Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Tennessee Titans COVID Outbreak: What Happened, Who & What Next? Rewatch Wednesday Analysis

Episode Date: September 30, 2020

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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, today's edition of the Locked On Titans podcast is brought to you by the new Ryan Holiday book. From the best-selling authors of the Daily Stoic. Comes the ultimate Stoicism guide to success, resilience, and virtue.

To accept what you cannot control. And adapt to what you can. A philosophy sports teams across the country are successfully adapting. Including the Tennessee Titans. Lives of the Stoics. The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius is available now wherever books are sold. And that is a great segue, unfortunately, into our episode here where we have to talk

directly about how the Tennessee Titans will adapt to the new circumstances that they face. The Tennessee Titans have become, unfortunately, the first team in the NFL with what could be considered a COVID outbreak. So I'm going to talk about everything that we heard on Tuesday coming out of this situation, which Titans players came up positive in their COVID-19 test, what this means for the team going forward, and what we can expect to see happen with the game against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday. So unfortunate news to report there, but we will make sure that we are as up to date and as informed as possible as to what to expect going forward from here. Then we will dive back in to some football.

It is a rewatch Wednesday here on the Locked On Titans podcast, so I will go over all of my additional insights and all of the little tidbits that I picked up from my multiple rewatches of the Titans' win over the Vikings on Sunday. So we will talk some major football in the middle of today's show, and then we will end off today's show just talking more about the impact of the COVID-19 situation with the Tennessee Titans, what this means for the Titans, and more about what could come next. So a big day here on the Locked on Titans podcast, analyzing the Titans' current situation and what could be possibly down the line for them.

But we have a lot more coming up this week on the Locked on Titans podcast as well. A crossover Thursday conversation with Chris from the Locked on Steelers podcast. And hopefully we do have a game preview to go over on Friday. So looking forward to getting back into some football heavy content with you guys on the Locked on Titans podcast. Make sure that you subscribe to the Locked on Titans podcast on whatever platform you do stream and follow me on Twitter at TicTacTitans for additional content, updated schedule information, and my TicTacTitan film breakdowns that I'm putting out every single week of the season.

But with all of that information out of the way, it is time to dive into a big story for the Tennessee Titans. Let's get it. The Tennessee Titans were the talk of the football universe on Tuesday and for unfortunate reasons. Reports came out very early in the morning on Tuesday that the Titans had become the first NFL team to experience a major COVID-19 outbreak, having eight members of the organization have confirmed positive tests, including three players after a road game against the Minnesota Vikings. Early in the day, it was unknown who those players were, but later in the afternoon,

we did get word that the three Tennessee Titans players that did have a confirmed positive test were long snapper Bo Brinkley, starting nose tackle Daquan Jones, and practice squad tight end Tommy Hudson, and it has been confirmed that these are not false positives. As we heard from a recent COVID-19 scare that the NFL had earlier in the season, all of these positive tests were confirmed by multiple tests. So these are true positive COVID-19 diagnosis. And at this time, the Titans facility is closed until further notice. All members of the organization left abruptly on Tuesday

after the reports came back and at this time the NFL considers the situation day-to-day and is monitoring future tests for other members of the organization including players to see when it would be appropriate for the Titans to reopen their facility. Again the NFL is calling the situation day to day. Now, this obviously brings up the question of what happens with the scheduled game against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday. Well, at this time, the NFL would like to have the game played as scheduled, so the Steelers have been told from the NFL to prepare as if the game will happen on Sunday. But the reality is the NFL would like to have the Tennessee Titans be able to practice at

least once in a limited capacity before playing another NFL game, not only for the health of the players, but also for competitive advantage reasons. So we also heard reports to go along with the unfortunate news about the COVID-19 outbreak that the NFL would consider possibly playing the game later in the week, having a doubleheader on Monday night, which the Titans have already done already this season. And coincidentally, the Pittsburgh Steelers were one of the teams that played on Monday night as well when the Titans did in week one. But we've also heard that the NFL would possibly consider a Tuesday game if necessary.

