Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - #TicTacTitans - Patriots Schematic Breakdown, Titans Talk & Rowland's Rewind

Episode Date: January 2, 2020

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Welcome to the Locked on Titans podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Rowland. Titans fans, as promised, it is a scheme-driven Thursday that will feature another tick-tack Titans film breakdown. So we are going to talk all scheme all day today, and we will start that in our first segment by hearing from the Titans offensive coordinator, Arthur Smith, and defensive coordinator, Dean Pease, and just get their thoughts as they game plan and scheme up for the New England Patriots right now.

A lot of good information coming out of there to kind of set the stage for how we want to view the Patriots offense and defense because in our second segment, we are going to step into the film room for another Tic-Tac Titans breakdown. I am going to show you guys four plays, two of the Patriots offense, two of the Patriots defense to just give you an idea of what they like to do and what they are built on schematically.

So we are going to do that. And it's Thursday, so in our final segment, we are going to do a little bit of Rollins Rewind. We are going to jump back to the last time the Titans played the New England Patriots, and what a fun time that will be. So ready to jump into everything with you guys? Let's get it. Titans talk. We've gotten to hear from head coach Mike Vrabel and some of the players this week, but today we got to hear from Titans offensive coordinator Arthur Smith and defensive coordinator Dean Pease and their thoughts going into this pivotal matchup with the New England Patriots on Saturday night.

Audio is courtesy of Tennessee Titans Online. Let's hear from Dean Pease, defensive coordinator. I don't know if it's overthink. I think you just, you know, you can't reinvent the wheel right now. And just got it. We got to play good fundamental defense. And one of the things about them on offense is they've been, they make, they have a lot of stuff, but they make it simple. And so therefore you can't overcomplicate yourself on defense because you'll probably catch yourself in a really bad position. The way I've always looked at it, you know, Tom's got the chalk last.

We've just got to do a great job. I've seen too many guys try to really over-scheme them and do that kind of stuff and get themselves out of position. They've got a hundred ways. I mean, they've been together for so long and done it for so long with the same guys doing it, same quarterback, same head coach, same offensive coordinator, same offensive line coach, that they got an answer for everything you've got.

So you've just got to be able to play your stuff very, very well, be very disciplined in what you do. That doesn't mean you're not going to try to disguise or something like that, but the point of it is you can't get yourself out of position or they'll really make you pay for it. That's the way it is with really any quarterback, but especially Tom, because it's really, like I say, it's hard to confuse him. He's always got the chalk last the way I look at it.

And so if we can, you know, we just got to play things well. If we do disguise, we got to make sure that when we disguise, we still end up in the right spot that we are supposed to be in at the end of when the ball snapped. I've seen guys, very, very good players, think that they can bait him into something after the ball snapped, and it usually does not pan out well. You might be able to kind of give him a look early on, but once the ball snapped, you need to be where you need to be.

And that's really kind of the emphasis. Well, you're always a little leery. I know you want to double guys and do that kind of stuff and you're always afraid that the other guy somehow is going to get you. But it's just a matter of where you've got to pay your attention. You know, if you've got a guy that's going to be like a rap player who doesn't really have anybody and he's a free player, you know, generally speaking, if, you know,

you might tell him to lean to this guy a little bit or something like that. But, you know, overall, it really kind of depends on – you're always talking about the passing game, but everybody kind of forgets there's a running game usually involved in here and with the Patriots it's a very very good running game it's a three-headed monster all three of those backs are good you know they may not have a statistic of like a Derrick Henry but when you add all three guys together and the number of times they catch the ball and stuff they're a very impressive group so it's it's you got to be very careful showing all your attention to somebody and then neglecting the run next let's hear from offensive coordinator

arthur smith that's yeah it's always a chess match and that's the most nfl games it usually is and but these guys have been the standard for the last 20 years around the nfl so you're going there saturday night and understanding that you know it's going to be a sparring match, and we've got to make sure that we're prepared at every play. We just felt like week to week, and we've tried to create the atmosphere here that no matter who's in there, I know that's an old coaching cliche, but our numbers back it up. We've spread the ball around. We've got a lot of confidence in whoever lines up out there,

and we'll be ready to roll. If they show us something different, we'll adapt, and that's what you have to do week to week. Those guys have done a nice job. And you've got to factor in Corey, too. Corey breaks tackles as well. And those guys have done a nice job in getting open. And they all block for each other.

