Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - The Return of Jeffery Simmons...#TicTacTitans Film Breakdown & Rowland's Rewind
Episode Date: October 10, 2019Follow Tyler on Twitter @TicTacTitans Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices ...
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Welcome to the Locked on Titans podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Rowland, Titans fans.
It is the kickoff to the NFL week. Got a Thursday night game tonight between the Patriots and the Giants.
What a snoozer. We all know that the Patriots are going to win that game.
I will be absolutely shocked if Danny Dimes is able to pull that out against the Patriots on Thursday night football.
But my predictions have been pretty wrong so far this season.
So I guess it wouldn't be a complete shocker if I was wrong about that.
Either way, in our first segment, we are going to talk about the return of Jeffrey Simmons.
Cannot wait to get into that.
Just some positive news for Titans fans to have a little bit of hope and optimism.
In our second segment, we are going to do a little bit of Tick tack, tight ends, and I'm going to break down all five sacks. I think at some point,
the conversation around the team has been mostly who's to blame for the offensive struggles.
I want to show you how everyone is to blame for the offensive struggles, and it's impossible to
pin it down on just one person. So we'll go over all five sacks. I'll do it a little quicker
than I typically spend on one play just so we can get all five of them in for you guys. And then in
our third segment, we are going to do a little bit of Roland's Rewind. And I will tell you guys
about the last time that we played the Denver Broncos as we do every week. Can't wait to get
into all of it with you guys. Let's get it. Your Tennessee Titans lead story are the reports from Paul Kaharski
that injured rookie defensive lineman Jeffrey Simmons is set to make his first appearance for
the Titans in practice in week seven. After the Broncos game, when the Titans return back to Nashville for practice, hopefully Simmons will be there ready to go and make some
sort of impact on the season. Now this is primarily the biggest news because it just gives Titans fans
some hope. There is some optimism at this point in time to get somebody like Simmons back. Should
add a little bit of juice to the team, at least the defense who's already rocking and going cannot hurt we'll get into some reasons why the Titans need his return anyways
in a second but just to give you a little background on Simmons as a refresher he was
picked like I said with the 19th pick in the first round now at the time the only reason that that
pick was questioned despite the fact that most saw Simmons' talent as top five level, was because he did have an off-field incident where he was on videotape committing
domestic abuse while he was in high school during a fight in his neighborhood with apparently a
woman who had been harassing his family for quite some time. We won't get into all the rights and
the wrongs. Simmons had made a passionate plea to the city, to ownership,
to the coaches, to his teammates and the fans, letting them know that that's not who he is as
a person and will take him at his word until he proves otherwise. On the field, in college,
Jeffrey Simmons out of Mississippi State was a dominant force for a lot of the time. He had 163
total tackles, 33 tackles for loss, seven sacks, and five forced fumbles.
He was a dominant player. Like I said, a lot of draft experts viewed him as a top five talent
until February of 2019. During his preparation for the combine in the draft, he tore his ACL.
Now, a lot of people viewed that as a reason to knock him down the draft board.
now a lot of people viewed that as a reason to knock him down the draft board it allowed the Titans who at the time were in a good spot and had a roster that didn't have a bunch of glaring
weaknesses at least they thought at the time were able to take advantage of the opportunity and grab
a top five talent like Simmons to help them now one of the reasons that they wanted to grab a top
five talent like that other than just adding good players to your roster is because while the Titans defense is excellent by NFL
standards, there is still a super glaring hole in the defense's ability to get pressure on the
quarterback with just their four down linemen. The Titans are fantastic at disguising their
coverages, bringing blitzes from the cornerbacks
and the linebackers.
Some of the top sack numbers on this team are defensive back Logan Ryan and Malcolm
Butler and Kenny Vaccaro in terms of quarterback hits and tackles for loss.
A lot of the top guys are going to be the Titans linebackers, edge rusher Harold Landry,
who also leads the team with four sacks.