It all does depend on the day-to-day nature of when the Titans facility and their players and personnel are deemed safe to return. And that will be something that will be in flux in the coming days, but it will be something that we will report on here on the Locked on Titans podcast. Now the other effects that could come along with this Titans COVID-19 outbreak is how the impact goes on the other teams, not only the Minnesota Vikings who the Titans played this weekend, but also the Houston Texans who who are scheduled to play the Vikings in Week 4. For Minnesota, some positive news is no Minnesota Vikings players at this time

have tested positive coming out of that matchup against the Titans. But the NFL has registered 48 instances of contact in their tracing mechanism that they use to try to keep the players as safe as possible and trace back where an infection or an outbreak could have started. Now this does leave Titans fans to question if it's possible that this COVID-19 outbreak could have originated in the building with outside linebacker coach Shane Bowen as he did miss the game with the Vikings as he was placed in COVID-19 protocol on Saturday but we don't have any confirmation of that at this time so that is

still unknown but to recap what we do know right now the Titans had eight players test positive for COVID-19 those are confirmed positive tests not not false positives. All eight people were asymptomatic at the time of their test. The Titans facility is closed until further notice, until the NFL deems the environment safe. And at this time, the NFL is still looking to go ahead with the game scheduled, and if not Sunday, possibly Monday or Tuesday. It goes without saying, really, that this is terribly unfortunate news not only for the Tennessee Titans but for the NFL in general and things seemed more positive as the

day went on as we got more information and hopefully the positive news and the positive momentum continues and that everyone who has contracted COVID-19 within the Titans organization is first of all safe and able to recover to a healthy level and not have any lingering effects or any lasting effects as that obviously is still a little up in the air as well at this time so just terribly unfortunate news but all we can do is hope for more positive news to continue coming out and one way that I want to contribute to getting us back into that positive momentum is to jump back into some football talk.

It is a rewatch Wednesday here on the Locked On Titans podcast, so I am going to step into our rewatch Wednesday segment, give you guys all of my additional tidbits, all of my extra insights from rewatching this game multiple times on the coach's tape, the broadcast, every possible way, and relay all of that additional information to you guys. Before we jump into that, I want to remind you that now more than ever, it's important to show support for your team and your community. Visa and the National Football League know that local businesses help your community move the ball down the field. small businesses everywhere are overcoming challenges in these new times thanks to teammates like you and visa because where everyone pitches in everyone benefits being loyal to your local

businesses ignites growth and supports all of us in our communities because they know that where you shop matters visa urges you to support local retailers who are making your shopping safe and reliable. And remember, tap to pay with a contactless Visa wherever you see the contactless symbol to support your community. Visa, the official partner of the NFL. re-watch wednesday let's get into some of my additional insights extra tidbits some more analysis from my re-watches of the Titans victory over the Vikings on Sunday. So I'm going to start with the Tennessee Titans defense. And what I want to point out is something I didn't get to talk about enough in the tighten up, tighten down segment that we had on Monday.

And two people who definitely should have been in the tighten down segment were Larell Murchison and Isaiah Mack. So the Titans backup defensive line, essentially, the Titans like to keep their guys fresh. It's a big thing that Mike Vrabel is about coming from, I would imagine, being a former player. He puts an emphasis on keeping guys fresh when possible. So what he'll do is about every three drives on defense, he'll throw in the backup defensive lineman, Larell Murchison, Isaiah Mack. And, you know, they'll play about three series a game. They might come in for a few plays. You know, the team will start on their own 25, their own 30.

