suckup. The Tennessee Titans have activated Suckup from the injured reserve list. He was available last week and has just started practicing this week.

Look to see him in the game. It's possible that he may not have full responsibility for all of the kicking duties. He may not be involved in kickoff and maybe a distance on field goals that maybe the Titans would still look to use Cody Parkey, who is still on the roster at this moment in time. But make no mistake, Sukup's return to the Titans is a huge boon for the team, and his loss has been, as I said, frightening for the Titans so far for the first eight weeks, and it's had a trickle-down effect on the entire team, and not just on the players, but also on the coaches. If you look at the replacements for Ryan Suckup so far this year, it started out with Cairo

Santos, who clearly was not ready to take the job. He was 4-9, including the four misses against Buffalo, with a 44.4% success rate on his field goals in just five games. Quite frankly, not good enough. Cody Parkey has been 3-3 on his field goal attempts, but he did miss one of his six extra point attempts so far. Since starting his career in Tennessee, Suckup has made 116 of his 134 field goal attempts that's 86.6 percent and he's made 154 of his 163 extra points that's 94.5 percent just last year Suckup was 26 for 30 for his field goal attempts 86.7 percent and 28 of his 31 extra point attempts for 90.3

percent but more than just missing kicks like Santos did in the Colts game he missed one of his two field goals and the Titans lost by two now as I said at the time you can't completely blame the kicker for these things the Titans offense has not done its role as the Titans offense has not pulled its weight so far this season. But that is a missed field goal that you have to think Ryan Suckup would have been able to convert and the Titans maybe win that game 20 to 19 rather than losing it 19 to 17. Obviously, the four misses by Santos and Buffalo were huge. The Titans lost by seven.

The field goals there could have not only changed the score, but changed the way the game felt, which would have helped the Titans. So those are direct missed field goals that Ryan Suckup could have helped with and could have changed the trajectory of the season for the Titans. But it's not just that. Not having Ryan Suckup when you have Kyro Santos or Cody Parkey out there makes Mike Vrabel have to make certain decisions and maybe not take field goals when he would have otherwise in Jacksonville. Had enough time to kind of put some more points up on the board. In Atlanta, going for it in the fourth quarter up 14 rather than going ahead and taking the field goal and putting yourself up 17.

That's a trust-related factor to the kicker whether Mike Vrabel wants to verbalize that or not. That's an obvious factor. And we saw it last week against the Buccaneers. Rather than going ahead and taking a field goal there, the Titans run a fake on the field goal and get Brett Kern absolutely demolished. You want to talk about a horror movie? Watching Brett Kern get clotheslined right there was terrifying for the Titans. And Brett Kern's been one of their biggest weapons. So not only has the absence of Ryan Suckup hurt the Titans on the scoreboard, of Ryan Suckup hurt the Titans on the scoreboard, it's also hurt the Titans within the mental game the coaches play from game to game and down to down. So having Suckup return to the Titans,

even if in a limited capacity at first, with the idea to increase his work and increase what he's doing over time can only mean positive things for this Titans team, the coaching staff, and the players. Before we move on to a spooky edition of Tic Tac Titans in our second segment, I do just want to update you guys on the injury report as well for the Titans. On Wednesday during practice, we didn't see Jarrell Casey, Ben Jones, or Delaney Walker, as I said on Twitter at Tic Tac Titans. I don't think we need to worry

about Casey and Jones I do think Delaney always will be a concern until we see him actually play in a game nice to see Adoree Jackson out there as a limited participant and Roger Saffold out there as a limited participant coming off the injuries that they sustained and the one that kept Adoree Jackson out of the last game against the Buccaneers will be nice to have him back. On the Carolina Panthers side, they had a slew of important players and starters not participate in Wednesday's practice. Mario Addison, edge rusher. Vernon Butler, the defensive tackle.

Greg Little, the tackle. Gerald McCoy, their defensive tackle. Cam Newton, of course. Safety Eric Reid. wide receiver Curtis Samuel, and starting linebacker Shaq Thompson, and slot receiver Jarius Wright. Christian McCaffrey did pop up with a knee on the injury report as well. I don't think that it's very serious. McCaffrey will definitely be playing in the game on Sunday, but just wanted to keep you

guys updated on some of those scary injuries and some of the things that the Titans need to watch for the game on Sunday. That is going to do it for our first segment here. Like I said, in our second segment, we are going to jump into some Tic Tac Titans and look at some of these turnovers that the Titans' terrifying defense was able to force on the Buccaneers on Sunday. Before we do jump into all of that, I want to remind you guys that Peloton is offering a limited-time offer. Get $100 off accessories when you purchase the Peloton bike and get a great cardio workout at home.

