Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Tic Tac Tuesday - The Genius of Dean Pees

Episode Date: September 10, 2019

We step in the film room to breakdown the Titans complex defense, talk some news and rant a little. Follow the show @LockedOnTitans and @TicTacTitans Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Locked On Titans podcast. I am your host, Tyler Rowland. Titans fans, my voice is at about 85, 90%, almost back to 100%, ready to go for tomorrow for Crossover Wednesday when I talk to the host of the Locked On Colts podcast. That is tomorrow. Today is Tic Tac Tuesday.

I appreciate everybody's support on social media, on Twitter and Facebook last night. I got real excited while re-watching the game and had to post a couple of things that I saw early. But today we're going to dive into our defense and how Dean Pease is a genius. I'm going to follow that up with some threads and some posts on Twitter and Facebook to give you guys some more visuals of that. We'll cover the hot topics first, and then in our second segment, we will get to our Tic Tac Tuesday segment. And then in our third and final segment,

I'm going to do a little bit of a Roland's rant on something that I've been hearing from the Titans community over the past 48 hours that I just want to speak to. So really excited to get into all of it with you. If you would, please follow me on Twitter at TicTacTitans to get more of that. Please follow the show at LockedOnTitans. And if this is your first time listening to our show tonight, please subscribe to the

LockedOnTitans podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify, wherever you listen to your podcast. Going to be bringing this to you all year, all season. Let's get it. Okay, let's get into some news and notes out of Nashville for your AFC South division leading Tennessee Titans. You know, I don't care if it's just one game. It feels so, so good. Real quick, the reason that that is, is obviously the

Texans lost last night. I don't know if you guys caught the game, but it was a fabulous football game to watch, not just because the Texans lost, but because it was just incredibly entertaining. The last two minutes of the game was back and forth. Looked like the Texans were able to prevail on a pseudo Hail Mary, but they left just enough time for really a legend in Drew Brees, who did exactly what he needed to do to get his team in field goal position. And Will Lutz, the Saints kicker, was able to kick a 58-yard field goal to beat the Texans as time expired. Those are the kind of wins and the kind of moments that really help out throughout the season. It may be week one. You don't overreact.

The Texans look like they're going to be a pretty solid football team no matter what happens, and they're going to be an issue going forward in the season. They're going to be a good team this year. They have good players, and they're decently coached. But some of that coaching came back to bite them very confused on their last defensive formation. Seemed to be really guarding the sidelines against the Saints when the Saints had a timeout and really just needed to get about seven or eight yards over the middle.

So really strange coaching there, but the Texans do seem to be coached well enough to stay in the mix with the talent that they have. So the Titans are 1-0. The AFC South is 0-1, and it's a good place to be and a good start to the season, even better than it was already. Moving forward, a roster move. Looks like Dalen Dawkins was waived. He wasn't going to play unless Deion Lewis got hurt. He didn't add any special teams value, didn't return kicks. No real reason to have him on the roster at the moment. Hopefully, he does clear waivers and Dawkins can be re-signed to the practice squad.

Bumping up from the practice squad is Jaronis Grassu, the center who played with Marcus in college at Oregon, was on the practice squad, was with the Titans during training camp and preseason the last few years. Reliable end of the bench offensive lineman. Seems like the Titans are really stacking the offensive line in terms of depth, just in case there are injuries. And maybe Kevin Panfield's injury is a little

worse than even they expected, and he's not going to be ready for this week either. So maybe it's just precautionary in case Panfield's still not ready to go. Our final note is something I want to bring up. One thing about this team, these guys are not just great players and versatile players out on the field. They're great members of the community in Nashville. So I want to shine a spotlight on Kevin Byard, possibly the Titans' best player on the field, but one of the best off it. A hometown kid from Tennessee. He was able to provide 300 students at Churchwell Elementary School in Nashville shoes and socks today. Things like that don't go unnoticed in these type of communities. Even a city the size of Nashville will appreciate these type of things.

There are a lot of teams around the NFL that will take chances on players with risky character or concerns in their background. And while the Titans have their examples where they're willing to do that as well, the majority of the people brought onto this football team are just Class A citizens, great role models. And at the end of the day, sports shines a light on character and the human spirit and having players who are out on the field setting a good example and in the community setting a good example is the only thing you could ask for uh in your athlete or on your team so consistently every time every game every, the offseason doesn't matter. Proud to be a Titans fan because of the type of character that's in the locker room and in the front office and in the ownership group. So want to make sure that while we celebrate a

great game and a good start to a season, we're also paying attention to the type of people that the Tennessee Titans are bringing into the locker room. So thank you, Kevin Byard, an excellent person and an excellent player. So that's going to do it for our first segment. We covered some hot topics there in our second segment. Titans fans, I'm ready to go. Tic-tac Tuesday, we're going to go over some of the great, genius, strategic moves Dean Pease is putting together on the defensive side, something I talked about preseason last week that was utilized to perfection against the Browns. Can't wait to get into it.

