Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - #TicTacTitans - Injury Update, Defensive Film Breakdown & Rowland's Rewind

Episode Date: January 16, 2020

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Welcome to the Locked on Titans podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Rowland, Titans fans. It is time for step three in our three-step game prep process that has taken place throughout the week. Tuesday, we set the statistical foundation. Wednesday, we added context. And today, it is time for a Tic-Tac Titans film review where we're going to break down a key element to Sunday's game. Before we get into

that film review though, the Titans released their first update on injuries for the week. We are going to check in with all the players on both sides of the Titans and the Chiefs and make sure we know where we're at in practice starting off. Then after our film review, we are going to get into a little Rollins rewind. We're going to take one last look at the regular season matchup and see if there is anything else that we can take away before Sunday's pivotal game. There is a lot to break down and a lot to talk about. I'm ready to dive into everything with you guys. Let's get it. In the regular season matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Tennessee Titans, wide receiver Adam Humphreys caught the game-winning touchdown, so it's no surprise that his first return to practice since a December 1st ankle injury

against the Colts comes in the rematch for the conference championship. Humphreys had 37 catches for the Titans this year, and although he has been injured for quite some time, he was signed in the offseason to beat man coverage like the Chiefs play quite a bit and use his route running and short area quickness to get open fast, especially when there's pressure on Ryan Tannehill, which he has struggled with in the postseason. Now, if Humphreys were able to play open fast, especially when there's pressure on Ryan Tannehill, which he has struggled with in the postseason. Now, if Humphreys were able to play on Sunday, you couldn't expect him to get a lot of

snaps. He'd probably be in a limited role, probably on third and short. Certain situations, they would use him, but anything he can give the team at this moment in time can only be beneficial. It is worth noting that he was only a limited participant in practice today coming back off that angle injury. Joining him as being a limited participant was Jayon Brown who was injured during the Patriots game and missed the Ravens game. Having him back would obviously be incredibly helpful to this defense who has to deal with so many different receiving threats against the Kansas City Chiefs. You have Nicole Hardman, a fast return specialist who can still beat you in a big way like the Titans saw in the regular season matchup when he took one and was shot out of a cannon, it seemed like. So his speed is definitely a threat over the middle. Tyreek Hill, we know about. Travis Kelsey over the middle, we know about. Sammy Watkins with Jayon Brown being so fantastic in pass coverage having him back will certainly be a huge boost even though another limited participant David Long was you know a pretty

good option with Jayon Brown out he did play pretty well until he dealt with his own injury concerns a knee injury it turns out he was limited as well in practice Adoree Jackson was still limited with a foot injury. That seems like it's just going to be general maintenance at this moment in time unless he has a setback for some reason. So expect Adoree Jackson to still be able to practice throughout the week and play in the game on Sunday. Rashawn Evans popped up on the injury report here with a foot injury. He was limited in in practice and then as a surprise Logan Ryan did not practice at all with an illness now that could be code for maintenance he could

literally have an illness and just you know not be risking playing and draining his fluids out there in practice who knows what it could be but I would imagine that if it was something very serious we would know a little bit more right now with it being categorized as an illness. Finally, Cody Hollister, the basically six-string wide receiver on this team, has an ankle on the injury report, but he was a full participant. So right now, if you're looking at the Tennessee Titans from an injury standpoint, other than the people on IR who could have made a big impact, the Titans are relatively healthy as long as

someone like Adam Humphries and Jayon Brown are actually able to play in the game on Sunday, but we'll continue to monitor that throughout the week. Taking a look at the Kansas City side of things, like the Titans, they generally have a clean bill of health here. A lot of their key players are going to be able to go. They don't have a lot of key starters or key role players that are on the injury report right now. So we're going to focus on two that popped up in a concerning way. Travis Kelsey, the all-pro tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs, went for 10 catches, 134 yards, and 3 touchdowns in the divisional round against the Texans. Was limited in practice with a knee injury. Obviously, if you watch the game against the Texans, he had a little bit of a limp during

certain plays. You could tell that he was a little bit banged up. I have a feeling he's going to be able to go in this game. He's such a weapon and such a threat, though. Having him slowed whatsoever can only help the Titans defense try to keep up with him and expect Kevin Byard to get a lot of that assignment. And then talented interior rusher Chris Jones, who was actually not able to play against the Texans. He's been banged up with a calf injury. He did not practice on Wednesday, so we will monitor his progress and his status throughout the week as well as those two are very key players to what Kansas City does on both sides of the ball. That is going to wrap up our injury update. If I'm honest, I want everybody to

