Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Tennessee Titans Cam Ward's ROUGH START on TOUGH TEST, Xavier Restrepo Shines & Simmons Still Absent

Episode Date: June 3, 2025

The Tennessee Titans took the field once again on Tuesday and Cam Ward had his TOUGHEST TEST yet as the Titans focused on third down scenarios for most of practice. Ward started out slow, but got better as practice went on, regardless this was more of a learning day for the rookie and those are as important right now as the impressive days. Ward's college teammate, receiver Xavier Restrepo, had a nice day and continues to show that his undrafted status is as perplexing now as it was in real time. Finally, the Titans' best player, Jeffery Simmons remains absent while newly-signed veteran Kevin Zietler will be brought along slowly, and should be.WANT MORE DAILY TENNESSEE TITANS CONTENT? Follow & Subscribe on all Podcast platforms…  🎧 https://link.chtbl.com/LOTitans?sid=YouTube Locked On NFL League-Wide: Every Team, Fantasy, Draft & More🎧 https://linktr.ee/LockedOnNFL Subscribe to the TicTacTitans Film Channel:https://www.youtube.com/@TicTacTitans TicTacTitans Merchandise: https://dixons-dream.square.site/shop/tictactitans-gear/C3AAPNWXSXA6SBYG3USV2I7R?page=1&limit=30&sort_by=category_order&sort_order=asc Follow Tyler on Twitter @TicTacTitans Follow the show on Facebook @LockedOnTitansPod Subscribe to the Locked On Titans YouTube channel:https://www.youtube.com/c/LockedOnTitans/videos Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!LinkedInPost your job for free at LinkedIn.com/LOCKEDONNFL. Terms and conditions apply.   FanDuelRight now, new customers can get TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS in BONUS BETS when your first FIVE DOLLAR BET WINS! Download the app or head to FANDUEL.COM to get started. Bet with FanDuel—Official Partner of the NBA. Monarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONNFL at monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)

Cam Ward bounced back from a rough start at Tuesday's practice, but that's exactly what needs to happen to get him ready for week one. I'm going to break it all down on today's edition of Locked on Titans. 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 Rolland, Titans fans. Today's edition of the Locked On Titans podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers can get $200 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins.

On today's show, we're going to break down everything you need to know from Tennessee Titans practice on Tuesday. Cam Ward had a little bit of a rough start to a tough test, but he bounced back, and that's exactly what we need to see also. Xavier Restrepo already starting to show how that connection with Cam Ward can pay off immediately and I got a little bit of a baby Roland's rant for you guys coming in off of vacation about Jeffrey Simmons still not being at Tennessee Titans practice. Before we dive into all of it though, do want to thank you for making Locked on Titans your

first listen each and every day. Remember Monday through Friday Tennessee Titans content first listen each and every day. Remember, Monday through Friday, Tennessee Titans content all year round, always for free. Make sure that you get subscribed, stay subscribed. It's your team every day. Speaking of every day, shout out to my everydayers out there tuning in Monday through Friday. If you aren't an everydayer, you need to be one because Mandatory Minicamp is literally next week. We're gonna have practice three days all open. We're gonna be breaking it down. Can't wait to dive into that tomorrow.

We're gonna talk about Cam Ward's work ethic that is just impressing everyone, not only in Tennessee, but around the NFL. J.C. Latham, Tevandre Sweatt, both losing weight, being leaders, can't wait so much to dive into. But of course, we gotta talk about what happened at practice today. And again, we're not gonna sugarcoat it here. Cam Ward had a rough

start according to any report that you could find. I saw Jim Wyatt say that he had a slow start. Tyron Davenport said that he had a rough start. No matter how you want to slice it was a tough beginning to practice for Cam Ward. Comes out seven on seven miscommunication with Bryce Oliver. Misses on a throw over the middle to Colton Dowell. Heard it was a little late, little behind. A bad throw to Mason Kinsey that got knocked away. Missed Calvin Ridley on a deep ball at one point in time during practice.