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Visit mybookie.ag today. You play, you win, you get paid. Okay, Titans fans, so if you remember in our last Tick, Tick Tuesday, I talked about a formation that I saw preseason where Rashawn Evans was being placed as a defensive tackle. Kenny Vaccaro and Jayon Brown were playing the linebackers. And then five defensive backs are three corners, Logan, Adoree, and Malcolm with Kevin Byard and Amani Hooker as the back safeties.

Well, that formation came into play quite a bit in the Browns game. And I wanted to see it in the regular season. I was hoping it wasn't just something they were just showing to keep teams on their toes. But it was utilized and it was pretty excellent. So we're going to dive into that. I got four plays for you all in the first half that helped really eliminate the Browns offense, kill the momentum, and set the tone for the second half where the Titans were

able to dominate and take over the game. So our first play is going to be in the first quarter with four minutes and 27 seconds left. The Browns were currently up six to three. They had the football. It's third and 13. The Titans need a critical stop for them to be able to stop the momentum and not let the Browns get up by more than a field goal. Rashawn Evans is that defensive tackle and Jayon Brown walks up and stands over the center. So basically the Titans have five people over the Browns' five offensive linemen. As Baker Mayfield snaps the ball, Malcolm Butler from the cornerback position blitzes in. Rashawn Evans and Jayon Brown, who are over the guard in the center, fly back into coverage. So at this point, the Titans have four

people coming. Harold Landry and Jarrell Casey and Malcolm Butler coming from one side, and then Cameron Wake on the other side coming from his defensive end position. The others all drop back into coverage. So that's seven people who drop back into a cover two. I'm going to have the video and breakdown on my Twitter account, at TicTacTitans, for all of these plays as well. Basically what happens is Baker Mayfield is confused by the linebackers dropping off the line into coverage,

and Cam Wake's able to pick up his 99th career sack on a third down, and the Browns are forced to punt and gain no momentum. That's our first play. Our second play is going to be the exact same formation. We have Jayon Brown over the center, Rashawn Evans at defensive tackle. We have Imani Hooker in at safety, and Kenny Vaccaro playing linebacker. Same formation. What we do this time is we drop eight of those people. So, Rashawn Evans and Jayon Brown drop back into coverage, but Malcolm Butler doesn't come on a cornerback

blitz. Now, what happens on this play specifically that's important is Baker Mayfield is looking over at Malcolm Butler multiple times before the snap. He sees the same formation that we're in, the exact same formation, and he's thinking it's going to be the exact same play. So he's looking over to his left at Malcolm Butler twice before the snap thinking, okay, I've seen this before. He's going to come on a blitz here, and I'm going to have a guy wide open for a first down. It's third and three. The Browns don't need a big chunk. They need a short completion. So Baker's ready. As soon as Baker snaps the ball, Malcolm Butler does not blitz. As a matter of fact, it turns into a cover two with eight people dropped into coverage and only three people rushing. Baker has nowhere to go

because his original thought is that that corner is going to blitz. The corner doesn't blitz. It takes away his initial read to his left-hand side. He goes back right. The pressure's already on him, and he delivers an inaccurate pass. Threw off the timing of the route because Dean Pease confused Baker Mayfield by changing up the coverage, giving him the same look that he had before, but doing something different. Caused some confusion, incompletion, force a punt. Titans defense, Dean Pease wins again. No momentum for the Browns.

We're going to get into our third and fourth play right now. So we're on to play three, but I want to go back to play one and play two real fast that we covered. The first play, Malcolm Butler came on a blitz from the corner, and we had four rushers after we dropped the two linebackers in the middle. The second play that we covered, we actually just dropped eight people. Both the linebackers dropped. No one rushed, didn't send a corner or a safety.

It was just Casey, Landry, and Wake. rush, didn't send a corner or a safety. It was just Casey, Landry, and Wake. Now, we have the same personnel grouping, the same players out on the field. Imani Hooker's in at safety. We got Rashawn Evans playing defensive line with Vaccaro and Jayon Brown playing linebacker. Well, this time, Jayon Brown and Vaccaro are off the line a little bit, but to the left. Rashawn is just in a normal defensive tackle position. And on the snap, we actually just rush the front four. So that means Landry, Wake on the outsides, Evans and Casey in the middle. So after all the looks that we've shown them throughout the game of this personnel grouping, we have yet to run the same play or bring the same four people at the same time. So this time, normal rush.