A lot of the people making an impact in the backfield for the Titans are the linebackers edge rusher Harold Landry who also leads the team with four sacks a lot of the people
making an impact in the backfield for the Titans are the linebackers the safeties the corners and
the edge rushers there's not much presence right now from the interior Jarrell Casey while still
being an excellent player and having two sacks on the season or one sack on the season my correction
despite him still being an effective player, he is getting up there
in age and eventually he'll start to slow down and having interior disruptors is one of the keys in
the NFL to disrupting some of these really high level offenses. If you can get in the quarterback's
face and push the pocket in from the middle with the interior disruptors, that's going to be a lot
more effective consistently than having your edge rushers get around on the outside.
You see that with guys like Aaron Donald in Los Angeles.
Fletcher Cox, who Titans own beat writer Teron Davenport compared Jeffrey Simmons to in terms of their talent level.
Fletcher Cox in Philadelphia.
You'll also see that with Chris Jones in Kansas City.
Geno Atkins in Cincinnati. There are a lot of very good interior disruptors in this league,
of which Darrell Casey is, but imagine having two of those guys and then having Jeffrey Simmons
learn from Casey as Casey gets up there in age. One thing to consider is the Titans have 17 sacks
on the year, which is fourth in the NFL, and that on paper is good, but all of those sacks, like I
said, are coming from areas other than the interior
defensive linemen. Isaiah Mack has 1.5 sacks. Jarrell Casey has one sack. Daquan Jones has one
sack. You want to see a little bit more through five games from your interior defensive linemen.
Hopefully, Simmons can add a little bit of that. The Titans right now are eighth in tackles for
loss with 24, which like I said on paper looks good, but a lot of that is coming from people outside your interior defensive linemen, and then they
have 29 QB hits. So clearly he's going to be somebody who should be able to help the defense
in that department, and it'll be important for the Titans going forward throughout the season
to get more pressure up the middle from their front four linemen and not have to expose their
secondary so much by blitzing linebackers and blitzing line or safeties and blitzing cornerbacks. When you do things like
that, you leave your defense exposed. Sometimes you leave them vulnerable. Being able to get
pressure with just your four down linemen, someone like Harold Landry, Jarrell Casey,
and add in Jeffrey Simmons, that's going to make a major impact and take this elite defense to
an even higher level. Another thing that I wanted to talk about was
Taylor LeJuan's Twitter beef with Jordan Phillips. Just thought it was important to let you guys know
since we talked about that this week that both of the guys have apologized to each other, said they
took it too far. LeJuan said he was just trying to stick up for himself and he definitely shouldn't
have mentioned that or gotten to that spat. He said it was just wasted energy, things like that.
Jordan Phillips said he shouldn't have posted the picture of Taylor unconscious.
Clearly, that's going too far.
It's a good thing that you see guys like that kind of be more professional,
be adults about it, and eventually just say, you know, that stuff's nonsense
because I hate to be the old man yelling at the cloud,
but it does set a bad example when
you're that vicious with each other. And unfortunately, athletes are people that
children look up to and follow on social media and things like that. So I'm glad they were able
to end that on a good note. Before we get into Tic Tac Titans, I do want to let you guys know
that you can make a memory that lasts a lifetime and let the Vivid Seats app help you get to your
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Tick, tack, titans.
So I skipped over Tick, Tack Tuesday this week because of everything swirling around the team.
There was so much to talk about.
I felt like it was important to give you guys all the latest news
and the latest updates and the storylines surrounding the team.
We will get into our film breakdown now.
Step into the film room with me and we will cover some X's and O's.
I want to remind you, you can follow me on Twitter at Tic Tac Titans
where I'm going to pair up some
visuals with the plays that I'm breaking down right now. So you'll get an idea of what I'm
talking about with the show, and then you can go see exactly what I'm breaking down on my Twitter
account. So I hope that you're following me there and subscribing to the show here so you can get
the audio and the visual aspect of these breakdowns. So we'll jump into play one. It is third and seven with 36 seconds left in the first quarter,
and the Titans are on the Buffalo 24,
looking like they might be able to go down and get some points here.
Critical down third and seven.
I want to hearken back to Corey Davis' touchdown against Atlanta.