I think Jim Wyatt had Kam Ward at one for four in his first seven on seven opportunity in session. But again, Kam Ward did bounce back in this practice. He hit six straight at one point. It was a mixed back to say the least. And my point here is, and I can already see the overreactions to this performance or whatever, but I wanna add context here.

And I feel like that's what I try to do on the show is just add context to what you're hearing, what you're seeing these reports coming out of OTAs. And the reality is, is that Brian Callahan talked about this practice was their first, a big test because it was a third down practice. They were going to focus on third down situations, seven on seven, 11 on 11 team periods, all going to be about third downs. And what is difficult?

Brian Callahan talked about it before practice. Like third down is the most difficult in the NFL because they know you're throwing, you know that you're throwing. He literally said that verbatim. So this was a test. Titans quarterback coach, Bo Hardigree talked about, you know, changing all the protections,

everything that was going to go down today would make it a big test for Cam Ward. So the way I see it is you could take it negatively from an OTA on June the 3rd and say, oh, this is proof. Cam Ward's not going to be good. I would say you're confirming your bias. If you already didn't think that Cam Ward would be good, but to me, these are the exact kind of things that need to happen for a rookie

quarterback to be ready for week one. It's hilarious that we all have these conversations like, Oh, he's got to find communication with his wide receivers and he's got to build chemistry with these guys. We got to have conversations about, Oh, you're going to be at this depth and, Oh, it's on this timing. And Kam Ward has to see NFL defenses that he's never seen before and there's gonna be an adjustment period for a rookie quarterback coming out of college into the NFL and then when it's happening in

real time people freak out and don't give the opportunity for the rookie quarterback to grow like what are we doing here so a rough start but again I do want to focus here on the bounce back. Six straight completions after a rough start. According to Jim White, he was three for four in the first team period, which 11 on 11 is more important than seven on seven, right? Now, two for six in the second, five for 10 on the day in team period, seven for 11 in seven on seven. But with those six straight completions, a long strike rolling out to Jaquan Jackson over the

middle of the field, a deep ball that he dropped right to James Prochet that James Prochet then dropped himself and did some pushups afterwards, hit Colton Dowell on a seam route and a tight window, hit Calvin Ridley with a side arm over the middle. I saw Parker Kelly, another B reporter say that the chemistry with Calvin Ridley is just obvious. You love to hear that. And then hit Xavier Restrepo quite a bit, hit him on a play over the middle against Jarvis Brownlee Jr. That's a starter. So you're talking about an undrafted free agent rookie who's catching the ball over the middle on one of the Titan starters.

We know that X is going to have an impact and I can't wait to talk more about Xavier Restrepo in a minute. Again, third down, it was third down reports of Cam Ward working over the middle. We get a short completion to Xavier Restrepo on a quick sit down route. That's exactly what you want to hear. So Cam Ward comes out early. This is his toughest test so far as a rookie quarterback. It's third down work only. You know that you're passing. You're seeing different looks and coverages. You're trying to get

the timing down in a new offense. And you come out and, hey, there's an adjustment period. We've seen that plenty of time with great athletes. Sometimes it just takes a minute to adjust. Then he comes out and he gets hot in the middle of practice, starts completing passes, a bunch of different people and another thing that I thought stood out to me from the reports out of practice is that Cam Ward apparently is getting the most reps by a quote country mile according to JT Runky. So to me I Know that there will be some who jump off the ledge right away and freak out But you have to have days

like this along with the days like last week's practice where Cam Ward was just cooking and everything was going. We're getting the side arm pass and everything's going. You know, you're going to have days where there are struggles and quite frankly, not to, you know, get too existential here, but that's life. You can't be afraid to fail. Think about a good chef and developing a great meal. I know that like my chicken alfredo dish simple as ever but messed up a lot. Excellent, but you know how many times I made it terrible? I burnt the chicken, the sauce broke. You know, like there are so many examples of life of where you have to fail to grow and to learn and get better.