That leaves Jayon Brown, Kenny Vaccaro, Amani Hooker, Kevin Byard, Malcolm Butler, Logan Ryan, and Adoree Jackson to drop back into coverage. They're able to drop back into a cover two, which seems to be a popular coverage. They continuously keep running that Tampa two version of the cover two where there's actually a linebacker playing in between a cover two. Most of you probably know, but for those who don't, a cover two just means the two safeties each have a half of the field.

So if someone goes deep, it's going to be the safety's responsibility to have that half of the field to the end zone. Well, the Titans are taking Jayon Brown or Kenny Vaccaro and just putting them smack dab in the middle because basically where you're vulnerable on a cover two, when you have two safeties covering either half of the field, you can get them in the middle, in between the two safeties, a soft spot in between. Well, if you drop a linebacker into that soft spot in between,

especially a talented pass coverage linebacker like Jayon Brown, that's really going to cause problems. And that's what you see here. Jayon Brown is dropping back into the middle as David Njoku, the Browns tight end, tries to go over the middle. Remember I said last week, if the Titans are taken advantage of over the middle by Njoku, and if Njoku has a good game, that probably means bad things. Well, he did not, and the Titans were very stout over the middle, and this is an example. So, Jayon Brown on the snap, runs back with Njoku. Kevin Byard is coming down to take over that middle of the field area as well, and both of them converge on Njoku on third and 13. Kevin Bayard lays a devastating hit on Njoku that leaves him on the ground

for a few moments after the play. He was able to come back fine, wasn't injured long-term, but it does show a physicality that this defense is willing to show even a talented pass coverage safety like Kevin Byard is willing to come down and be physical and make hits over the middle. So that's another example. We're going to move on to the last play. We're going to cover my favorite play of the day, and that is going to be Cameron Wake's 100th career sack and the safety on Baker Mayfield that I thought really set the stage for the second half dominance that the Titans displayed. So on this play, same exact

personnel grouping, but a traditional big nickel formation here. So we don't have Jayon Brown or Kenny Vaccaro on the line of scrimmage at all, just a very traditional two linebackers in Vaccaro and Jayon Brown, Logan Ryan in the slot, Malcolm and Adory on the outsides with Amani Hooker and Kevin Byard split deep. Harold Landry, Cameron Wake on the edges, and Rashawn Evans standing up playing D-tackle with Jarrell Casey at the nose tackle over the center. Very traditional big nickel stance. Don't have a lot of people in the line of scrimmage. In this play, we're not trying to be too complicated. But one thing that we do do is, whereas the last three plays we covered,

we dropped into cover two, this play, the Titans will drop into cover three. So finally switching up the coverage, it's a look that Baker hasn't seen before. And at this point, there's one minute and 47 seconds left in the second quarter. It's first and 12 on the two yard line. And the Titans throw a brand new coverage at Baker Mayfield. Just to give you guys an idea of what happens here. Everyone who was not on the line of scrimmage other than the

front four that I mentioned mentioned drops into coverage. Very simple, nothing too complicated, just a solid cover three. The Browns try to run a few people deep, obviously with it being first and 12, they're most likely looking to hit a big chunk play and get out of the shadow of their goalpost. But we throw a coverage at Baker that we haven't run out of that personnel grouping yet. He gets confused, isn't able to find a target in time, and there's Cameron Wake destroying the Browns' subpar offensive line and getting his 100th career sack, getting a safety, giving the Titans back the ball before halftime, and putting the Titans up 10-6. What can we say about Dean Pease? What can we say about the versatility of the secondary and the linebackers?

What can we say about the pass rush other than excellent job all the way around? That was this week's Defensive Tic-Tac Titans on Thursday. I'm going to do another Tic-Tac Titans and give you guys something from the offensive perspective, most likely offensive line, Jack Conklin, Jameel Douglas. I hinted at that yesterday's episode, but everyone on Twitter and Facebook was really interested in the defense that Dean Pease called on Sunday. So I wanted to give you guys that first. So thanks for joining

me for this Tic Tac Tuesday. In our last segment, we are going to get into a little Roland's rant, and I'm just going to talk about something general that's been a topic of conversation in the Titans online community. I just have some thoughts and want to put a punctuation on it. So we'll get into that, and then we will wrap up the show. But before we do, I do want to remind you guys that you can make a memory that lasts a lifetime if you just let Vivid Seats app help you get to your favorite live event. Enter promo code KICKOFF at checkout to receive a discount of up to $100. Once again, that's promo code KICKOFF at checkout to receive a discount of up to $100. Vivid Seats.