They'll get a first down, get to the 45-yard line. He'll run in the backup defensive line, let them go at it until the team gets closer to the red zone, down to the 30, 20-yard line. He'll run in the backup defensive line, let them go at it until the team gets closer to the red zone, down to the 30-20-yard line, then pop back in Jeffrey Simmons and Daquan Jones and try to keep those guys fresh in that way. It's a rotation that he tries to do every single game, and he tries to do it at every position, quite frankly. It's very noticeable how he tries to rotate people in. In some positions, you can't do it as much as others, like at the safety position or the cornerback position or even the edge position. A lot of that is you want your best players out on the field, but some of that is the

Titans don't necessarily have the depth and the talent at certain positions to have that kind of rotation. So, Larell Murchison and Isaiah Mack, when they came in in this game, they got destroyed. There's no other way around it. I wish I could say it more positively, be nicer about it, especially Larell Murchison. I know he's a rookie. He's a fifth-round pick. He's going to get better. He's going to improve.

He's got a lot to work on, but he drove back five to eight yards on multiple plays, and a lot of the big run plays that you saw take place against the Titans especially in the first half the 39 yard Dalvin Cook touchdown run back up defensive line so Larell Murchison had a really rough game he's not holding up in run defense very well he's getting driven back by double teams pretty easily and then Isaiah Mack didn't have a great day on that note either not quite as bad as Larell Murchison, but both of them together were not good enough. I guess that's the best way to put it, the nicest way that I can possibly put it. While we're talking about some struggles in run defense, it's obviously something that

we need to talk about primarily with Dalvin Cook having over 180 yards, his career best. Rashawn Evans getting washed away in plays. We talked about things that Jadavion Clowney likes to do on defense where he likes to pick a gap and shoot it, whether that's the gap that he's supposed to be protecting in the run fit or whether he's improvising and shooting a gap because he sees a sliver and thinks he can make a play. Rashawn Evans is doing a little bit too much of that at this time.

He's not keeping his gap integrity on defense. He's allowing himself to get too far ahead of plays or not being in his gap and sliding his feet over. And it's getting him out of position and it's making it easier for offensive linemen to climb to the second level and block him, quite frankly. And he's not doing a good enough job of being in the right position. It's not even about him missing a bunch of tackles and things like that. Rashawn Evans is just not in great position on a lot of these runs and not holding the

gap that he's supposed to. And it's hurting the Titans pretty badly. And quite frankly, Jayon Brown has been worse in run defense. And he's a smaller linebacker so you expect Rashawn Evans to be the more vital person in run defense but if Jayon Brown's going to be an every down linebacker like he has been he's going to have to be able to hold up in run defense much better than he was against the Minnesota Vikings he hasn't really been good against run defense at all all year it's something that's concerning and another person on the Titans

defense that has me concerned is Kevin Byard now Kevin Byard went to the locker room at one point in time against the Jags now he came back in and played in every snap of that game so I'm not saying that he's injured but I did see him move a little gingerly on some plays on Sunday and he's not playing with the speed that I've seen him play with before. He's not crashing. He's not reading the routes on offense as well in his zone coverages. He's getting himself out of space or stressed too far in one direction or the other. He's taking terrible angles to the running back in the run game,

trying to fill the alley. He's missing tackles as well. Quite frankly, going back to that Dalvin Cook big touchdown run for 39 yards. That was Kevin Byard's fault primarily. He missed a tackle. Whiffed on a tackle. Coming up to fill the alley. Took a terrible angle.

Dove at Dalvin Cook. Wasn't even close. Kevin Byard's just not on his game right now. Ladies and gentlemen. And I don't know if it's an injury or if the layoff really affected Kevin or not, but I'm hoping that the Titans' defensive improvement will come when Kevin Byard starts to play the all-pro level of safety that we know that he can play. So continuing to move forward in some of my additional analysis here.

Going back to Jayon Brown again. We talked about run defense. And now that I talked about Kevin Byard in pass defense and run defense. Jayon Brown, who's a stud for the Titans in pass defense, also didn't have a fantastic day. It wasn't terrible. It wasn't bad like he was in run defense. He was okay in coverage. He made a few plays in man coverage.