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able to force four turnovers that really helped out a struggling offense in the first half get some opportunities in the red zone and put some points up on the board really kept the Titans team in this game long enough for the offense to kind of pick up some steam in the second half as this defense has been doing all year so I just want to highlight the four turnovers in this Thursday's Tic Tac Titans segment. As always, I'm going to be posting the visuals that go along with these plays on my Twitter account at Tic Tac Titans. Please check it out there. I'll be posting those probably late afternoon on Thursday to go along with the show. So we are going to jump into our four plays here, the four turnovers. The first play, nothing real schematically impressive about what the Titans are able to do on this play.

Winston and the center are not on the same page. I will show the angle from the end zone, which will show you guys. It looks like Winston gives his left guard the go-ahead to let the center know to snap it. I got a question on Twitter a few weeks ago about why the guard will slap the center on the butt and kind of turn around and look at the quarterback, and that's to get the quick snap count. They don't want to actually say, hut, hike, or anything like that.

They just want to be able to snap the ball quickly due to the crowd noise. That is why I wanted to show this play to shout out the Tennessee Titans crowd, which is much maligned a lot we talk about the fan base and and how they show up for certain games well the Titans fan base was here for this game against the Buccaneers they were loud and they were causing problems for the defense the defensive line for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers who kept jumping off sides trying to time it up because they couldn't hear quite well and right here there's a communication error due to the inability to hear each other and kind of be on the same page so Winston appears to let his left guard know that he's ready for the

snap the left guard takes a look turns around lets the center know with a little bit of a tap on the butt and next thing you know the center is snapping it on a quick count Winston is trying to make checks to his wide receiver in the slot. The ball hits him in the face mask. It drops to the ground. And Isaiah Mack, who's been a fantastic role player as a young guy, as an undrafted free agent for the Titans, is able to pounce on the ball and give the Titans field position on the 10-yard line,

which, of course, we know they were able to turn into a touchdown. So nothing, like I said, schematically interesting or complex about that play. It's just a mistake by the Buccaneers. But I want to shout out Titans fans and the crowd there at Nissan Stadium for creating an impact on the game. Little stuff like that matters for this football team. And the crowd does matter in these games. That's why they play them in front of big crowds and why these teams build stadiums because they want the crowd to be an advantage for the team. And I just wanted to

shout out the city of Nashville and the Titans fan base for being able to have a huge impact on this football game early on with their noise. We're going to move on to the second play, which is a much more fun and terrifying interception. Play two is where the Titans defense can really be a nightmare for opposing offenses. This is something that is very schematically interesting and fun for us to diagnose. So the Titans come out and they're showing a man coverage with two safeties high. So you have Kevin Bayard and Kenny Vaccaro showing a two safety look deep with cornerbacks just lined up like they're going to be in man coverage.

The Titans have four down linemen. What happens here is right before the snap, and I'm going to put this play in slow motion so you can see it. Right before the snap, you see Kenny Vaccaro start to backpedal pretty hard, and Kevin Byard starts to roll to his left pretty hard. So they show a two-safety look here, making the quarterback think it's going to be cover two or possibly man under cover two over the top. Well, the Titans roll the coverage at the last second and turn this into cover three zone.

So what the Buccaneers are trying to execute here on offense, they have their slot receiver Chris Godwin come out in a release. What he's looking to do, and they have Brashad Perryman, who's just a terrible wide receiver in my opinion, on the outside. He makes so many mental mistakes that cost his team, and he did it numerous times in this game. Brashad Perryman, not a big fan of him. I don't expect him to get another contract after this stint with the Buccaneers. Chris Godwin is in the slot, and whether Winston is looking for Godwin is in the slot, and whether Winston is looking for Godwin or Perryman, my guess is Perryman here, as Buccaneers coach Bruce Arian said both the interceptions were not on Winston. I don't think that's completely true, but I can understand that if the wrong route was run, how he would come to

