Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Tennessee Titans Workout Two Kickers, Weekend Practice Takeaways & Vrabel Talks Kicker Spot

Episode Date: August 31, 2020

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Hey guys, Tyler Rowland here, host of the Locked on Titans podcast. Before we start today's show, I wanted to take this opportunity to apologize for misspeaking on Friday. When speaking about the Jacob Blake shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin, I used the term murdered. At the time of that recording and at the time of this, Jacob Blake is still with us. He has not passed, so it was unfair to use the term murdered when I was speaking about the incident in relation to the Titans canceling one of their practices. So I wanted to be upfront and honest and clear before we start this week of the Locked on

Titans podcast that I apologize for misspeaking, and I do apologize to anyone who was offended by that or any offense that could have been taken. It was not my intention to misspeak. So just wanted to say that openly and honestly to you guys before we start today's show. But with that, let's begin. 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 podcast. I am your host, Tyler Rowland. Titans fans, today's edition of the Locked on Titans podcast is brought to you by rockauto.com. Amazing selection, reliably low prices, all of the parts your car will ever need, rockauto.com. We are two weeks to the day away from the kickoff of the Tennessee Titans season. And speaking of kickoff, we need to talk about the kicker position today. The Titans continue to explore the roster options that they have and schedule workouts with two veteran free agent kickers that we have discussed quite a bit throughout the offseason on the Locked On Titans podcast.

So we will start off the show there. And then we will slide into two practices that the Titans had over the weekend and some of the biggest takeaways coming out of those practices, including updates on the kicker position. So a big Monday on the Locked on Titans podcast for the kickers on this team or that could be on this team. And then we will wrap up today's show hearing directly from head coach Mike Vrabel and some of the highlights from his Zoom conference on Sunday night.

So really excited to go over everything with you guys. Make sure that you subscribe to the Locked on Titans podcast on whatever platform you do stream as I will be breaking down all of the news and notes out of Nashville throughout the season, Monday through Friday, and follow me on Twitter at Tic Tac Titans as well for additional content, including my Tic Tac Titan film breakdowns that I will be putting out weekly throughout the season. So talking about some big workouts at the kicker position, the biggest takeaways from Titans practice over the weekend. And highlights from the Zoom conference with head coach Mike Vrabel.

A big Monday on the Locked on Titans podcast. Let's get it! As the Titans get closer and closer to the regular season, they have to face some roster reality. Some of the younger options that they thought may hit or some of the younger guys, some undrafted free agents, some roster bubble veterans could potentially see a big boost in their development and make the roster. could potentially see a big boost in their development and make the roster. But as we get closer to the regular season, the Titans have to face the fact that some of those optimistic views that they had may not come true. And we've seen them start to turn over the back end of the roster,

turn over certain positions where they aren't happy with the results that we are seeing, including the running back position, the quarterback position. We've seen some movement on the defense at the edge rusher position, as well as in the defensive backfield and at linebacker. So the Titans are moving around and looking for options that they can rely on when the season arrives in two weeks. Well, we are seeing that at another position, not on offense or defense, but on the special teams and at the kicker position. The Titans have Tucker McCann, an undrafted free agent out of Missouri, and Greg Joseph, the incumbent who spent the last part of the season with the Titans last year, and they have been battling it out through training camp and up through Sunday's practice. Tucker McCann was 42 of 48 and Greg Joseph was 42 of 49. Both kickers

have had good days, both kickers have had bad days, and they have bested each other back and forth throughout camp. Now, it appears that the winner of the kicker competition may not even come from what is on the roster right now as the Titans held two workouts with two veteran free agent kickers over the weekend while scheduled workouts of course both kickers will have to go through the COVID testing protocols that include three negative tests over the course of four days before they are able to join the Titans in the building and begin practicing with the team. But the Titans did have two workouts scheduled with one, Steven Hoschka. Hoschka has spent 12 years in the NFL, 165 games in total with the Baltimore Ravens, the Denver Broncos, the Seattle Seahawks, and then his last two seasons

with the Buffalo Bills. Throughout his career, Hoschka has made 264 of the 308 field goals he's attempted. That is 85.7% accurate. Now, he did struggle the most he has ever struggled throughout his career in his last two seasons. In 2019, he only made 22 of his 28 field goal attempts. Now, he was pretty reliable in terms of extra points, making 30 of 32, but his field goal percentage there, he was pretty reliable in terms of extra points making 30 of 32 but his field goal percentage there making only 22 of 28 was concerning enough for the Bills to let him go during the offseason this year. He has made a 58 yarder as his career long and it's not just about kicking field goals for the Titans. The Titans also have to consider the kicker success on touchbacks when doing kickoffs, and Hoschka has struggled a little bit in that department throughout his career. He