Roll in. Roll in. Rant. Okay, guys, so I just had to wax poetic about a national topic for a moment. It's all over the Titans online community as it always is. And at some point, I understand. Every national outlet is covering our game from the angle of what the Browns did wrong. I barely in any of the national topics have heard anyone talk about what the Titans did right. The whole focus is, oh, the Browns did wrong. I barely in any of the national topics have heard anyone talk about what the Titans did

right. The whole focus is, oh, the Browns did this, the Browns did that. What does this mean for the Browns? Everything is about the Browns. In some segments that I listen to, I listen to a lot of different podcasts, watch a lot of different outlets and content. Some of the things that I've seen, they don't even mention the Titans at all. Just to say, hey, the Browns lost to the Titans. Put 43 points up, a dominant game plan on defense, confused one of the game's young, bright, hyped up stars in Baker Mayfield. Nothing. No talk of it.

No talk about Dean Pease's great game plan. No talk about the Titans' new offensive coordinator, Arthur Smith. I have yet to see many people even mention rookie A.J. Brown, who being from the SEC, had a lot of hype coming into the draft. So it's just something that you have to be used to as a Titans fan. And I understand that people are frustrated with that. You do want the players who work hard for your team to be covered and to be given recognition and attention. And when things like, no offense to Derrick Henry, who I'm a fan of, but when Derrick Henry's on the NFL players top 100 list and Kevin Byard isn't,

well, things have just gotten out of control. That a player like Kevin Byard isn't recognized universally by players, media, everyone, as being one of the better players. And he's the highest paid safety in the game for a reason. A team like Tennessee isn't going to overpay these kinds of players. They have to be valuable at the contract rate that they're getting for them to be able to get the contract. That's how things work. So it's just frustrating, and I understand that. But we have to consider that this team has not consistently won since its inception, since it moved to Nashville. So the Titans are most likely going

to have to beat some big-time opponents in the playoffs, not just in the regular season. Last year, the Titans beat the Eagles and followed it up with a couple of really, really embarrassing losses, including one to Buffalo. So the media has been let down by Titans teams in the past few years, getting too excited for them. So that's why there's a little bit of PTSD from the media to give the Titans any shine. Plus, not a lot of the players are covered nationally, recognized nationally, which makes the team less interesting to talk about. Those are all very unfortunate realities. But if this is going to change, the Titans less interesting to talk about. Those are all very unfortunate realities, but if this is going to change, the Titans are going to need to win consistently, go to the playoffs

consistently, beat good opponents in the playoffs for a time period of probably four to five years. Once that happens and more of a national brand is established for the team in the modern era, then we'll probably see this turn and we'll see the media cover the Titans in a more favorable way. we'll probably see this turn and we'll see the media cover the Titans in a more favorable way. Does it matter? No. Ultimately, it does not matter to the success of the football team. It doesn't matter to achieving goals like a division title in a Super Bowl. But I just want to say I understand for the fans that it can be frustrating to see your team play such a good game and then still not be recognized nationally for how well they played. So I just wanted to ran on that a little bit. I don't know if I have a good answer to make anyone feel better or a lot of people are screaming, who cares anyway? That's probably the

right approach to take. But I just wanted to let fans know I understand the frustration because it frustrates me at times as well. But ultimately, we need to not worry about that because the play on the field will determine that over the long run. And hopefully, the team plays well enough that the fans and the team are happy. The team's winning. The team gets covered. The fans are happy about that as well. And everyone wins. But we can only see going into the future what happens there. But that's going to be the show for today. In our first segment, we covered the news and notes out of Nashville. Our second segment, we did dive into Dean P's genius defensive calls in Tic-Tac Tuesday. Please follow me on Twitter at Tic-Tac Titans for more breakdowns. I'm going to be putting

visual threads up as well to go along with this podcast. Our third segment, I did do a little bit of Roland's rants and just how the national media covers the team. Had to get that off my chest. I appreciate you guys joining me. If you're not, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, wherever you listen to your podcast. Please follow the show at Locked on Titans. I would really appreciate it. Tomorrow is Crossover Wednesday.

Hope everything goes well for us there. Once again, I am your host, Tyler Rowland, and this was Locked on Titans. Thank you. you