play, but Adam Humphreys, I think this team can survive without him, and for some reason he can't go. I'm more concerned about Jayon Brown. I just really want Jayon back. I know that David Long and Wesley Woodyard would do okay, but Jayon didn't have the opportunity to play in the Chiefs game early on. So I would love to see him have an opportunity to match up with Travis Kelsey or some of these wide receivers as they run their crossing routes. So really just hope that Jayon can get back out there. He would be a critical addition to this team and a critical moment, quite frankly. So let's jump into our Tic Tac Titans film review. We are going to break

down a couple of plays from the earlier Kansas City matchup and see if we can take anything away from what the Titans are going to have to do on Sunday. Remember, I'm going to be posting the visual breakdowns to go along with our Tic Tac Titans film review on my Twitter account at Tic Tac Titans. So follow me there. Also, if you haven't already, subscribe to the show on whatever platform that you do stream your podcast. Can you believe it's conference championship week? Time's up for two of the teams playing this weekend, but you still have time to feed your fantasy fix with DraftKings, the leader in one-day fantasy football. Draft your lineup and feel the sweat like never before.

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First, what I want to do, though, is just kind of remind everybody of what the Titans did in the last matchup against the Chiefs. And what I want to focus on is, as we know, this Titans offense, I think, has the ability to run on anyone. I think they've proven that at this point in time during the season after going through the Patriots defense and the Ravens defense in that manner. The Titans are going to be able to run the ball on anybody. Will they be able to get the passing game going? That's yet to be seen, but what really matters to this team is will this defense continue to play at the level that it's played that matched the beginning of the regular season we've seen in the first two rounds of the playoffs. So how are they going to be able to do that? I want to look at some of the ways that they were able to win on defense in that first matchup and see if it can give us any kind of clue as to what Dean Pease and Mike Vrabel might be

cooking up for Sunday. I think it'll give us a pretty good recipe to go off of to have an idea of what to look for. So we are going to jump into all of that. I do want to say that based on that first matchup, the Titans ran a lot of man coverage when it was winning time. Now throughout the game, they mixed up coverages. You're never just going to go with one style of coverage or one scheme throughout the game when you play somebody like Pat Mahomes. But like I said, when it was winning time and the game was on the line, Dean Pease trusted his defensive backs and trusted his defense to play man coverage so I'm not going to be surprised if we see a lot of man coverage but like I said you got to mix in

other things and during the first you know half of the game first three quarters the Titans really were mixing up a lot of different zone coverages and things like that but the problem is if you don't get enough pressure on Patrick Mahomes quickly enough he's going to dice up any kind of zone you have so the Titans had to mix in a little bit of zone to try to confuse him see if you can do anything schematically to win but they also had to go to man coverage eventually and win one-on-one so we're going to see two examples of that right here right now let's jump into the film play play one. First play of the second quarter, it is first and 10 on the Kansas City 20. The Titans are in a nickel package here. They have

four defensive linemen, two linebackers, five defensive backs out on the field. Now, the first thing that you will see in this play, especially if you get on Twitter and follow me at Tic Tac Titans to check out the visuals that kind of match up with this. The Titans two interior defensive linemen, they shift to the right. So that's the first thing I want to point out here as the offense is getting set up and getting ready for the snap. You see Wesley Woodyard and Rashawn Evans kind of captain in the defense here and telling the defensive linemen they need to shift over to the right side. On the right side is Kenny Vaccaro as a slot cornerback down in the box. Now on the other side of that you have Logan Ryan. Both of those guys kind of start alternating faking blitzes on either side. They're trying to confuse Patrick Mahomes here, not let him know

exactly where the pressure is coming from, if there's going to be pressure, what the coverage is going to be. And like I said, you got to do a little bit of that to these greats like Patrick Mahomes. On the snap, what you'll see is Kenny Vaccaro is actually the one who blitzes. If you recall, I told you that the defensive line shifted over towards Kenny Vaccaro right as the offense was getting ready in their formation. Well, what that did was that moved them over and it made the guard on the blitzing side have to take one of those interior linemen. That means the other two offensive interior linemen are occupied with the other defensive tackle. The offensive tackle takes

Kamalei Correa, who's the edge on the outside, and it leaves a perfect lane for Kenny Vaccaro to blitz through. He gets right on Patrick Mahomes early, very early, and Damian Williams, who's the running back here, is in pass protection, does a terrible job. He essentially whiffs on Kenny Vaccaro completely, and that forces Patrick Mahomes out to his right side and out of the pocket. If you look at the back end now, after talking about the front, the Titans' remaining defenders, there's six of them since they brought five, they drop back into a traditional cover three. You have three guys underneath in their hook zones, taking away anything underneath.