If you'll recall, we all celebrated that in the Titans media,
the people on Twitter who break down the film,
because Marcus threw that pass to Corey with anticipation We all celebrated that in the Titans media, the people on Twitter who break down the film,
because Marcus threw that pass to Corey with anticipation and perfect confidence.
He threw the ball before Corey Davis was out of his break towards the sideline,
and literally Corey Davis breaks towards the sideline, and as soon as he turns his head around,
the ball's in his hands, he breaks one tackle by a Falcons cornerback,
and runs it into the end zone for the Titans' final touchdown against the Falcons.
I'm sure you all remember that.
I broke it down that week as well.
We see essentially a similar play here, except for A.J. Brown is on the outside of the formation.
A.J. Brown runs about 10 yards and then breaks off to the right to the sideline.
Marcus does get some pressure straight up the middle.
Roger Saffold, again, giving up some pressure straight up the middle. Roger Saffold again giving up some pressure. But if you
watch the play, it's my opinion if Marcus throws the ball to A.J. Brown with the same exact
anticipation and the same exact confidence that he threw the Corey Davis pass with, then that's
going to be a big completion for the Titans and possibly the same result due to the man coverage
that the Bills were running at the time. So that's a situation where the sack, in my opinion, is on Marcus.
Some will argue that he didn't have enough time.
We could all sit here and parse that out all day,
but it's my opinion that there's a direct correlation
between the Corey Davis throw and this throw,
and you would like to see Marcus do that more consistently week to week,
rather than being inconsistent with those type of things.
Play number two, it's third and 11. The Titans are on their own nine yard line, and there's 10 minutes and 42
seconds left in the second quarter. The Titans are pretty much doomed from the start on this play,
but it's an individual effort and individual performance that makes it noteworthy. I made
it very obvious, I think, that it was Marcus's fault on the first play. He could have made a
throw with anticipation. I think it would have been a huge play for the Titans and help them
find a way to score some more points. But on this play, this shows you it's not always his fault.
I don't care what the play was. I don't care what the route combinations were on this play.
Marcus never stood a chance. The Bills are lined up with six guys over the offensive linemen,
so they have both their linebackers on either shoulder of Ben Jones, the center,
and then your typical four down lineman over top of the rest of the line.
They drop out the two linebackers in the middle,
but essentially Roger Saffold just is a complete waste out there on this play.
Bill's linebacker, number 57, Lorenzo Alexander,
puts a nasty spin move on Roger Saffold.
Now, if you're Roger Saffold and you're someone who's getting paid big bucks
to help the Titans sure up their inconsistency in pass protection,
then this is just, quite frankly, unacceptable.
He has gotten beat numerous times throughout the season.
Autry for the Colts.
Calais Campbell had a few runs on him. Obviously, Grady Jarrett
had some fun with Roger Saffold. So now we're seeing it here where he was just abused with a
spin move by Lorenzo Alexander. He's out front. He's off balance. He's top heavy, leaning forward
with his hands, not getting good extension. He's just not doing any of the fundamental things that
a lineman needs to do. And if he's having fundamental issues, then maybe he hands not getting good extension he's just not doing any of the fundamental things that a lineman needs to do and if he's having fundamental issues then maybe he's not getting
fantastic coaching at this time I also want to point out Deion Lewis whose responsibility is to
help and pass protection here and if he doesn't have anybody who he needs to help with then he
can get out and be the check down well he clearly needed to help Saffold and he bailed way too early
to get out into his route would have been a lot more helpful if he would have stayed in to help so that's going to do it for
our play two we'll move on to play three which might be the most despicable of all play three
the Titans are at third and eight with six minutes and three seconds left and on their own 14 yard
line as I've said a lot of times here, the Titans were consistently playing behind the change,
starting drives deep into their territory.
So it made it very difficult to get the field position battle going.
Like we've said, Brett Kern is a weapon,
but he's not much of a weapon if he's not punting from anywhere
that he can actually flip the field for the Titans.
So consistently, the Bills were starting with good field position
and the Titans were starting with bad field position. And this is one of those times. And then plays like this
don't allow Brett Kern to even have an impact. So like I said, the Titans are on the 14. It's
third and eight. They got to hope to just get a short completion here, maybe throw it away and
just punt and live to see another day with a Bills defense that's pretty excellent, quite frankly.