his quarterback's defense. But whether it's Godwin or Perryman who make the mistake here, defense. But whether it's Godwin or Perriman who make the mistake here, basically Winston sees that this is going to be a too deep look from the safeties and it turns into a single high safety look in a cover three. The wide receiver runs a different route than what Winston is expecting because on these kind of plays, the Buccaneers most likely have an option route in place. If it's cover two or man with two over, they're going to run this route. If it's cover three, they're going to run this route. Well, clearly the wide receiver and the quarterback are not on the same page. The wide receiver was supposed to run a play to beat cover two in Winston's mind because he was confused by the look. The wide receiver correctly sees that

it's cover three and settles down in the zone, but Winston overthrows him expecting a different route and Malcolm Butler comes off his outside third and comes over into the middle of the field and is able to make an interception, run it back to about the five-yard line, give the Titans offense again wonderful field position, and allow them to score a touchdown there to keep the Titans offense in the game as they were struggling throughout the first half. So just crucial, crucial turnovers that the Titans had to have against a team that does turn over the ball. So if you're going up against a team that turns over the ball, you have to make sure that you're able to create those turnovers. And the Titans were able to do that early in the first quarter with crowd noise and a lack of

communication and a breakdown of communication from the offense. And then with their complex coverages and their disguise schemes, we're able to do that as well. So seeing everything from the fans to the team take care of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in these first two plays. So we're going to jump into our third play, which is personally my favorite turnover of the day. Let's jump from the first quarter to the fourth quarter for our third entry here in our Tic Tac Titans segment. It is six minutes and ten seconds left in the fourth quarter with the Buccaneers driving at midfield. And this is where your studs that you draft in the early rounds of the draft have to produce.

And that's what we see here from Harold Landry, who now has five sacks on the season for the Titans and is rounding into a pretty solid edge rusher in his second year in the NFL. So here we have him matched up with the left tackle Donovan Smith for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And quite frankly, this is what you draft a guy like Harold Landry for and the reason that he was considered a top edge rusher in his class before falling due to injury concerns. This is just a straight speed rush. He gets off the ball fast. He dips his left shoulder just so

slightly and uses that torque to get around the offensive tackle. And here's the beautiful thing about Harold Landry as he continues to progress in his career. Last year, he would have gone for the sack and probably not been able to get there due to Winston stepping up in the pocket. But as you get older, you're more seasoned, you take the coaching, you study the film. Harold Landry understands that his job is not necessarily always to make contact with the quarterback and sack the quarterback. He's trying to change the game with splash plays and he does that here so as he dips that left shoulder that offensive tackle doesn't have the the needed bend in his hips to stay with him as he bends low to the ground and I'll make sure to have this in slow motion for you guys as well just so we can appreciate the bend that Harold Landry shows here it's it's

top notch he bends under and as he realizes he's not going to be able to sack Winston due to him stepping up He just uses that right hand and slaps the ball out of Winston's hand Before he's able to throw a pass to a decently open receiver in the intermediate range on the sideline This is probably going to be a completion for the Buccaneers when you watch the play over They do have a guy breaking out and Winston is staring him down So it looks like they might be able to complete this. Landry, like I said, dips with that left shoulder, shows incredible bend, getting underneath the tackle through, realizes he's not going to be able to wrap him up. So he knocks out the ball.

The ball goes around Haywire, and of course, Harold Landry is able to jump on it himself for the Holy Trinity for defensive linemen. A strip sack and a fumble, and a recovery. A beautiful play by Harold Landry that should have allowed the Titans offense to salt the game away. Unfortunately, as we've seen with the inconsistency of the offense, they weren't able to do so. But just a huge play from Harold Landry. In our last and final play of our Tic Tac Titans segment this Thursday, we are going

to look at Logan Ryan's interception to seal the game. On play four, the Titans are essentially in a prevent zone here. They're running what I would call a cover six, where they have one safety cover one half of the field, and then the other safety, which in this case, in this alignment, actually ends up being Logan Ryan, has his quarter of the field, and up being Logan Ryan has his quarter of the field, and then the outside corner has his quarter of the field. So one half of the field is split up between two guys. The other half is being taken by one guy.