Kevin Byard is playing deep as the safety. You got your two corners on the outside. Mahomes is rolling out to his right. He tries to get rid of it to about a 10-yard out to Sammy Watkins, but because he had to get rid of it so quickly, Watkins can't get too far into his route, and Logan Ryan is right there sitting underneath to take it away and bat away the ball, and that's a win for the Titans defense, and that's a win for the scheme for Dean Pease. They were able to confuse Patrick Mahomes there. They were able to confuse the offensive line, get immediate pressure, get a quick throw and an incompletion. That is how scheme can beat the Kansas City Chiefs.

Play two. It's the fourth quarter with 12 minutes and 10 seconds remaining. It is second and nine for the Kansas City Chiefs. And this is what I was talking about when it was winning time. Dean Pease went to man. And this is why. What the Chiefs started doing is they started spreading the Titans defense out. The Chiefs like to use bunch formations and keep their formations tight so you never really know where they're coming from. But the Titans were going to zone. So you get a big advantage when you're in a bunch formation with your wide receivers and tight ends,

especially the quick ones like they have. because when you're playing man coverage, it's hard to decide who to take, which guys release where. It's kind of a tough situation for a defense to communicate that. We saw the Titans get beat on that a few times throughout the season. These things do happen. So if the Titans are in zone coverage, that kind of eliminates that issue. The Chiefs were able to counter because Andy Reid is obviously a great offensive mind. What they were doing, they started spreading the formation out. And that's what they do here. They have trips to the left-hand side in a shotgun formation with Travis Kelsey in the slot.

We see another shift from the Titans defensive line here. They do that throughout the game, trying to confuse the Kansas City Chiefs offensive line. Now the difference here in play two as opposed to play one where I talked about how the Titans won with scheme. They brought a pressure. They were trying to confuse Patrick Mahomes. Here they're not trying to do that. They line straight up. They let the Chiefs know pretty early this is going to be man coverage but they don't just play man coverage and try to bring a blitz because you're going to get yourself beat against Patrick Mahomes doing that. So they run a cover one with a robber underneath. So they're going to have Kenny Vaccaro is back deep covering for anything that gets behind anybody. He is the safety blanket for the entire defense at this moment in time.

They have a robber underneath, like I mentioned. That is going to be Wesley Woodyard playing middle linebacker here. He is just going to take anything over the middle, kind of read the quarterback's eyes, see if he can get an interception, a deflection, see if he can influence the play in some way. The Titans have their traditional four defensive linemen up ready to rush. Everyone else is in man coverage. And we got to look at two pivotal matchups here in man coverage that I would expect we're going to see again and that is a Dory Jackson against Tyreek Hill to the left side away from that trips that I talked about isolated on one side of the field

and then Travis Kelsey is in the inside slot on the trip side and Kevin Byard is on him so I would expect the Titans to do this again put their best two two coverage guys, Bayard and Adoree Jackson, on the best receiving threats for the Chiefs. And see if you can find a way to slow down anybody else in this matchup. So the Titans, like I said, they're not trying to win with scheme here. They're not trying to outsmart Patrick Mahomes. They're just saying, hey, we're going to cover you and see if you can beat us. And what happens here is Tyreek Hill tries to run a go route on Adoree Jackson on the right-hand side by himself. And Patrick Mahomes sees this. Adoree Jackson is playing perfect technique though. He's trailing Tyreek Hill because he knows he has safety help over the

top from Kenny Vaccaro, like I mentioned earlier. So he trails Tyreek Hill, stays behind him, waits until the ball arrives, and then makes a great play on the ball and knocks it away with safety help coming over the top ready just in case he's unable to make that play. Now the reality is the Chiefs have some dangerous, dangerous weapons. And we can scheme all day long and the Titans can disguise coverage and run any different scheme that they want to. But you're going to have to line up and beat these guys one-on-one. And you're going to have to have players like a Dory Jackson make plays in one-on-one situations like that and just be able to win.

That's what football comes down to. One thing that Mike Vrabel says all the time is it's the Jimmys and the Joes, not the Xs and the Os. And while as a coach, he's downplaying their influence because that's what a coach wants to do is prop up his players. The Xs and Os will obviously always matter as we talked about some of the scheme wins the Titans have got throughout the entire season. Some of these plays, yes, are just going to come down to which players make the plays

in the biggest moments. So we're going to need a lot more of what Adoree Jackson did on this play from the entire defense. So I wanted to highlight one perfect example of how the scheme can beat the Kansas City Chiefs, but also point out one example of how just man-on-man, players have to step up and make plays when it counts. That will wrap up our Tic-ic Tac Titans film review for the week. Remember, I will be posting the visuals to go along with these breakdowns on my Twitter at Tic Tac Titans. So follow me there.