So I think people that take an OTA and say, oh, look, he had a rough start. He went one for four and start seven on sevens. That means Cam Ward's a bust. Like these are just insane things to think and see. And, you know, we live in an insane world, so you're going to see them. You're going to be places the aggregation accounts are going to Cam Ward struggled and Titans practice today, quote unquote, rough start, blah, blah, blah. And it may be true, but just how it's framed, we have to have a bit of patience here

and a bit of logic as to what's going on. Not only is this like not a terrible thing, I think this is a great thing for Cam Ward because these are the adjustment periods that when he's drafted and we're all excited and we tell ourselves like, oh, he's got to adjust. There's this and that. These are the things happening in real time. So even with the rough start to a tough test, you bounce back, you get back on

track, you're establishing that connection with Calvin Ridley, your star receiver. You continue to show a connection with your chemistry guy from college and Xavier Restrepo. You're hitting other guys like Colton Dow. You're getting the most reps. The Titans are doing it exactly how they should. They have to test him incrementally. They have to continue to do this.

And I would compare it also. There's a lot of you out there who lift weights and who, you know, work out. You break down your muscle so that you can build it back up. So again, you can overreact to this if you want, but not only is it not a bad thing in my opinion, it's a good thing because Cam Warden, he needs these reps to be able to get ready for week one. If he's having terrible days in joint practices

and the pre-season looks rough, we can have conversations, but for me right now, this is an excellent thing for Cam Warden. I wanna talk more about the connection that he's showing with Xavier Restrepo specifically and how there's just no way that Xavier Restrepo is not gonna make this team, right? And then I also wanna talk about the guys

who weren't at practice will do a little OTA roll call because, you know, I just, I gotta talk about Big Jeff still not being there in a comment from Tavondre Sweat that came out of OTAs that I thought was a little bit interesting as well. So can't wait to dive into all of that. Do wanna let you guys know that today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook.

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$5 bet. Make every moment more with Fandle, official sports betting partner of the NBA. Titans fans, let's continue today's edition of the Locked on Titans podcast, breaking down Tennessee Titans practice on Tuesday, another open session of OTAs. We broke down Cam Ward's rough start, his bounce back, why it was a tough test and why it needed to happen. But I want to dive more into a couple of his wide receivers who continue to just completely impress me and get me excited. Now, before we dive into it, do you want to thank you again for making Locked on Titans your first listen? I'm going to do a little rant about Jeff Simmons

to end the show. Also, I think I'm going to take some questions from you guys on YouTube, sending your questions there. But we got to talk about these connections with the wide receivers. Thanks again for making locked on Titans. You were first. Listen, Xavier Restrepo. I just continue to not see a path. Where Xavier Restrepo is not on this roster. How can the Tennessee Titans take some of, like, how in the world could you keep Traylon Burks over Xavier Restrepo? The connection that he has with Cam Wart,

the upside, the downside of what Traylon Burks has shown you, the cost of Xavier Restrepo compared to Traylon Burksks and then the production you're going to get. How? How could you justify in any realm keeping Traylon Burks over a Xavier Restrepo? I know Bryce Oliver was a fun player at times last year, but is he really going to develop a better chemistry and connection with Cam Ward than Xavier Restrepo, James Prochet, you know, Jaquan Jackson, Colton Dow, what are we talking about here? Let's be honest. So I continue to just not see a realm where Xavier Restrepo does not make this team and he's already starting to show that chemistry with Cam Ward in a major way. It's coming out of practice every time we get an opportunity to see it

that Xavier Restrepo is making plays. he's making plays against the first team defense, he's having a connection in big moments with Cam Ward, like he's doing absolutely everything. And I continue to say that if he can find a way to add value as a returner, even as the backup punt returner or something like that, just if he can show value on special teams, then he's an absolute luck to make this roster. And again, on Tuesday, we talked about some of the plays when we talked about Cam Ward, but over the middle against Jarvis Brownlee Jr. on a connection, short completion. Remember, they were working third down scenarios, all practice long, according to Brian Callahan.