has only had touchbacks on 57.5% of his kickoffs throughout his career, so something to take into account there. The second workout that the Titans set up is with veteran kicker Steven Gostkowski. Of course, Gostkowski has kicked 14 years, all with the New England Patriots, 204 games total. He's been very accurate throughout his career, one of the best kickers in NFL history. 374 makes out of his 428 attempts. That is 87.4% accurate. He did struggle last season with injuries, so the Titans mostly will want to make sure that Gostkowski is 87.4% accurate. He did struggle last season with injury,

so the Titans mostly will want to make sure that Gostkowski is healthy if he is able to join the roster. Last year, his injury showed up in a major way. He only made 11 of his 15 extra points. Now, he wasn't incredibly inaccurate with his field goal kicking, making 7 of 8, but his distance was severely limited by that injury in 2019. His career long is 62 yards. And although at his age he probably can't hit that 62 yarder anymore.

Having the ability to hit long kicks is something that could make him an interesting option for the Titans. He's much more successful than Hoshka when it comes to touchbacks in his career. He has hit a touchback on 80% of his kickoffs, and one thing to consider is the New England Patriots and head coach Belbelichick are incredibly savvy when it comes to strategy on kickoffs, and Gostkowski has been very successful at directional kicks and having exact yardage on his kicks during kickoffs throughout his career. One last thing that I want to point out when talking about the kicker position is earlier

in the year when we covered our roster role battle series as part of our training camp preview here on the Locked on Titans podcast, I gave you my dub, my maybe, and my WTF option. The WTF option was always a veteran kicker who could be relied on who's been in the league for quite some time. Gostkowski is the person who I mentioned the most, just like Trevor Simeon as my WTF option at backup quarterback. So if Gostkowski does end up making the roster, or Hoska for that matter, I think it'll be a pretty good sign that the Titans will want to keep that veteran around even if he's in a competition early on. There's only two weeks left, so at this point, if the Titans are bringing on veteran players,

I think it's for a reason, as opposed to a younger player who they still want to get a look at. So keep that in mind as the Titans make any moves going forward throughout the next few weeks. Before we jump into the highlights from the Titans practices over the weekend, I do want to talk to you guys about rockauto.com. We are getting into the fall season. It could have been a very damaging summer on your vehicle. A perfect time to do some maintenance. Check out all the different options that you would have to improve your vehicle or, like I said, just part of that general maintenance make improvements make sure you're checking all your fluids all the base needs that your car has got

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Locked on in the how did you hear about us box so they know that I sent you. Amazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need, rockauto.com. The Titans had two practices since we last spoke, one on Friday and then one on Sunday. So let's go over the biggest takeaways from those two practices over the weekend. And I am going to start where I ended last segment, and that is at the kicker position.

So let's just get an update on how the kickers are performing here. On Sunday specifically, the Titans did a lot of situational work, two-minute drill, got a timeout on the 40-yard line, driving no timeouts on the 30-yard line, all these different situations, and the Titans kickers had to be ready to go and kick in probably as much of a high-pressure situation as the Titans coaches can actually create for the kickers in this limited all-season and limited training camp, limited preseason. But in those situations, both kickers seem to do all right as they have. They haven't seen a disastrous day from any of the kickers so far.

So pretty decent outing overall from Joseph and McCann on Sunday, both going four for five. On Friday, they had even better days. Joseph went seven of seven.. Joseph went 7 of 7. McCann went 6 of 7. So if you add that to their Sunday performance. Right now Joseph is 42 of 49 on training camp. And McCann is 42 of 48.

Now here's something to consider. That doesn't sound too bad. Neither of these kickers sound like they're doing a terrible job. But if the Titans are still looking to do workouts with veterans like we talked about at the beginning of the show, then clearly they're not 100% satisfied. And either of these guys, Joseph or McCann, can lose the opportunity at a moment's notice.

Especially considering the limited offseason that I've beat to death throughout training camp. I think if the Titans are bringing in a veteran and they go past the tryout phase and actually sign one of these veteran kickers, I think that's a really bad sign for both Joseph and McCann is, in my opinion, the Titans would only be doing that with the idea of keeping that veteran around. So that's something I wanted to lead off with here, talking about the practices over the weekend. Now let's get into some of the other football takeaways here. I thought it was pretty interesting who was fielding punts for the Titans over the weekend.

We only saw three guys field punts for the Titans on Sunday. And when you consider that there have been five people fielding punts throughout the entirety of training camp. We've seen Kalief Raymond. We've seen Rashard Davis. We've seen Adam Humphreys. We've seen a little bit of Kareem Orr. And most notably here, we've seen Mason Kinsey fielding punts.