Sort of a pre-vet zone where the Titans are only rushing three and not really trying to get a lot of pressure on Winston, just trying to make sure that they don't hit a big play on this one as it is late in the game. The Titans are just trying to prevent the Buccaneers from getting down and getting in field goal range or getting close to maybe throwing up to Mike Evans for a touchdown to win the game as they were having pretty good success on that throughout the first three quarters. Well, right here, another example that I mentioned throughout watching this game of Brashad Perryman, the wide receiver for the Buccaneers, just absolutely terrible. He kills them here and ends any chance that the game is going to continue.

The Titans are able to get an interception here. Perryman is in the slot, and he runs about 20 yards up the field and then is supposed to break in on a skinny post. About 15 yards into his route, he just starts to loaf and kind of stop running like he doesn't expect the ball. Winston expects him to run full speed, throws the skinny post, and the only person there is Logan Ryan, who just reads the route and reads the throw and reads the quarterback's eyes and is right there to take advantage. So not a lot of complexity here, not a lot of really incredible play, but it just shows you that the Titans defense is going to be in the right place at the right time. They're going to make clutch plays to win games for this team. And if you let other teams make the mistakes, the Titans defense won't make the mental mistakes

and we'll be able to capitalize. So that's going to do it for this spooky edition of our Tic-Tac Titans segment. I just wanted to highlight some of these really terrifying examples of the Titans defense giving other opposing offenses nightmares and we saw that with Tampa Bay obviously like I've said numerous times they're not a well-coached team they make a lot of mistakes they have a lot of turnovers but from the Titans perspective it's important that the Titans defense force those turnovers like all the other teams that they're playing against to to give their offense who struggles more than most offenses a chance to stay in the game and they were able to do that so mission accomplished for the Titans defense we're going to go into our third segment and do a little bit of Rollins rewind and it is also a

spooky addition because it was a very terrifying game to watch really gruesome performance from the Titans when Cam Newton was at his peak with the Carolina Panthers. So we will talk about that in our third segment. Let's hop in the time machine, Titans fans, and go back for a little bit of Roland's Rewind. The Tennessee Titans took on the Carolina Panthers in 2015. And let me tell you, it was a horrifying, terrible, miserable, horrific game to watch for the Tennessee Titans fans and played by the team. This is in the midst

of Carolina's Super Bowl run as well though. Carolina was 9-0 at this time and proved to 10-0 with this game. It was 27-10. The Titans didn't score in the second half and the Panthers, as I mentioned, were just firing on all cylinders. Cam Newton was 21-25 for 217 passing yards and a touchdown. Jonathan Stewart ran for 91 yards and a touchdown. Greg Olson cut the Titans up all day long for eight catches and 80 yards. Cam Newton even had a rushing touchdown that, if you recall, that was probably the biggest moment of this game that Titans fans would remember. Cam Newton had a little bit of an extended celebration in the end zone on the final touchdown run that he had.

Wesley Woodyard and Avery Williamson at the time did, I guess, take offense to his preening in the end zone. And maybe one reason that Titans fans aren't incredibly fond of Cam Newton because of that moment. But the Titans weren't able to stop him, and no one really was. All year, he was able to go on and win MVP, so can't really feel too terrible about that. The Titans were 2-7 at the time, not a very good football team in Marcus's rookie year, so some of the Titans players did struggle. Marcus, 16 for 24,

185 yards and an interception through a really bad interception on the sideline He was a rookie at the time though Of course, it's something you want to see him build on Dexter McCluster had a really nice 25-yard touchdown run That was pretty exciting The few little burst plays that he had for the team Delaney Walker was a constant Three catches, 52 yards

Probably the only player on the team that really played well in this game. So as I said, a pretty terrifying game to watch. Pretty horrific performance from the Titans who were lifeless at the time. So glad that the team, although they struggle and are inconsistent week to week, aren't in that place anymore, the Rustin-Webster era. So wanted to go back and talk to you guys about the last time the Titans played the Panthers. As I said, it was a nightmarish game to rewatch and live through. Hopefully this game goes a lot better against Kyle Allen this week. But that is going to do it for our spooky show tonight. I hope you guys enjoyed the episode.

I hope, like I said, you guys have a very safe and fun Halloween today. We are going to be back on Friday to get you guys ready for the game with a game preview, cover the gambling and the fantasy aspects of the game as well. Excited to get into all of that stuff with you guys. Once again, I'm your host, Tyler Rowland, and this was Locked on Titans.