Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Tennessee Titans Mini-Camp Day 2 Recap: Team Activities, Individual Observations & Player Comments

Episode Date: June 17, 2021

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You are Locked On Titans, your daily Tennessee Titans podcast, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome to the Locked On Titans podcast. I am your host, Tyler Rowland. Titans fans, this Thursday edition of the Locked On Titans podcast is presented by the Peacock and Williamson podcast. NFL analyst Brian Peacock and former NFL scout Matt Williamson host Locked On's Peacock and Williamson every Monday through Friday. Brian and Matt give you a national perspective on all of the latest NFL news, so make sure

you check out the Peacock and Williamson podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network, wherever you get your podcasts. Yesterday, we recapped everything that took place on day one of Tennessee Titans mandatory minicamp, and today, of course, we are recapping everything that took place on day two. We got some big individual performances that I do want to dive into from all of the observations from camp. We do know what's going on with the Titans schedule going forward in terms of tomorrow's performances that I do want to dive into from all of the observations from camp. We do know what's going on with the Titans schedule going forward in terms of tomorrow's minicamp practice, so we'll discuss that as well.

Also, we got some quotes from some of the team's biggest players on offense, A.J. Brown, Derrick Henry, and Taylor LeJuan. We're going to hear what they had to say in the last player interviews we are going to get in this quote-unquote off-season time period of the NFL schedule. And then at the end of our show, I'm going to update you guys on a conversation that we had at the end of yesterday's show about vaccinations. The NFL and the NFL Players Association just came out on Wednesday and outlined exactly the differences between a vaccinated player's process and procedures and a non-vaccinated player's, and I think

that's important information for us to have as observers of the team. So we are going to dive into everything from day two of the Tennessee Titans mandatory minicamp on this Thursday edition of the Locked On Titans podcast. Let's get it! It is crazy how fast time flies, but Titans fans, we have made it to the end of the offseason. On Wednesday, the Titans had their last practice of the offseason. The next time we see the Titans on the practice field will be for 2021 training camp, which is kind of like the unofficial kickoff to the season.

So pretty crazy that we have gotten this far, but excited for what's to come. Now before we worry about what's to come, gotta break down everything that took place on the last practice of the offseason for the Titans that took place on Wednesday. Before we do that, gotta remind you guys I'm gonna be putting out Monday through Friday daily Tennessee Titans content here on the Locked On Titans podcast, not only during the season, but all year long. There's not another Titans content creator that can say that. Make sure that you subscribe to or follow the Locked on Titans podcast on whatever platform

you do stream. Check me out on social media as well, on Twitter at TicTacTitans, on Facebook at Locked on Titans Pod. But let's get into some of these day two mandatory minicamp observations from practice. Going to get into some team-centric nuggets first. And the number one thing that I want to point out here is just kind of the structure of the practice. So the Titans did a ton of team period during this practice.

There wasn't a ton of individual. Of course, you start out an individual. That's kind of how the flow of the practice goes. But there isn't any one-on-ones during this offseason work. So the Titans focused on just individual drills, not one-on-one, but just, you know, working on technique for your position. And then they did some team period. That includes 11-on-11. That includes 7-on-7 as well. And of course, just to make sure we're on the same page, seven on seven is basically all of the offensive players except an offensive lineman. There's usually somebody snapping the ball.

And then there will be seven players on defense, normally five defensive backs and two linebackers. It's basically a passing only situation for teams to practice in. Had a lot of fun going to those events, playing football in high school, but that's a conversation for another day but other than that other than just generally what the team was doing attendance is a big issue and everybody is required to be at mandatory minicamp and all the Titans players did show up but that doesn't mean that all of the Titans players were out on the field continuing to be absent on day two a mandatory minicamp.

A.J. Brown, obviously still recovering from some off-season surgeries. Jayon Brown, that's kind of a mystery. He participated a little bit earlier in organized team activity, so I hope he's good to go. Same with Christian Fulton. It's very important for Christian Fulton to take advantage of this off-season as he did not have a normal off-season in his rookie year. Not good to see him not participating in these events. It's not, you know, panic button time, but you just want to see Christian Fulton get

as much reps as he possibly can to make up for lost time from last year. Caleb Farley, this is to be expected though. We knew that when Caleb Farley was drafted that he probably wouldn't be ready for any of these offseason activities. Bud Dupree, still rehabbing from the torn ACL, but in some workout videos recently, looking pretty good. So you feel optimistic about that, but clearly not on the field. Same with Taylor LeJuan, still recovering from the ACL tear.