Mason Kinsey was not fielding punts on Sunday. It was only Kalief Raymond. It was only Rashard Davis. It was only Adam Humphreys. That's not a good sign for the undrafted free agent receiver. If he doesn't have that added value as a kick returner, punt returner, special teams player, he's simply not going to be able to make the roster off his receiver value alone. So not a good sign for Mason Kinsey there, but that's somebody who I think ends up on the Titans practice squad but Kalief Raymond, Rashard Davis, Adam Humphreys fielding the punts I would expect Humphreys or Davis to win that role with Raymond being the kickoff

returner going forward on the defensive line here are some standouts not talking about you know who's playing where at what position and who I think takes the role going forward, but just some standouts throughout practice. On the defensive line, two names in particular, one in one V1s, one in a team setting, and during one-on-one situations, Salt Larell Murchison really impressed, especially with a win in one-on-ones against starting right guard Nate Davis. Murchison was known coming out of college for that inside spin move that he has from the defensive tackle position.

Really, really excellent footwork on his spin move. Good body control, good balance in his center of gravity that allows him to keep his balance through a spin move like that. But Murchison had a good bull rush into the spin move on starting guard Nate Davis got him off balance hit him with the spin move to get around so really impressive there and then Isaiah Mack Mack hasn't been really a standout throughout training camp according to all reports but he flashed in team periods over the weekend and since the Titans don't have a lot of talent on the interior defensive line outside of Jeffrey Simmons, Daquan Jones is a really reliable veteran, but I wouldn't call him an immense talent or anybody with major upside.

And Jones is going into his final season of his contract. So you look at a Jack Crawford who isn't really someone who's going to impress. He's a long-term veteran just there to really fill a role and be reliable. The Titans need some talented developmental guys at the back end of the defensive line group, and someone like Isaiah Mack in his second year, who played a lot for the Titans last year in his role, and then someone like Larell Murchison,

who's kind of in that same mold of an interior penetrator, who's an undersized guy. Those are talents that the Titans really need to work to develop on the defensive line so important that we're seeing some flash moments from Mack and from Murchison as the Titans really need that similarly at the edge rusher position in team periods on Sunday we saw flash plays from of course Harold Landry you expect to see that but continuing to make an impression in camp is Derek Roberson. And as the coaches have openly spoke about in their Zoom calls throughout the offseason,

if Roberson can improve in run defense on first and second down outside of pure pass rushing situations, he could really be an asset for a Titans edge group that, similarly to the interior defensive line doesn't really have a lot of talent at the back end that that the Titans can develop we have DeAndre Walker now we have Derek Roberson so we need those guys to flash as those are the Titans real hopes to see if they can get some lowly drafted or undrafted free agent success here to make a little bit more of an impact on the defensive side of the ball. Outside of those developments, we need to talk about the absences, and there are

some absences that are prolonged at this point that are starting to be pretty concerning. Jeffrey Simmons missed on Friday, but he returned on Sunday, so not a lot to worry about there but we saw Cameron Batson miss his third straight practice on Friday and on Sunday we saw Christian Fulton miss his fourth straight practice Friday and then Sunday we saw Kareem Orr miss his third straight practice being on Sunday missing a second on Friday Darrington Evans has now missed five practices in a row, counting Friday and Sunday. Same with Cruikshank, five in a row, counting Friday and Sunday. So those are all pretty concerning injuries. And then we saw Jameel Douglas actually miss practice on Sunday.

And then A.J. Brown and Isaiah Wilson left practice early on Friday with would-be injuries. Isaiah Wilson returned on Sunday, but A.J. Brown did not, so obviously we need to monitor all of those with how preventative the Titans have been in their maintenance of different players. I'm not going to get too upset about any injury at this time until we know for certain what's going on, but when you look at the rookies specifically in Christian Fulton and Darrington Evans, missing four or five practices in a row, that has to hinder their development and their readiness for week one. Two weeks from now in Denver against the Broncos. So those are your

biggest takeaways from a weekend full of practice for the Titans. When we come back, we are going to hear directly from Titans head coach Mike Vrabel and the highlights of his Zoom conference audio courtesy of TennesseeTitans.com. Let's hear a few quick highlights from Mike Vrabel's Zoom conference on Sunday after the Titans two practices over the weekend. And it's worth noting here that Sunday's practice was inside the bubble of the team's facility and was closed to media due to thunderstorms that were expected to hit the Nashville area. So because of that, Mike Vrabel started things off just giving us an idea of what Sunday's practice looked like exactly. Yeah, focused, heavy focus on the red zone, which is critical. You know, that was an area defensively we have to do better at, and then offensively, you know, we had a lot of of success there and then that has to