Sniffing out screens. Made a few plays in man coverage, sniffing out screens, made a few plays knocking the ball away from a tight end close to the line of scrimmage. He made a few plays, but just not the typical level of play that we see from Jayon Brown. Again, like I mentioned with Kevin Byard, it's mostly in zone coverage that I'm seeing these issues getting overly stressed or not reading the route combination successfully enough, getting manipulated by Kirk Cousins' eye movement. Those sort of things didn't used to affect Kevin Bayard and Jayon Brown as much as I saw them affect them on Sunday. So I'm hoping that their level of play continues to improve because part of the reason the

Titans defense is struggling so much is obviously because some of their most important players aren't playing at the level that they necessarily are used to. If the Titans can get the level of performance they're getting from some of the pass rushers, some of the edge, Harold Landry, Jeffrey Simmons, Jadavion Clowney, and combine that with Jayon Brown, Rashawn Evans, and some members of the secondary either getting back to form or getting healthy, the Titans could eventually by midseason maybe have a good defense instead of the terrible one that we have seen. So some notes also from the defensive side of the ball. The Vikings were using motion to get Justin Jefferson on to Jonathan Joseph.

That's why we saw that matchup so much because the Vikings were literally waiting to see that the Titans were in man coverage and then motioning Justin Jefferson over to the side and getting him in alignment with Jonathan Joseph. So that's how that matchup happened so often. And to counter that, because the Titans do like to play a lot of man coverage, the Titans countered that by going zone heavy in the second half.

And that's when they started to slow down the Vikings offense because they were confusing Kirk Cousins with some of the coverages that they were running and they were able to get the Vikings off the field enough so a really good job by the Titans adjusting at halftime without their defensive play caller and Shane Bowen and going to more zone as the Titans cornerbacks Malcolm Butler and Jonathan Joseph were getting beat pretty badly in man coverage but that's going to do it for the defensive side of the ball in this Rewatch Wednesday. I'm going to get into the offensive side of the ball and tell you how the Tennessee Titans were able to play a chess game with Mike Zimmer. Let's continue our re-watch Wednesday, diving into the offensive side of the ball. So, first off, looking at the Titans offense, the Vikings were doing a lot pre-snap to try to confuse Ryan Tannehill on his checks at

the line of scrimmage, which direction the run was going to go, audibles in the pass, what pass coverage he might be seeing. It's obvious that the Vikings noticed the Titans using pre-snap motion to try to identify coverage early. So what the Vikings were doing is they were waiting for the Titans to do that motion before they actually shifted their defense and one other thing that the Titans noticed to counter this is the Titans would send a tight end in motion in a two tight end set for example and the Vikings would a little bit after that rotate a safety down from up top, down over top of

that tight end, stacking the box. Well, what the Titans started doing was, the Titans would send that tight end in motion, and then they would run the other way. In theory, that would make the safety rolling down to the wrong side, and the Titans could run the other way, and it should give them an advantage in the run game. Well, the Vikings eventually caught on in the first half to that, and the Titans could run the other way and it should give them an advantage in the run game. Well, the Vikings eventually caught on in the first half to that and the Titans started mixing it up, running back towards that motion sometimes and trying to have a balance there after they initially tried to catch the Vikings off guard with that.

So that's one of the big things that the Titans were doing in the run game to play chess against Mike Zimmer's defense. When it comes to the passing game, unfortunately, the Titans were really struggling against the Vikings' man coverage throughout the game. The Vikings ran a ton of man coverage early on. Now, they mix in zone, they mix in cover four, they mix in cover two. Like I said, Mike Zimmer is great at disguising things, trying to confuse the quarterback, so the Vikings play a ton of different coverages.