So third down, short, and it just goes back to the tape. You know, I've broken down the tape of Cam Ward two hours, two and a half hours worth the tape of Cam Ward on the Tic Tac Titans film channel. If you want to go check that out and get caught up to date, but so many plays on that, you see Xavier Restrepo making these, these huge completions and these huge catches and big moments and then making plays afterwards. I'm thinking about there is one where he spins out of a tackle and then gets down the sideline for a bunch of yards. I think that might've been against cow.

I think there might've been a play against Virginia Tech where he runs a whip route and he falls down and he's literally on his butt and Xavier or strepo catches it on a fourth and short. That might've been the cow game as well. But the point is that chemistry is just already taking place And we're seeing it in practice against the first team defense and in third down opportunities when it really really matters Okay, and according to Jim Wyatt he had three catches on the day Xavier Restrepo He caught one from Tim Boyle as well and that was tied for the most

catches by anybody on the team throughout the day. He just continues to make plays and again I know that they're just individual drills so it's silly to take too much out of them but at the end of the day you see Xavier Restrepo in these individual drills and there is not some drastic drop-off and speed where it's like that dude's moving in sand you know I know Trey Lamberx is coming back from the ACL right now it's not necessarily fair to like look at his, you know, individual drill films and be like, oh, he looks, you know, heavy or slow or, but I mean, he's coming back from the ACL. Of course, but it's not like Xavier Restrepo is running as slow as Traylon Burks is right now or something like that. You know, we got to be serious. I thought it was funny.

Tyron Davenport even said after that Jarvis Brownlee, Jr. Report He said by good catch for a slow guy or something like that and like yeah Just you know, some guys can just play football Why can't Xavier Restrepo be a Danny M and Dola type? Like why can't that happen? Why is that not obvious to me? I think that it's more likely that he's something like that than anything else and it goes back to The connection and the chemistry and the hard work.

And guess what? After practice, Xavier Estrepo working on deep routes with Cam Ward, according to Toronto Davenport. Because why? They were doing third down all day and it was short. It was intermediate. It was, you know, working third down situations, third and short, third and long.

You're not working all these deep concepts. And there were multiple reports saying that they weren't working a ton of deep routes and taking shots downfield like they were that last practice that we were breaking down from last week at OTA. So getting all the intermediate and short work during practice and then staying afterwards to get all of that deep route stuff in because you want to get it in that's just so clutch it's just so crucial and again it paints the picture of Xavier Restrepo, Weapon X, Professor X, whatever you want to call it. I think it's funny that Elec Io Manor is Io and then Chim Dike is Dike and then Xavier Restrepo is X. You have Io, Dike, X there. It's Cam in the alphabet, boys.

You know what I mean? But it's going to work. I just can't believe that it's not going to work. I cannot believe that Xavier Restrepo isn't going to make an impact on this season and going forward. I just, I don't see, I don't see how it doesn't happen. I'm not saying that he's going to be a pro bowler. I'm not saying that he's going to be an all-pro. I'm not saying he's going to be one of the best wide receivers in the NFL or anything like that, but he's going to be a productive, reliable, and exciting slot wide receiver with a great connection with

Cam Ward. And I'm sorry, until it doesn't happen, until it visibly doesn't happen, I'm not going to stop believing that it's going to happen. Like I'm just not. So that's where I'm at with that. Do want to talk about Calvin Ridley for a second. Again, I talked earlier about the Calvin Ridley connection with Cam Ward. We get a sidearm completion over the middle. Calvin Ridley just talks glowingly about Cam Ward. We're gonna talk about some of the comments

we're hearing about Cam Ward and his work ethic and him being there at five in the morning and the Titans telling him to go home. I'm gonna go over all of those quotes tomorrow. I wanted to talk football today. Let's talk about what happened on the field today. Tomorrow we'll go over some of the quotes that stood out to me during the process of practice and everything, but Calvin Ridley just continues to talk glowingly about Cam Ward. They both seem like calm, chill, but competitive Southern dudes. You know what I mean? They just seem like they have very

meshable personalities and I think they're gonna have meshable games and hitting Calvin Ridley on some of these crossing routes and just dumping it off to him accurately on some of these drag routes across the field against man coverage. Calvin Ridley I think is just gonna have a great season ahead with with Cam Warden. Chim Dike, I might talk some more about Chim Dike tomorrow. There's some things that I saw, you know, that I'm seeing that we talk about Xavier Restrepo, cause the connection, it's cool, you know what I mean?