The Titans aren't going to put him out there in these sort of situations. Ty Sambrillo, also recovering from a knee injury, so similar situation. And then Nick Westbrook-Akina, that's unfortunate for Nick because he is still one of those roster bubble guys, and with the addition of Julio Jones, that puts his roster spot in even more jeopardy. So if you're Nick Westbrook-Akina, you want to get out there as soon as possible. Hopefully he's able to compete in training camp and be good to go by the time that rolls around. Some daily updates here, some unexpected stuff. Monty Rice, the rookie linebacker who missed day one, returned to the practice field, so you love to see that for a young guy,

but Roger Saffold left after individual position drills. Now that could just be regular maintenance for, you know, a cagey older vet, but hopefully nothing serious for Saffold at this time. Not believed to be the case. Also, do want to mention just something schematically here. Did get reports that the Titans during 11-on-11 team periods and 7-on-7 team periods were working a lot on the screen game with Darrington Evans and Derrick Henry. I've been saying throughout the offseason,

I hope the Titans can find a way to be more effective in the screen game. That's going to really help them with things that defenses had success with against them last year. All the pressure that they brought, if you can take advantage of an aggressive defense by getting them to come up the field and then dumping a screen over their head for some chunk yardage, that would be very, very important for the Titans offense as an additional element that they need. So love to hear that as well.

We are going to get into some of the individual observations in the next segment. Also going to give you guys some of the quotes that stood out to me from the Titans offensive stars in Taylor LeJuan, A.J. Brown, and Derrick Henry. Before we do that, do got to remind you guys that Credit Karma has always been there to help you make better financial decisions. And now they want to help even more

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Instant Karma is sponsored by Credit Karma. No purchase necessary. Exclusions and terms apply. See rules. Banking services provided by MVB Bank Incorporated, member FDIC, maximum balance and transfer limits apply. Titans fans, let's continue breaking down everything you need to know from day two of the Tennessee Titans mandatory minicamp, the last quote unquote offseason practice that the team will have. We're going to get into some individual observations here. We just talked about some of the more team related things, some of the more bigger picture takeaways from day two.

But let's dive into the individual performances that stood out. Now, one thing that I do want to mention here, we're talking about non-padded practices. That's always going to favor the offensive guys because the defense doesn't have the ability to get physical enough to really make an impact. Nor do the coaches want that, nor do we want that, guys. to really make an impact, nor do the coaches want that, nor do we want that, guys. There's no reason to get anybody hurt during a mandatory minicamp because someone is going a little bit too hard. Now, that doesn't mean that you don't play fast, aggressive, all of the regular football cliches, but just don't be reckless out there with the physicality.

So I say that as a preface because a lot of the guys on the offensive side of the ball are going to get pubbed more than guys on the defensive side of the ball. And let's dive into that. Anthony Ferkser continues to show out and make great catches. He caught a really nice pass from Ryan Tannehill in the red zone during 7-on-7 drills. So you like to see that. Also, speaking of tight ends, Briley Moore continues to do a really good job. He caught a touchdown pass from my boy Deshaun K Kaiser in 7-on-7 in the red zone.

Also, while we're talking about tight ends, worthy to say Jeff Swaim caught two touchdown passes on Wednesday. And then the Titans are giving a tryout right now to a former college basketball player. So, of course, everybody always thinks of Antonio Gates, but more likely of a role if this were to pan out would be like a Mo Alley Cox for the Indianapolis Colts. The Titans are basically giving him a shot on a tryout basis. Nothing guaranteed. They didn't give him a contract or anything like that. But his name is Hassan French, and he's a former guy from St.

Louis University. The Bellicans, I do believe. But like I said, former basketball player. He's 6'7", so a very big, imposing guy. Got good fluidity to him, as you would expect from a basketball player. But he's out there in shorts and a t-shirt. All of the videos that you've seen of him does look like he's a little tentative, but that's to be expected with a guy who's changing sports. Love to get the pads on him and see if he can deal with the physicality of the NFL.

Anytime you have guys coming over like Adam Kuhn on the offensive line, who is a former college wrestler who didn't really play football. Anytime you have guys transitioning over from a different sport into American football, the physicality is something that they're going to have to get used to. Now, you may be thinking in your head if you're a former high school wrestler or something like that, oh, you know, the wrestling requires incredible physicality. How disrespectful to say, but football is a collision sport. It's different to wrestle somebody on the ground than it is to run full speed sprint

and try to hit them while they're trying to do the same to you. It's just a little different, okay? I'm not diminishing any of the sports physicality, but you guys have to understand what I'm saying there. So anytime you do that, that's going to be the real test for guys is do they appreciate and enjoy the physicality? Because if any of you people who are listening to me right now played football, you knew guys on your team who just didn't like to hit,

didn't like to get hit, didn't like to muck it up. I love that about football. I love hitting people and not getting in trouble. You know what I mean? It's a great way to take out that aggression. And I'm sure a lot of you guys, if you played football for a long time, you're like, yes, exactly.