We are going to jump into Roland's Rewind. And like I said, one last time, take a look at the regular season matchup and see if there's anything else we can take away before we jump into our game preview on Friday. Rollins Rewind. Let's go ahead and take a look back at the first matchup with the Kansas City Chiefs in the regular season it was a 35 to 32 victory for the Titans got them back to 500 at the time I mean this essentially was a playoff game for the Titans at this moment in time and I want to go

through you know the the key stats from the game then honestly, I just want to take some big picture perspective away from this game and some lessons that the Titans need to make sure that they've learned and can take into this playoff matchup. 446 yards and three touchdowns. Tyreek Hill went for 157 in a touchdown. Travis Kelsey had 75 in a touchdown. The Chiefs were able to get two sacks out of Chris Jones and one out of Frank Clark, another out of Emmanuel Ogba, so they were able to get four sacks on the day. The Titans had an incredibly balanced offense, like always. Ryan Tannehill, 181 passing yards and two touchdowns, including the game winner. Derrick Henry went for 188. We'll talk more about that in tomorrow's game preview. Kalief Raymond had that 52-yard bomb. Anthony Ferkser caught a touchdown pass.

So an incredibly well-rounded team win against the Chiefs and that's what it had to be special teams even stepped up so we will mention that as well so I will talk about my kind of like I said just perspective some big takeaways some lessons that need to be learned we will start with the Titans were down 10 to nothing in this game at one point in time also, they were down 29-20. So at multiple times in this game, the Titans were down by more than one possession. That may be the case on Sunday with this Chiefs offense playing at home and in a better spot now than they were when we played earlier when Pat Mahomes was still dealing with a little bit of an injury. Tyreek Hill was still a little bit banged up. So it is possible that the Titans may go down by two scores, but they can't give up hope just like they didn't in the last matchup. Neither can the fan base as well. No one

can give up hope if this Chiefs offense comes out and scores because that's what they do. So that's the first thing I wanted to talk about next we gotta take our shots I know that we've been relying on Derrick Henry and that Ryan Tannehill hasn't thrown for a lot of passing yards here in the last few games but we still have to take our shots like I've mentioned I keep saying it this Chiefs offense is gonna score points so the Titans have to in return take their shots and see if they can get their big splash plays as well even if the running game is going also the Titans are most likely gonna need a turnover if you remember in this game Rashawn Evans was able to pick up a fumble take it to the house forced by David Long great job there by the rookie now I'm

not saying that the Titans need a defensive touchdown in this game, but I do think that at some point in time, they will need a turnover to turn the tide in terms of momentum or just to help them get a better opportunity to score points. Lastly, scoring points. The Titans have to go for it on smart opportunities here. They cannot leave the fate of the team at the foot of Greg Joseph. Ryan Suckup missed a field goal in the game against the Chiefs, or it wouldn't have needed to have been as close as it was. The Titans cannot let this football team's fate rest on that foot of Greg Joseph. They just simply can't.

So they need to go for it on any even close to logical fourth down situations. They need to score touchdowns. Now, the last thing that I want to talk about talks about a missed field goal as well, but on the Kansas City side, the last field goal that put the Titans in a great position to win the game, the Titans special teams made a play, and I think that they're going to need another one of those as well. They have to try to win in all three phases. That's what this team has been about all year, and they can't lose that in the most important game of the season. So I expect the Titans special teams to come out. They will need to make a play at some point in time during this ball game, just like they did in the last matchup when they forced a missed field goal

and then an intentional grounding that really set up the offense for a great last game winning drive and they're going to need something similar to that in some way whether it's a blocked kick or an onside recovery or a great coverage play that pins somebody deep or forcing a fumble on a return something of that nature the Titans are going to need special teams at some point in time during this ballgame. So we have to make sure as we watch this game, that's something that we keep in the back of our head. Tomorrow, I am going to be back with you guys to start our game preview. Now that we have our three-step game prep process wrapped up,

started Tuesday with the statistical foundation, added context on Wednesday, and then wrapped up today with our film breakdown. Remember, you can catch the visuals that I match up with our Tic Tac Titans film breakdown on Twitter if you follow me at Tic Tac Titans. Like I mentioned, tomorrow we are going to get into our game preview, go over our key game plan points and our key players to watch, talk a little bit of fantasy and gambling, and make sure we update you guys on the status of the injury report after some more information is released. So as always, I am your host, Tyler Rowland, and this was Locked on Titans.