It's a credit to all those guys. Yeah, those guys, it's been proven this year, they can create yards after contact. As a game, and that's, to me, the running of football, especially late in the year. You hope that it has that effect. and you hope that you're not playing. In certain situations, you want to be able to still dictate what you want to do, not become obvious, and it is nice to see. As a run game, you stay committed to it, and it just chips away at it. And Derek's done a nice job with that, and so has the line.

Ryan's done a nice job, but it's a lot of the offense. The line's settled in. The receivers, everybody got more comfortable with each other, and Ryan did a nice job of leading them. But you just kind of look at it week to week. Even when you win, you don't want to sit there and pat yourself on the back because you know this thing is a grind, and it'll be as we're working here this Saturday, the same thing.

The message is just keep improving. That is going to do it for Titans Talk. We are going to jump into our second segment for our Tick-ick Tack Titans film review. Going to give you four plays on the Patriots, two offense, two defense, and we can try to get a better understanding of what they do schematically as a team. And in our third segment, we will do our Rollins rewind. So a lot more coming up next.

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Please follow me there if you aren't already. Let's step into the film room here. I'm going to show you four plays, two of the Patriots offense, two of the Patriots defense, and try to give you guys a good idea of what they like to do schematically on both sides of the ball. So let's go ahead and get started. Play one is against the Cincinnati Bengals in week 15. The Patriots are trying to get their run game established in their first opening possession of the game so that they can set things up off of that later. They like to have plays that go together that look the same and end up different. And one of the ways that they do that is by having a multiple run game. So the Patriots will not just

run a certain type of run. Like you see with the Titans, the Titans run a zone running scheme. That means that the offensive linemen look for, they don't have a specific man that they're supposed to block on that play. Generally, you know who you're going to block in a zone scheme, but technically you're blocking a zone in front of you. Just like zone defense, you don't have one man, you have your area. Zone blocking scheme is the same concept there. You have an area, a gap, where you need to block to make sure that the play succeeds. The Patriots have zone runs. They do that. They mix that in, but they also mix in power runs where you'll see man blocking down blocks with pulling guards counters and misdirection plays so they do every kind of run

scheme wise that you could possibly imagine and they're going to do that here against the Bengals so the Bengals come out in a regular 40 front. They have four defensive linemen. They have two linebackers. And then they have a safety kind of in the box trying to help. Now, they have only two linebackers on the field because the Patriots are in 11 personnel here. One tight end, one running back, three wide receivers. So the Bengals have to match that personnel. But the Patriots are doing a good job of running out of those type of personnel groupings. And it gives them an advantage because they have good tight ends and a good offensive line. So what they do here is they

have four defensive linemen on the five offensive linemen. Both guards are covered. Now what they're going to do is they're going to bring Julian Edelman from the slot in motion from the right hand side to the left hand side, and what you'll see is right before the snap, motion from the right hand side to the left hand side and what you'll see is right before the snap that pulls the linebacker on the run side where Edelman is going towards it pulls him out towards the flat and that opens up the run even more but we're going to focus now on the offensive line so what you'll see here the play is made by left guard Joe Thune what he does here is he has a man right in front of him, and he has to be able to move his guy because that is exactly where the ball is going. So he specifically has to be able

to move his guy. We're going to see that be Daquan Jones. We're going to see that be Austin Johnson. We're going to see that be Jeffrey Simmons. Are they going to be able to win that one-on-one matchup with the left guard on these type of power plays. So the ball is snapped. They're going to run to the left side right where the left guard is lined up. Thune does a great job. He's one of the better guards in the league getting his defensive tackle and moving him to the right to move him out of the hole. Now here's where the scheme of the run comes in. 69 Shaq Mason is the right guard for the Patriots. They are going to pull him to the strong side of the play to where the left guard is. They're going to have him come through and be a bulldozer there, you know, a large fullback on the pool. What they're

also going to do is they're going to take the tight end Matt Lacoste, who lined up on the right hand side on the opposite side of where the run is going and they're going to have him pull as well behind Shaq Mason so now you have two guys pulling up through the hole and even though they don't have a fullback on this play when you pull a guard like that and then you pull a tight end coming in behind him that is essentially like having a fullback and running out of an eye formation so they're able to give you different kinds of run looks with different personnel groupings like I said they're able to give you different kinds of run looks with different personnel groupings.