Exactly. So can they deal with that? But Hassan French getting a tryout, find that interesting. Somebody checked me on my Adam Kuhn comment about publicity stunt. And you know what? You're right. I'll walk that back. Not a publicity stunt.

They're not throwing out there. He's not a popular person anyway. So wrong to say that. It's not really what I meant. But just seems like kind of a flimsy idea. And they're just kind of having some fun with the guy seeing what they can do. Nothing wrong with that though. But that's what I meant, so I'll walk that back officially today, but continuing to talk about the individual standouts here, like I said, Deshaun Kaiser

threw a great pass to Briley Moore, the undrafted free agent tight end in seven-on-sevens in the red zone, also connected with Mason Kinsey, and i've been hearing a lot about mason kinsey really showing out running routes and getting separation and here's the thing kinsey is a small guy he's like prototypical slot receiver and guys like that like cam batson struggle when the pads come on when it weighs them down they're not a super big guy also the physicality ratchets up, and it's hard for guys who are small in stature. Naturally, it's hard to survive in the NFL. There's a reason guys like Wes Welker and Julian Edelman are anomalies. They're rare. They're not the most common

situation. Guys like A.J. Brown, guys that size, like Julio, have a better chance of dominating in football, and it makes sense. That's why the Titans want all these big wide receivers because the game of football is won by bigger, stronger men for the most part. That's just how this works. So guys like Mason Kinsey, they can make their way, but I'm not going to get too high on reports when there are no pads on for a small guy. I got to see what he does with the physicality, kind of like I just said about, you know, the non-football traditional

guys that the Titans are giving a tryout to. But continuing to go forward, some other quarterbacks to talk about. We talked about Kaiser. We talked about Tannehill hitting Ferkser. Got to talk about Logan Woodside. It's only fair. You guys know how I feel about this situation, but Logan Woodside and Racey McMath. Woodmath. The Woodmath connection has been very, very stellar in these practices, in camp, in the offseason. And I saw a report, basically, Racy McMath,

I think it came from Jim Wyatt. Jim Wyatt basically said, Racy McMath hasn't dropped a pass the entire offseason. All the mini-rookie camp, the OTAs, this mandatory mini-camp, hasn't seen McMath drop a pass.

I said, McMath drop a pass. I said McMath drop a path. Hilarious. So, anyways, good to see that from Ray C. McMath. He was a guy who had incredible speed, sat behind a lot of talent at LSU. Maybe the Titans might find something. Who really knows? But continuing, Lord Raidens. Dylan Raidens, shout out.

I don't know exactly who it is on Twitter that has that name, but Lord Radins, I'm running with that. That's fantastic. A little Mortal Kombat reference if you guys pick that up. But Dylan Radins continues to get rave reviews from his teammates, from the coaching staff about being humble, about working out, keeping his nose to the grindstone, being all about his business, all about that stuff. So I love seeing that.

I hope Lord Radins finds a way to start. I think that he does find a way to start ultimately, but all of these reports only reinforce that belief that I have. Corey Blossom game, the fullback, everybody is reporting that he looks bigger, stronger than ever. That's good to hear from the Titans fullback who has to play with that physicality. Also, kicker update, Blake Heibel is hurt right now. He's not participating, but Tucker McCann is out there and he went six for nine on his field

goal attempts. He missed a 33-yarder, missed a 47-yarder, missed a 53-yarder. Every single one of his six makes was under 50 yards, his high being 49 yards. So that's something to take into account. I'd like to see Hybel out there hopefully soon to get his chance to compete. But that's all of the updates that I have for you. We've gone a little bit long with the updates. So we are going to dive into the quotes from the Titans, three offensive stars who talked on Wednesday, Taylor LeJuan, A.J. Brown, and Derrick Henry.

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Before we get into that, do got to remind you guys about the Locked On Today podcast hosted by Peter Bukowski. It's all of the biggest sports stories in under 20 minutes, Monday through Friday. It's like having the sports section read to you. Make sure you check out the Locked On Today podcast wherever you get your podcast. But let's dive into some of these quotes. We are going to start with Taylor LeJuan. And kind of the biggest thing that came out of Taylor LeJuan's press conference

was an update on his surgically repaired knee from his torn ACL. And Taylor LeJuan did say that there has been no follow-up surgery required on his repaired ACL. So that's obviously great news for Titans fans. It's great news for Taylor LeJuan. The reality is while the Titans were able to get by last year at the offensive tackle position with a second string guy and then a third string guy, when it mattered most, that was something that really gave the Titans problems because they couldn't leave one of their offensive tackles on an island to take care of one of the best pass rushers.

Like when you have Taylor out there. So it makes it much more difficult on the offense, obviously to not have their stud left tackle Taylor LeJuan being back. Hopefully he's able to stay healthy, should help the Titans offense take that next step that I've been talking about all season long. Taylor LeJuan also said one of the good things about being injured is you get time off.