Well, if you look to
the left side of the line where all the Titans money is at for their offense with Taylor LeJuan
and Roger Saffold. Now this could be because Taylor has just rejoined the lineup. Their
communication isn't good, but you would hope that coaching on the offensive line would help this.
What happens is there's a defensive tackle lined up over Roger Saffold. There's a defensive end
lined up over Taylor LeJuan and they execute what's called a TE stunt. Essentially, they do a twist and try to
pick the Titans two linemen off. So the defensive end runs into Roger Saffold as the defensive
tackle runs around to Taylor LeJuan, and it's meant to kind of confuse the offensive linemen.
Good offensive linemen and well-coached offensive lines are able
to communicate these and pass them off, kind of like you would see in the NBA and basketball.
When you're playing man defense and there's a screen, you kind of switch men. You know,
some coaches will tell you just to switch. Well, that's what the Titans offensive line is supposed
to do in this situation. And Taylor LeJuan and Roger Saffel just execute it so poorly. I can't imagine they've been even coached on it with how poorly it was executed.
So now I've given Marcus the blame for the first one.
Clearly it was Saffold to blame for the second one.
And this, I believe, is on Saffold, LeJuan, and offensive line coach Keith Carter.
I've been critical of him for the past few weeks and in the past few shows.
I see this a lot on tape where Titans offensive linemen
just don't seem to be on the same page
and are having communication issues
and where they have to work together.
They're struggling.
And some of that has to be blamed on Carter.
So I'm going to give him his fair share of blame for this sack.
On our fourth sack, it's ready for Nate Davis
to get into the action and get a little bit of blame.
Now, Davis is a tad bit more understandable.
He was more of a run blocking guard and tackle and offensive lineman in his college days. So
obviously you expect him to struggle a little bit in the pass protection game, but Jordan Phillips
just abuses him here. And this is a really, really big moment for the Titans in this game.
Just to set the stage for you, it's first and 10. The Titans are finally into the red zone. They're on the Buffalo 13 and there's a minute eight left in the first half. The Titans
have to find a way to put some points on the board here. This is first and 10, their first play in the
red zone. This has to be a positive play. The Titans line up in shotgun. They have Delaney
Walker and three wide receivers on the field with Deion Lewis in the backfield. The Bills just have four defensive linemen,
and Jordan Phillips just throws a little rip move past Nate Davis,
is in the backfield so fast that Marcus can't even finish his drop back.
He doesn't even have a chance to throw.
He almost fumbled during the sack.
Just really, really bad stuff from Nate Davis there, and I can't help but
think he had similar technique to Roger Saffold on his earlier blunder. He's not getting his hands
extended at all. He's keeping them real tight to his chest. He's not able to disrupt that first
step quickness from the defensive lineman, and I have to think at some point they're lacking in
the coaching department from some of those things. Needless to say, the Titans go on, incomplete pass on second and 15,
incomplete pass on third and 15, completely ruins a red zone opportunity,
and then, of course, as you know, Cairo Santos misses the field goal.
So we're going to go to the fifth and final sack now.
Play five is pretty simple to break down.
Just to recap so far, Blaine Marcus for sack one,
Saffold for sack two, offensive line
coach Keith Carter for sack three, Nate Davis and Keith Carter for sack four, and sack five,
who would we be if we left out old Arthur Smith?
So how many times this year, Titans fans, you don't even have to be a person who watches
the film to recall how many times you've seen the Titans run a boot
leg with Marcus and the backside defender be right in his face immediately. I mean, it happened about
three or four times against Atlanta. It's happened all season where there are just certain plays that
we continue to run as an offense that are not working. The wide receiver screens, the screens
to Deion Lewis have not been working, and these
bootlegs have been even worse.
So on this play, it's the fourth quarter.
It's first and 10 at the Titans 25 with nine minutes and 46 seconds left in the game.