Like I said, they're an 11 personnel here with three wide receivers, but they're running a power play with a pulling guard and a pulling tight end coming behind. That's an eight yard game on gain on first down. And that sets things up for later in the game. So that's an eight yard game for Sony Michelle. Really nice play there.

A really good run concept from the Patriots getting the look that they want and the numbers advantage that they want. Now it's not just about succeeding on that play. It's about setting things up for later in the game. So what I want to do is I want to show you a play here that goes off of that in our play number two. Our second play is at a critical drive against the Buffalo Bills in week 16. It's the fourth quarter. There are nine minutes left. It is first and 10, but the Patriots aren't satisfied with just getting a couple of yards and staying ahead of the chains on first and 10. They want to try to make plays and get chunk plays in the offensive play action passing game. So what I want to do is kind of set the stage for

you formation wise. The Patriots come out in 11 personnel again, the same personnel. They have Matt Lacoste at tight end on the right hand side with two right wide receivers on the right hand side, one being Julian Edelman in the slot. They have another wide receiver all the way to the left. They're in single back with Sonny Michelle in the backfield. It's the same formation as play number one. The same formation. And they do essentially a similar thing with the concept of the play. They just invert it and flip it to the other side. So they're going to bring Julian Edelman in motion, just like they did last play, to try

to influence the defense. And what they're doing here is they're moving the linebackers away. You're trying to fake the run here is what they're trying to do. It's first and 10. They've been running these pool plays for multiple weeks. We saw it in the Bengals game. So this is the next week against the Bills. So what they're going to do here is invert the play a little bit. Instead of pulling the right guard to the left after the Julian Edelman motion, they're going to pull the left guard to the right, but this is not a run. Tom Brady gives a play action fake here that makes the Bills linebackers and safeties who are in the box because they're expecting run totally bite. I mean, you see the strong safety on the left-hand side

run up all the way past the line of scrimmage. The linebackers are right next to the linemen. The Bills are playing a zone coverage here, and it just totally exposes their zone coverage because they're biting on the run. And we're going to see that from the Patriots against the Titans. You're going to see guards pulling and tight ends pulling on play-action fakes. And the linebackers are going to have to be disciplined.

Safeties, Kenny Vaccaro, Jayon Brown, Rashawn Evans, they're all going to have to be disciplined in the middle when the Titans go to zone coverage or man coverage and not bite so hard on these play-action fakes, and that's the problem that the Patriots pose with their multiple run game is they're going to show you so many different types of runs scheme scheme wise and then they're going to emulate that with play action and all of that going on at the same time can cause confusion so the Titans are going to have to stay disciplined they're going to have to keep things simple and do their job individually to make sure that you know these type of things don't happen so that leads me to what happens after the Bills linebackers, you know,

completely bit on this. The Bills safeties completely bit on this play action fake with a pulling guard. Well, Julian Edelman was in motion going from the right to the left. Well, after the ball was snapped, he took off down the middle of the field as the Titans do pretty well here off a play action. And with those linebackers biting up, that creates so much space for Edelman over the middle where they're supposed to be playing zone coverage and there's no one there. And Edelman breaks one tackle and turns it into a 30-yard gain. Now the Patriots are down to the 25-yard line. They're down by seven. They find a way to score here in the fourth quarter and then ultimately found a way to score again and win the game. So these are huge plays. These are critical downs. Right here, the Bills have a lead on the Patriots. So the Titans defense is going to have to stay

disciplined no matter what the score, no matter what the time, no matter what the possession is. And that is showcased here by these two plays with the Patriots, how they take these incredible run schemes that they have and they can invert them. But they're going to show you similar looks so that you don't know what to expect. And it's pretty impressive. Josh McDaniels is the offensive coordinator for the Patriots. He's been a head coaching candidate for quite a few years now because of things like this. And it's not just about scheming good plays. It's about having plays that work in concert together and that you can use together as a package to confuse defenses. And sometimes it's like what the Patriots do here.