That's a good story. And then Io Manor, I continue to say, I think has the clearest path to being an impact player early for the Titans because his skill set fits something the Titans need. But ChimDK continues to make these plays in practice and you know, he may be the guy because of his speed and then special teams and then can play Z, can play slot, can go vertical, which is something that Xavier Restrepo probably never gonna be great at vertical routes just because of the reality of the speed. But I don't know. I'm just so curious to see which of these rookie wide receivers actually turn out. I'm excited to get to mandatory mini camp next week and training camp to see who steps up when the pads get on and things like that. But let's once again, as I like to do every time there's one of these practices, let's take a little roll call about who wasn't there and Jeffrey Simmons once again, not there.

Titans fans, let's cap off today's edition of the Locked on Titans podcast. We talked about Cam Ward's rough start, but why I think these things are necessary for growth. We talked about Xavier Restrepo, Calvin Ridley, Chim Dike, some of the wide receivers that have been exciting lately and been making some noise. Now I want to take roll call like I like to do after these press. Who wasn't there? Who was working on side field, who left early, all that different stuff. When I dive into that before we do, thanks again for making locked on Titans your first listen each and every day for your second listen, check out locked on NFL scouting training camps, getting closer moves are being made. Host Kyle crabs

and Joe Marino will make you the most informed NFL fan this all season. Find locked on NFL scouting on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. So still no Jeffrey Simmons, uh, Tyler Lockett wasn't at OTAs for this one, but Lockett has been at all of the like organized stuff the last three weeks or so Lockett's been there pretty frequently. Uh, Kevin Zeitler in the building working, but Brian Callahan even said, you know, we're going to bring him along slowly. Zeitler's 35 years old. You know, that's the smart way to play that. But, you know, Amani Hooker not here, but Hooker has been at all the previous stuff to my knowledge. So Amani Hooker not here,

guarantee you Amani Hooker's at mandatory minicamp. I'd be curious if this was like, Imani Hooker's just not coming, you know what I mean? Like, he came to all the other stuff before that, even the early stuff. So, not worried about Imani Hooker, he's gonna be there. Curtis Jacobs, the Titans linebacker, was out sick, according to Brian Callahan. Kevin Winston, Kal-El Mullings, the two rookies, and then Lloyd Cushionberry got work on the side field. So good to hear that Cush is doing some work moving around. Love to hear that. Otis Reese and Mason Kinsey left early.

That's not good for Otis Reese. Otis Reese needs to be out there as much as possible. According to Frank Bush, Titans inside linebacker coach, interviews before practice, he said that the James Williams and Cedric Gray were both getting first team reps. Otis Reese is a year older than those guys. He was an undrafted free agent, not a draft pick. He's going to get less opportunity. That's the way that it works in the NFL and missing time and being off the field. Not great. So hope he feels better and he can come back for OTAs. The Titans have OTAs tomorrow. It won't be open to the media though, or today, depending on when you're listening to this. But hopefully he's back for mandatory mini camp next week. And then Traylon Burks continued to work in individual drills, but not in the team stuff. Brian Callahan did say though that he feels he's coming along well.

And I can't remember who it was, but I did see someone report that Berks looked like he was moving a little bit better than he was last week. So good to see him come along. You want him to get him a chance, healthy. I don't think that he's going to make the roster this year. And if they keep seven, maybe he does, but if they keep six, I don't see it,

but either way you want them to get an opportunity to earn that spot and be healthy when he does it. But I do want to talk about Jeffrey Simmons for a minute. Again, I'm not going to go overboard here. I'm not angry per se. Also, if anybody on YouTube has some questions, get your questions in the chat right now. Just came back from vacation. I did a mailbag for the Twitter folks a while ago. So if you got any questions on YouTube, I can answer those at the end.