You also learn more, he said, about flexibility. He's been learning to eat better as well. Thinks that he'll be even better, basically, once the knee is healed because of all the stuff he's learned during the downtime. Taylor LeJuan also talked about Lord Radins, Dylan Radins, and said that he's been working hard, like I mentioned. He did mention that Radins is shy and has been shy around Taylor LeJuan, but has told Taylor LeJuan that he obviously modeled his game after his a little bit,

watched a lot of his tape, and studied him as a player. Taylor even mentioned that he hopes Dylan Radins start to be a little bit less shy around him. And I'm not shocked to hear Taylor LeJuan wanting somebody to be a little more jovial and joking. But of course, not everyone is quite like that, like Taylor LeJuan is. But we're going to move to some quotes here from Derek Henry. And Henry had this to say about the recruitment of Julio Jones. He said, teammate AJ Brown had a bigger role in bringing Julio Jones here via trade, but Henry pitched in a little bit. Of course, we saw Derrick Henry working out with Julio Jones during the offseason.

There's just no way around it. They definitely had conversations about the offense. Derrick Henry talked more about Julio Jones. He said Julio Jones is a dynamic player one of if not the best wide receivers in the game very respected by defenses he likes to work hard I like to work hard hopefully we can make each other better Derrick Henry just I mean he's just a hard worker at the end of the day there's no way around it everything he says everything he does Derrick Henry actually talked about his all season said he was just doing his normal workouts running hills lifting weights taking care of his body

he did say that his individual workout plan throughout the all season is determined by his trainer they kind of asked him what he changed up from all season to all season he doesn't really worry about that guys this is the thing athletes let their trainers make their plans for them to make them better. That's why they pay them. They let their agents handle their contract situations in the financial aspect. That's why they pay them. And athletes just work on working hard, getting better, getting smarter. And that's the way that it has to work.

You have to have a great team around you to be successful in life. That's just the way that it has to work. You have to have a great team around you to be successful in life. That's just the way that it is. But, of course, either way, with the way that Derrick Henry works and the example that he sets, and then Julio Jones obviously doing the same things. Again, I guess I failed to mention it in the little individual updates, but Julio Jones, again, getting rave reviews from everyone around him about just how dialed in he is to practice,

just how hard he's working out there, how much he's studying, asking questions from the coaches, everything like that. And when you have Derek Henry doing that, when you have Julio Jones doing that, who's the most accomplished player on the entire team now, that sets a standard for everybody else.

And that's a very, very important. We're going to move to some quotes from AJ Brown. And again, more questions about the recruitment of Julio Jones. A.J. Brown said social media campaign for Julio started when he was bored. If it helped, it helped. But basically, it was all fun and games. And I got to touch on that. I hate to say it, but Paul Kaharski had a great point on Twitter as well. All of these people asking A.J. Brown and Derrick Henry

about how much their recruitment of Julio Jones helped or mattered. Give me a break, guys. I mean, yeah, Julio, probably it was nice for him to know and nice for John Robinson to know that these guys wanted him. But the reality is here, John Robinson is not listening to the players he is making the best decision for the team at all times and even if the Titans players weren't out there campaigning for Julio Jones he would have made the trade if he could it's just more fun for all of us all the recruitment and campaigning in the pictures which is perfectly

fine because I absolutely love it but let's not pretend that it's more significant than it really is. And the last thing here is maybe the most interesting thing of all. And it comes from A.J. Brown. He said, Todd Downing came to me this offseason, gave me a heads up about expanding my route tree this year. Brown says it will put him or put a little more work on him, which is all good. OK, I agree with this 100 percent. A.J. Brown taking that next leap,

just diversifying what he's able to do. We all know that he's great on the slants over the middle. He's great on the short digs, on the deep digs, in the play action. We know that he can run a comeback. He can run a curl, but running more screens, getting better at that, running a post route, getting better at double moves, comebacks, out and ups, things like that running a post route getting better at double moves comebacks out and ups things like that the corner route headed to the corner slot fades all that he can get even better at all that and just become a more diversified wide receiver and what teams can expect from him you know right now you're going to get certain routes from AJ now part of that is on the offense and part of that's on the skill set that AJ has but if he can continue continue to improve basically the precision in the routes

that he's already great at and then being good at the routes that he needs to continue to work on that I just mentioned a second ago I mean it's just going to elevate him even further past what he is right now and it won't be all about that yards after catch ability. It'll be just him getting open at will nonstop. Very excited for the player that A.J. Brown could become if he successfully does kind of branch out his route tree. But that's going to do it for me today, folks. I'm going to be back with you guys to cap off the week of the Locked on Titans podcast tomorrow.

As always, I am your host, Tyler Rowland, and this was Locked on Titans.