You show something in the first quarter and you wait and you wait and you wait and you're patient and then you strike at the most important moment in the game. So the Titans are going to have to be smart and disciplined and do their job individually and not be too overaggressive with some of these Patriots play action fakes. Let's jump to the Patriots defense here for our third play. We're going to have the Dolphins in the red zone on a third and eight looking to score here. This will give you a good idea of who the Patriots have been on defense

when the chips are down, when the money is on the line, and the most crucial downs of the game. This is what the Patriots like to do on defense. So this is obviously a critical down being a third down in the red zone. The Patriots put about six different people up on the line of scrimmage. They'll have like the Titans, a dime package, one linebacker, four rushers, and then six defensive backs. So the Dolphins counter to the Patriots putting six defenders up on the line of scrimmages. They went five wide. They were like, we're going to identify what coverage you're playing immediately.

We're going to know where our matchup is. But the problem is, when you do that, you have to have people win one-on-one matchups. So what I think the Titans will do is they'll try to get the Patriots out of this formation. They'll want them to put more linebackers on the field, take some defensive backs off the field. To do that, like I mentioned on crossover Wednesday, I think the Titans will use multiple tight ends and then they'll spread the formation out. So when you use multiple tight ends, you're going to expect the Patriots to counter that. They can't have as many defensive backs on the field. They're going to have to have more linebackers on the field.

But the Titans have versatile tight ends. Think of Anthony Ferkser. Think of Jonu Smith, both very adept in the passing game. So then what you do is you take those heavy tight end formations, have two tight ends out there, force the Patriots to match that with their defensive personnel, which probably take a couple defensive backs off the field, at least one, and then you use those tight ends who are actually good in the passing game, and you spread them out and create spread formations like the

Dolphins did throughout the day, going five wide quite a bit. So if the Titans can go and do four wide shotguns with two tight ends instead of wide receivers, well now you might be able to get more advantageous matchups on the outside with your talented tight ends and win in these battles because what the Patriots defense is doing when they have those six guys up on the line of scrimmage or the crowd in the line of scrimmage they're going man we've heard about the Patriots defense all year I talked about their statistics in our Titanalytics Tuesday, their defense goes man. They blitz about 33% of the time, so that's quite a bit by NFL standards. They're going to bring pressure, and what this specific pressure is called is cover zero.

So I've talked about cover one, cover three, cover two, quarters coverage this year. I've talked about all those different coverages in our breakdowns. Cover zero means there's no one in the back. There's six guys blitzing. There are five guys playing man coverage on the five people out in routes. There's nobody back. It's one-on-one. Everyone's one-on-one. And it's simple at that moment in time. It's very simple what you have to do. You have to win a one-on-one matchup. Devontae Parker was able to kind of give it to Stephon Gilmore in this game because Devontae Parker was just winning one-on-one, a physical matchup. So are the Titans receivers, Corey Davis, who's had success against Gilmore himself in the matchups against the

Patriots, A.J. Brown, who's been winning one-on-one physical matchups all year long, Johnnie Smith, who happens to be a mismatch for most linebackers or safeties because of his speed, size, and athleticism. So are the Titans going to be able to win these matchups? And in this specific play right here, Fitzpatrick has to get rid of the ball quick because there's only five offensive linemen. There's six defenders coming for the Patriots. You got to find a matchup that somebody won, and he finds Isaiah Ford, who you know get some separation but because of the pressure on Fitzpatrick he throws an inaccurate pass pressure will do that when there's a free rusher and you know you're going to get hit and it's not an accurate pass and the Dolphins have

to go ahead and kick a field goal so are the Titans going to be able to win one-on-one matchups is Ryan Tannehill going to be able to identify the matchup that he can take advantage of get an accurate pass with pressure in his face and then are the Titans going to be able to identify the matchup that he can take advantage of get an accurate pass with pressure in his face and then are the Titans going to be able to break tackles and get yards after catch which they have done very successfully throughout the season but the Patriots have been able to limit with only 63 missed tackles and the lowest yards after catch allowed in the NFL that is where this game is going to be won. So I want to show you something in our fourth play that hits on that as well