The Titans really have to get something going, and Arthur Smith calls a bootleg for Marcus,
and I'll tell you why it's not working, because defenses are just loading the box and stacking
the line of scrimmage so there's a guy on the line of scrimmage that the Titans plan on being
in the defensive backfield not up on the line of scrimmage and he's right there he sees this boot
leg and coaches see this on tape especially a smart defensive staff like in Buffalo and they're
going to say hey anytime you see that boot action and you're the backside defender on the line of
scrimmage because we're stacking the box just run in because it's probably going to be a bootleg.
And if it's not, it doesn't matter. We're in a good position because we're not worried about
the Titans throwing downfield. So those bootlegs, teams are just not scared of them. They're not
worried about them. They're not throwing downfield. So there's no reason you can't bring up your
safety and do something about that. So those plays just have to stop or the Titans have to do something to make defenses honor
that.
That's going to cover Tic Tac Titans for this week.
It was really difficult to go through all of this.
It's definitely not a great thing.
But with the news of Jeffrey Simmons and Denver being, you know, having some weaknesses that
the Titans strengths line up with, hopefully they can get back on track against Denver.
In our third segment, we're going to do Roland's Rewind, and I'm just going to cover the last time the Titans
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Roland's Rewind.
This will be fun.
Let's harken back to week 13 of the 2016 season.
The Titans play the Denver Broncos.
The Broncos at the time were 8-5.
The Titans were 7-6.
This is season one of the 9-7 purgatory that we've been in for a while.
Now, this season was really fun.
The Titans had one of the top offensive lines in the league.
What a long time ago that was.
Jack Conklin in his rookie years in All-Pro.
Taylor LeJuan.
Quentin Spain.
Josh Klein.
Newly signed Ben Jones.
Newly traded for DeMarco Murray.
The Titans had it all going that year.
They didn't ask Marcus to do a lot, which surprisingly,
even though we're in his fifth year, hasn't changed a lot.
It was mostly just a run-heavy game.
Marcus actually had 38 on the ground on his own.
Derrick Henry got 42 yards, and DeMarco Murray had 92 yards
and a first-quarter touchdown that ended up being the Titans
only touchdown on the day Marcus was six for 20 for 88 yards really really difficult game I don't
expect things to be too much different I hope that the statistics are a little better but the Titans
will have to run the football successfully against the Broncos, and the Broncos have a very talented pass defense,
so they'll probably have to stay away from throwing most of the time.
The Titans were able to get a few more field goals
after their touchdown in the first quarter
to give themselves 13 points on the day.
Luckily, they were able to hold the Broncos to only 10 points,
even though Trevor Simeon, who was the Broncos quarterback at the time,
led a furious comeback for the Broncos where they scored 10 points in the fourth quarter.
And actually, they were driving close to midfield with about a minute left and tied in A.J.
Derby fumbled, which actually allowed the Titans to recover and seal the game.
So it was pretty interesting.
One thing that really stood out in that game is that the Broncos were held
to 18 yards rushing total on the day with running backs Devontae Booker and Justin Forsett. The
Broncos have a much better two-headed rushing attack right now with Royce Freeman and Phillip
Lindsey. The Titans will most certainly have to cap the Broncos running offense if they want to
find a way to beat this team. I will find it interesting though
that Emmanuel Sanders and Demarius Thomas both went over 100 yards receiving on the day and
Simeon threw 51 times in that game. So the Titans defense really put the Broncos in a bind until
late in the game and went into a little bit of prevent defense which allowed the Broncos to come
back a little bit. But all we can hope for is that the game is similar to this as as we know it will be low scoring and defensive, and the Titans are again able to pull one
out against the Broncos.
That is going to do it for today's show.
That was Roland's Rewind, and then we went ahead and did some Tic Tac Titans, where I
broke down some X's and O's for you guys.
Make sure that you follow me at Tic Tac Titans on Twitter so you can see the visuals that go along
with my breakdowns from today's show.
And then our first segment, we obviously covered
the hot topic of Jeffrey Simmons' possible return
next week. I really had a good time
kicking off the football weekend with you guys.
Can't wait to get into tomorrow's
preview show. Hope everybody's ready to go.
The Titans are about to turn this thing around,
baby. I am your host, Tyler
Rowland, and this was Locked on Titans.