But they were having a lot of success with man coverage because, quite frankly, the Titans don't have wide receivers out there right now that can create separation on their own. That's one of the downfalls of Corey Davis, who is a decent physical receiver, but he's not good at creating his own separation when he doesn't have the benefit of play action to help take away the linebackers underneath when he's running those crossing routes over the middle. So Corey Davis, a lot of the time, has to be schemed open. Can't just get open on his own like a Michael Thomas or a DeAndre Hopkins or Amari Cooper, Julio Jones, some of the better receivers

in the league. That's the difference. A.J. Brown is somebody who should be able to get that separation and beat man coverage consistently for the Titans, but A.J. Brown isn't out there. So the problem that the Titans were having early on is if they weren't getting any open receivers or they were using play action to get open receivers and if they didn't have that play action, they were having a hard time getting anybody open and that is one of the areas that the Titans probably need to address in the draft in this offseason is the ability to get separation

at the wide receiver position so I would look for the Titans to target wide receiver pretty early in the draft but that's a far way away from now. But another thing that I want to bring up other than the Titans' struggles against man coverage during the game, also other than the Titans' tight end motion and how they were using that to play chess in the run game, one thing that I want to point out to you guys is the big catch from Kalief Raymond in the third quarter, late in the third quarter, that got the Titans down to the four-yard line.

That was a double move against quarters coverage. And quarters coverage, of course, is when that two outside cornerbacks and then the two deep safeties all take a quarter of the field as their deep zone. So that's why it's quarters coverage, because all four of the secondary members are taking each a quarter of the field. Well, the Vikings safety Harrison Smith is very aggressive and he pushes the line of scrimmage and he reads the quarterback's eyes and he got an interception against Tannehill doing that exact thing in cover one defense. So Harrison Smith's very aggressive

and he reads the quarterback's eyes and Tannehill noticed this. So what I want to bring up is that Kalief Raymond big catch. That is the second time that game that the Titans ran that. Actually, the second time they ran that same exact play in the third quarter. So earlier in the third quarter with about nine minutes and 15 seconds left, the Titans on first and 10 ran that exact play because Arthur Smith noticed that the Vikings were going with cover four early on in drives. You know, right around the 50 yard line, early when the Titans got the ball in second and four, first and 10,

those early down situations, the Vikings would go to man coverage on third to try to stop the Titans because they were having success there. But they wanted to focus on the run game on the early downs on first down and second down. So they played a little bit of zone more often on the early down so that they could focus on their run fit and not about a man assignment that they have to follow. So what happened was Harrison Smith, if you're looking from Ryan Tannehill's perspective, think you're the quarterback, you're looking out at the defense. The inside right quarter is Harrison Smith. What the Titans do is they have Kalief Raymond on the right side, and then they have Anthony

Ferkser on the left side split at wide receiver, and Anthony Ferkser runs a crossing route at about 10 to 15 yards, and Tannehill stares him down, and that brings Harrison Smith up, and then Kalief Raymond runs a double move where he shoots out at the outside corner on the right, fakes to the outside, and then cuts back inside. That cornerback is expecting Harrison Smith to have his back on the inside. Well, Harrison Smith isn't there because he's overly aggressive, reading Ryan Tannehill's eyes, gets suckered by eye manipulation, comes up onto Anthony Ferkser's crossing route,

and that leaves that right inside quarter wide open for Kalief Raymond on the vertical double move, and he's able to catch it down at the 4-yard line for the Titans, setting up their second score and giving them a one-point lead late in the third quarter. So a big play that the Titans ran twice, and the first time that they ran it in the first quarter, they actually ran it with Corey Davis, and he was wide open as well, but Ryan Tannehill got pressured on the play because Corey Blossom's game did not have a successful pass protection, and Ryan Tannehill didn't have time to wait for the deep vertical double move to develop so the Titans actually had that play in the books and knew that

it would work against Vikings quarters coverage and waited for the perfect opportunity to run it again later in the quarter the Vikings didn't notice it the first time the Titans hit it for a big play the second time there you go Smith. A much better game than originally I gave him credit for, but a really bad performance still in the fourth quarter from Arthur Smith late. But some really good stuff from him early on, and you can see why he is considered a head coaching candidate possibly going into the offseason. So those are my rewatch takeaways on offense and defense. Quickly, just to get into some of the lingering impacts that I mentioned that I would talk about from the COVID-19 news

that we got surrounding the Tennessee Titans. One thing to consider here is if the game is postponed, which at this point in time is best for the Titans, quite frankly, playing the Pittsburgh Steelers after they had a full week to practice, when the Titans are not going to have a full week of practice, they're going to have, at best, a Thursday night football-style week of practice with only three days before their game if they're able to come back on Friday, come back on Thursday maybe, whatever it is. And that's me being very, very optimistic.