and something that the Patriots will do to try to confuse the Titans. They're not going to run the same exact play in the same coverage every time. So here's something from the same look that they showed in play three, a different coverage that they show in play four that the Titans can expect on Saturday night. For our fourth play, I just want to show you, like on the offensive side, I showed you a power run play, and then I showed you the Patriots giving you the exact same look, exact same formation, exact same motion, but giving you a totally different inversion of the run going to the other side of the field, having the guard pull the opposite way and then ultimately it being a play action fake and a chunk play down the middle of the field that exposed the

the Bills over aggressiveness on defense with our linebackers so in a similar vein I want to show you what they're doing on defense that's just like that the the Patriots are one of the most well coached teams in NFL history they have been for years now, so it's not surprising to see these kind of chess moves that they make. So in this play here for our final play, the Dolphins are in a critical 2nd and 7 in the 3rd quarter. They are in a shotgun formation with two wide receivers to the right, a wide receiver to the left, their tight end Mike Gasicki in the slot to the left, and a running back in the backfield with Fitzpatrick as his personal protector.

The Patriots have eight guys in the box here. When the Dolphins are spread out in a shotgun formation, they have eight guys in the box. They don't care that the Dolphins know they're going to be in man coverage. They really don't care about that because they have such a talented secondary group. be in man coverage. They really don't care about that because they have such a talented secondary group. Patrick Chung at safety, JC Jackson and Stephon Gilmore at corner. You've got Devin McCourty who does everything out there. Deron Harmon, who's a safety who can play some corner as well. So they have a talented group like the Titans had when healthy, and it allows them to do whatever they want on defense. so here they got eight people

in the box what do you think's coming what i just showed you a cover zero blitz they're just going to blitz six guys have five guys play man coverage because they've been doing it all day and they've been doing it all season so that's what you expect is going to come but what the patriots do here is at the very very last second before the snap they time it up with the play clock so that they know that the Dolphins can't adjust when they make this sort of late movement. Deron Harmon from his safety position, but he's up in the box in a linebacker spot. Basically, he runs all the way backwards into a single high safety look where you'll see somebody like Kevin Byard or Earl Thomas with

those Seahawks teams. So he's in the back and the Patriots are going to turn this into just regular man cover one robber. So they have De'Ron Harmon and Devin McCourty as their two safeties here, but they're in those linebacker positions because all eight are in the box. Well, as Deron Harmon runs back to getting that single high deep safety look, McCourty kind of rolls over into the middle of the field and takes away anything in the middle, and then Harmon has anything deep. Everybody else is playing man coverage for the Patriots. They go ahead and bring four people. They're able to get some pressure.

Now, I like what the Dolphins do here. They try to take advantage of a one-on-one matchup with Mike Gasicki against Patrick Chung, which the Titans are going to have to take advantage of John U. Smith against Patrick Chung. I think they can win there, but there's a miscommunication on what sort of route needs to be run. Devontae Parker is open underneath because he goes underneath Gasicki, and the Patriots don't necessarily cover this perfectly. Devontae Parker is able to get loose underneath, but the pressure on Fitzpatrick and the confusion pre-snap, and he's expecting pressure, but they drop back and they show man. It confuses Fitzpatrick, and he doesn't make the right read. He doesn't make the

right pass, and that's a win for the Patriots. They're able to sack him on third down, get the Dolphins out of field goal range, and force them to a punt. Those are the little plays that make the biggest difference. The Dolphins were able to win this game, of course, but these are the looks that the Titans are going to see on Saturday night, and they're going to have to succeed more times than not to be able to defeat the Patriots, who are not going to make too many mistakes. So if you see those coverages, you're going to have to identify them early. The Titans are going to have to be ready for the different things that the Patriots can do with their defensive backs. And these are the type of things that they're going to see and have to be ready for. So I hope this gives you a good idea

of what we're looking for and what the Patriots are going to try to do to the Titans. This is their bread and butter using their multiple run game to give you multiple looks and getting to play action and then use their talented defensive backs to play man coverage and alter the looks with everybody else often just bringing a lot of pressure. So that's what I want you guys to look for. Are the Titans going to be able to win those one-on-one matchups? Are they going to be able to stay disciplined on defense? They'll have to do so if they expect to win and advance to the next round of the playoffs. That's going to wrap up our Tic Tac Titans film review for this week. As always, I will be posting these visuals.