But with Jeffrey Simmons, I'm not mad. Like I said, when we first talked about it, like Jeffrey Simmons is going to be ready. I'm not worried about Jeffrey Simmons being ready to go, like to play football and to play his best and all that. I expect him to be fine. I'm not worried about Jeffrey Simmons not playing good football because he didn't come to OTAs. That's not what it's about. It's about the leadership.

I want to point out a comment that I saw, I believe it was Parker Kelly who put it out, but to Vandrey sweat said he didn't work out with Jeffrey Simmons this off season. And I guess, you know, some people are going to say, well, that's no big deal. You know what I mean? And I don't think it's that big of a deal in terms of, like, I don't think to Vandrey sweat can't get better without Jeffrey Simmons holding his hand. And I don't think that, you know, Jeffrey Simmons can't play good football because he wasn't working out with Tavondre Sweat.

But I guess last year when Sweat was drafted, everyone, every, if you didn't like the Sweat pick, if you did like the Sweat pick, it didn't matter. Everyone unanimously said, you know, Jeffrey Simmons being a mentor for Tavondre Sweatt makes this pick even better. That's why everyone was more confident that Sweatt would work out because you had Keandre Coburn, a college teammate who could mentor him. You have a great interior defensive line coach and Tracy Rocker, and you have Jeffrey Simmons who can mentor Tavondre Sweatt. Well, clearly that's not happening to the level that a lot of us hoped.

When I thought about Jeffrey Simmons mentoring to Vandre Sweat, I thought about them working out in the off season together, like Sweat working with the guys who Simmons works with to become like, you know, taking him under his wing. Here's how I train in the off season. Here's what I do. And remember Sweat was a rookie last year. He didn't get a normal all season. There's the draft process and that training and then coming in and being confused. So there being new, maybe not confused is the right word, but I don't know. Anytime I've ever started a new job, there are some things that I'm confused about.

So I guess part of the allure of Tevandre Sweatt was, hey, Jeffrey Simmons is going to bring him under his wing. So I don't think this is going to hurt Sweatt significantly. Sweatt should be fine and he looks good. We'll talk more about Sweatt and how I think he's, when it comes to the Titans being the next great version of the Titans, Sweatt's probably more of a leader on that version of the team than Simmons even is. You know, just two, three, four years down the Titans, Sweat's probably more of a leader on that version of the team than Simmons even is. You know, just two, three, four years down the road, who's really the leader on the D-line? It probably should be Sweat by then, right? You know, just based on age and career progress. But anyway, I guess I just, I expected more connection between those two, and it was a slight disappointment to

hear that Tavandre Sweat hadn't worked out with Jeffrey Simmons at all during the offseason when I thought there would be a true mentorship program there, especially in a critical offseason for a player, a second offseason when you're not a rookie. And that is really a microcosm in my opinion of my general feeling about Jeffrey Simmons not being around for any of this voluntary stuff like he's going to show up at mandatory mini camp next week. I truly believe that Jeffrey Simmons will be at the mandatory thing and then we'll all be like, oh, well, you know, who's ever reacted and this and that. And again, I'm not like freaking out angry about this.

I'm not like screaming at the mic or anything about it, but it is just a slight disappointment. I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed because again, this team is in its infancy. Like we are beginning a new version of the Tennessee Titans. In my opinion, right now the Titans are beginning to kind of crack out of the cocoon and hopefully become a butterfly after the caterpillar of the seasons that we've had the last few years. Like, we're hoping that happens. And, you know, it's like children, when they're young, they're impressionable. That's when you really imprint on kids what's right, what's wrong, what they should be as a person and as a citizen of the world,

and how you should treat people and your goals and your ambitions. And like when you're younger, you're very impressionable. Again, it's like football. When you draft younger players, you feel like there's a higher ceiling because you have more time to develop them. And because they're younger players, they can develop more than older players. We have this conversation about Will Levis all the time, right? I was skeptical of his ability to get better throughout the season last year because he is already so old at 25.