continue you know for us to to be able to be in position to win games we have to have that same success that we had last year in the red zone um and so most of the practice was geared towards that the the one-on-ones you know receivers and dbs and tight ends and safeties and linebackers. And then again, worked on some situations there at the end, really the end of game situations that come up that you find yourself in. And if you're able to make a play, you know, maybe get into field goal range and have an opportunity to win the game. To me, what's most important about what Vrabel had to say there was talking

about the red zone. It is very important that the Titans stay good in the red zone. On offense, they were number one last season in converting red zone opportunities into touchdowns at 75.6%, but they were second to last in the NFL on defense, letting offenses convert touchdowns in the red zone area at 68.1% of the time. So have to kind of flip that around. Would like to see both of those units be at least in the top half of the league. You don't want to see the Titans offense regress too much, but the defense most certainly has to get better. So obviously Mike Vrabel is placing a premium on the red zone as he should, as it matters

very much. So clearly the Titans need to keep focusing on that until both premium on the red zone as he should as it matters very much so clearly the Titans need to keep focusing on that until both sides of the ball are as good as the offense was last year the next thing that Vrabel mentions here is about recently signed running back Jeremy McNichols and how him knowing the system can really help him get a head start into Titans training camp since he showed up late anyways I think that was a lot of it Eric the familiarity and Jeremy really had a great camp for us last year was kind of right on the right on the edge there we felt like just a guy that you'd be able to to put in there and understand what we're doing in all three downs and also having an impact on fourth down and special teams. So it's been good to see Jeremy back here.

It looked like he was quick, was moving well today. So just taking advantage of his opportunities. Again, I want to reiterate, I think McNichols makes this team. I think the Titans brought him in specifically because they know what he can do they know what he knows as Vrabel just mentioned there so I do think that McNichols makes the team he's got good explosiveness he can catch the ball out of the backfield he's somebody who the Titans can actually give the ball to and although he's not a premier runner in the league I think he can maybe do something positive.

And some of the other guys that they had on the roster, even someone now thinking of center-rise Perry, also talking about a Marcus Marshall, I just don't think they bring the upside that we see from someone like Jeremy McNichols, the McWeapon. So another person who will have to play a little bit of special teams as well as contribute on his side of the ball to be able to make the team, is Chris Milton. But again, that's somebody who I think does make this Titans roster because of the value that he brings on special teams mostly there. So what does Mike Vrabel have to say about Chris Milton? Not really somebody that gets talked about a lot,

but someone that I think is going to make the roster, if you heard my roster predictions from last week. So what does Mike Vrabel have to say about him? And spoiler alert here, I think what Vrabel has to say makes me feel even better about my roster prediction that Chris Milton is on the final 53. Yeah, and not having seen those live, I mean, gunner reps, we've doubled them and stuff in the live kickoff.

But Chris, when he was with us and was healthy, he made some impactful special teams plays, you know, some really good plays as a gunner, some disruptive plays on a kickoff team. So, you know, that's what we're hoping continues. He takes a lot of pride in it and, you know, to become along with other guys a leader on that group of the core special teams players and you may notice a theme here of what I am considering the highlights from Mike Vrabel's press conference zoom conference here it's all about players who may or may not make the roster and next Mike Vrabel talks about what exactly he's looking for at the kicker position and this is incredibly, as obviously we spent most of the show today

talking about the veteran kickers and if they could challenge the two players on the roster right now. John and I talk about it every day, who responds, who's taking advantage, and in some of these kicks, opportunities, who's able to make the kicks when you have to have it, and who's been consistent. You're looking for some consistency. You're looking for continued improvement. Those are a lot of things that go into any battle. I guess I'm assuming without your point is about preseason games

and games that you can evaluate people in. Your point is about preseason games and games that you can evaluate people in. That's been our conversations when we talk about the roster. Well, folks, I would imagine that Vrabel and Robinson will be talking a lot about the roster here in the next week. The Titans have to make some major decisions next Saturday, September 5th. So this will be the most important week of training camp for most of the players who are still with the Titans right now. So we will be monitoring that throughout the week, bringing you all of the biggest updates.

Make sure that you're subscribed to the Locked On Titans podcast. We are two weeks away, Titans fans, two weeks away from kickoff for the Titans on Monday night football against the Denver Broncos. Really excited. Weeks away, Titans fans. Two weeks away from kickoff for the Titans on Monday Night Football against the Denver Broncos. Really excited. Next week is going to be our season preview week. So we're going to kind of monitor everything that's going on throughout this week, all the big news and notes and updates.

Next week going to have a big season preview for an entire week. Got a bunch of different things that I want to preview with you guys before kickoff takes place. So really excited for what's to come. Didn't know if we would get here, but football is right around the corner. So I will talk to you guys tomorrow. I'm sure there will be more big news

in Titans land for us to talk about. As always, I am your host, Tyler Rowland, and this was Locked on Titans.