But if this game does not get played and gets postponed for later, that is more optimistic for the Titans. And one way that that could happen is that the Baltimore Ravens and the Pittsburgh Steelers both have a bye in Week 7, and the Titans have a bye in Week 8. So what could happen is the Steelers and the Ravens, instead of having a bye in Week 7, they could play in Week 7 against each other,, instead of having a bye in week seven, they could play

in week seven against each other since they play against each other in week eight, just bump that up one week to play on their bye week. And then that would free up the Steelers to be able to play the Titans in week eight. Now there'd be some shuffling that have to take place with the schedule a little bit, but that's a plausible way. But one reason why that's not probably going to happen. If the NFL has another outbreak like this throughout any point in time during the season, they may, with that team and that game, let's say it's the Cardinals and the 49ers. What if they don't have bye weeks and don't have the opportunity in such an easy way to make a postponement work to play later? This isn't Major League Baseball.

You can't just play a doubleheader. So if the NFL reschedules the Titans game and postpones it to Week 8 or whatever, then that sets a precedent that they should be doing that with these situations going forward. And the NFL, quite frankly, probably can't do that. So if it's possible and the rest of the Titans players come back with negative tests, I would assume that this game does take place either Sunday or Monday, and that may be an unfair disadvantage to the Tennessee Titans, but it's what's best for the entire NFL.

So take that into consideration. But I do want to say if the Titans do not play this game and it is postponed, it actually would be a lot better for them, not only because they would be able to have a full week of practice in theory to get ready for a good Pittsburgh Steelers team, but they wouldn't have to play this game without Taylor LeJuan, Adoree Jackson, and A.J. Brown, which seems very likely right now, and note on Taylor LeJuan, it appears his injury is not a long-term injury, but we still don't know what the injury is and how long Taylor will be out, but it doesn't seem to be a season-ending injury or something that he'll have to go on IR for. So that is positive news, but it's not only about the players that could be missing, but the Titans had five personnel members test positive.

We know that does not include Shane Bowen. So six personnel members, if you include Bowen, the Titans are not only going to be missing players, but they're going to be missing coaches and that can hurt as well. Also, if the Titans were to play on Monday or Tuesday, as I mentioned in the first segment, that could affect their preparation for the Bills game. So now not only are they at a disadvantage for the Steelers game because of the COVID situation, they're at a disadvantage for the Bills game because they don't get a regular week of practice for that game either. So very difficult no matter what happens for the Titans. But the last note that I had is it's not fair, but life isn't. I mean, nothing about COVID-19 is ideal

for anybody. It's unfortunate. And we knew going into this NFL season that there were going to be hiccups. There were going to be problems and every team, every coach, every organization knew that things may not be perfect and you'll just have to work around them because it's what's best for the league. And at the end of the day, as I mentioned, playing this game on Sunday or Monday, although it is not good for the Tennessee Titans, it is most certainly what's best for the NFL. So long-term, it's probably what's best, but I'm going to continue to update you guys. I got a feeling we're going to get rapid information on

this daily. So I'm going to continue to update you guys throughout the week and hopefully continue to get ready for a game on Sunday against the Pittsburgh Steelers, hoping for the best for everyone affected in the Titans organization. But that's going to do it for me today. That's going to do it for this Rewatch Wednesday. I will be back with you tomorrow for a crossover Thursday conversation

with Chris from the Locked on Steelers podcast. I'm sure we'll be discussing whether or not this game is going to be played and I'm sure we'll have more up-to-date information for you tomorrow. But as always, I am your host, Tyler Rowland, and this was Locked on Titans. you