So I guess my point is the Titans right now as a team are a kid. They're a young team with a lot of young players. And right now, although in previous years, Jeffrey Simmons hasn't been around and it hasn't been that big of a deal. I feel like this off season in particular because of Cam Ward coming in and the amount of young players on this team and because they went three and 14 last year and quite frankly because Jeffrey Simmons has not had a great Jeffrey Simmons expectation season the last two years.

I think everyone should be honest and admit that whether it be the amount of games that he's played, whether it's been the production out on the field, I expect more from Jeffrey Simmons. So with what his leadership could have meant to this young team throughout these early all-season OTA activities and him just being around all the stuff that Brian Callahan is selling right now about building leaders and building cultures and the team feeling together and the team learning one another and meeting your offensive teammates and shaking up the locker room organization and all that, all this stuff Brian Callahan is selling. That just makes my point of how important this off season in with the culture and

the future of this team. So again, it's not that I think Jeffrey Simmons is going to be a significantly worse player because he didn't come or he's not going to have this many sacks or tackles or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's not that it's more about the direction of the team and how impressionable and how fragile this team is right now and what they're going to be going forward. And I think right now with where this team is, leadership is more important than ever.

And the head coach of the team in the franchise with everything they've done and what their plan has been, they are telling you that right now, leadership is critical to this program. So the fact that Simmons isn't there, is it gonna make him a worse player. No, but it is disappointing because I think his presence at the end of the day it's because I think Jeffrey Simmons presence would have a big impact on this team right now and these young

players. And at the end of the day your presence, whether you are present or whether you're absent. So I think that Jeffrey Simmons is impacting this team, whether he's there or not. And I guess I'm just a little bit disappointed that, you know, he wasn't there for the whole thing. I know some people are going to say that doesn't matter and who cares and you're overreacting. Again, I'm not screaming at you, but just would have liked to have him been the leader that I thought he was, you know, especially for young players on that defensive line like Tevandre Sweat. But with

that being said, saw a couple of questions in here. Do we pick up any cornerbacks or linebackers off of waivers? Absolutely. Again, the Titans have the number one waiver claim the entire off season. Anyone who gets cut who is eligible to be on waivers, I think that's the first four seasons in the NFL. If you're within the first four seasons of your career, you go on waivers. The Titans can pick them up first. It's not like your fantasy football league where you go to the back of the line after you use it. No, the entire off season throughout throughout the Titans will have the number one waiver claim. I expect them to grab a ton of, you know, players off of waivers,

linebacker and cornerback. Absolutely could be on that list. Doug H says, is there any update on Steve's health? He's rehabbing a knee. He's rehabbing that quad injury that really ruined a season last year. It's not great news. Quite honestly, it doesn't feel great. Rex says, what about MPF being released early? I saw somebody write an article saying that MPF might have been the worst player in the NFL last year, and I'm just not going to fight you about it. Now, the sad thing is that may be true, and he was probably still the Titans best right tackle option beyond John Ajuku and Jalen Duncan. Man, oh, it was sad out there. Um, anyways, but, um, don't want to drag on too long back from vacation. Do

you want to say thanks you guys for everybody who, you know, had well wishes for me while I was out and everything like that. You didn't notice I was on vacation though because five days a week all year round never miss an episode here on the Locked on Titans podcast. Holidays, rain, sleet, shine, snow, doesn't matter baby. I'm putting out free Tennessee Titans content Monday through Friday. So if you aren't subscribed, get subscribed, become an everydayer. If you aren't already going to be the most informed Tennessee Titans fan and the most entertained Tennessee Titans fan as well. But that's gonna do it for me today, folks. Tomorrow, we're gonna talk about Cam Ward's work ethic,

we're gonna talk about JC Latham and Tevandre Sweatt becoming true leaders, and then I'll probably do another mail back on Friday to get your guys' feedback after another week of Tennessee Titans OTAs with mandatory minicamp right around the corner. But I am your host Tyler Rowan and this was Locked on Titans.