I've added some audio in the background as well. So please follow me on Twitter at Tic Tac Titans so you can see those as well. We are going to jump into roland's rewind in our last segment roland's rewind so going back in the time machine for this one it's not only a good time but I think we can learn a lot from this matchup and take that into Saturday's game and there are some interesting things I picked up from that game that make a little more sense given what we just saw in week 17 so I'll explain more but just going through the game real quick. First thing I noticed instantly, Jennings took a kick back 60 yards from the opening kickoff.

Great field position for the Titans to start. They got a touchdown on their first drive. Jonu Smith was able to beat Patrick Chung in the red zone for a touchdown. Jonu had a pretty good game out there, three catches for 45 yards. Something I just mentioned in our Tic Tac Titan segment is that John who Smith is going to have to win one on one. And he has a pretty good matchup against Chung saw that absolutely come to fruition in the last time the Titans played the Patriots moving forward, the Titans were able to get a stop here. And then when they got a punt from the Patriots, Adoree Jackson was able to return the punt and get the Titans to the 50-yard line. So again, more good field position for the Titans.

And on that drive, Corey Davis was able to beat Stephon Gilmore for a touchdown, and Corey Davis, the Patriot killer, had seven catches, 125 yards, and that touchdown on 10 targets. So I would not be shocked to see the Titans target Corey Davis here. A lot of people are saying that Stephon Gilmore is going to be on A.J. Brown, but sometimes the Patriots will take their number two cornerback in a safety and take away somebody like an A.J. Brown and then have Gilmore one-on-one on Corey Davis. Well, if they do that, I feel very comfortable because of this game and the

prior game before that too in the playoffs. Corey Davis can win a physical matchup one-on-one with Stephon Gilmore, and that's how the Patriots have been playing defense like we just talked about. They've just been letting their defensive backs play one-on-one and bringing pressure. So the Titans are going to have to win those one-on-one matchups, and what we can see here is they were winning them in that game before. Now, one thing that was very successful for the Patriots at the beginning of the game was their play-action game. They were able to have a little bit of success in the run game in the first half, but overall, the Titans completely wiped out the Patriots' run game by the middle of the second quarter. The Pats only had 40 yards on the ground in the entire game. No matter which running back they used, things just never took off.

And the Titans, once again, that's something we can learn. The Titans are going to have to do that again if they expect to win this game in New England. Tom Brady threw 41 times in this game. The Titans are going to need to repeat that. They're going to have to shut down the run, make the Patriots play one-handed, make them go to the pass game, and put some pressure on Tom Brady. They were able to get three sacks in this game. That doesn't sound like a lot, but when you're talking about the Patriots,

they're historic for keeping people off Tom Brady. So the Titans are going to have to make him think about it. He's in his older stages. He's still great. I understand that. But you get a couple hits on him. You make the game feel a little more physical than he wants it to be. And who knows?

He threw some strange passes in this game that were just completely inaccurate. And it's because the pressure started getting to him a little bit, in my opinion, just from rewatching the game. So those are things that the Titans are going to have to repeat. And they're not going to be able to do it in the same way. But it is something that they're going to have to repeat and they're not going to be able to do it in the same way but it is something that they're going to have to do before we talk about more of the interesting things that I want to see going forward I just want to remember for everybody that they did the Philly special with Tom Brady and he caught it and tripped over his own feet

and landed short of the first down and then the Titans were able to run it with Marcus and obviously it was way better as Marcus is a much more athletic player than Tom Brady so that was a very interesting and fun takeaway and that leads me into the interesting thing that I think we can take away from this game and when I mentioned week 17 this is why the Titans had a lot of success in this game with Marcus doing spread college concepts, run pass options. They even ran a regular option pitch to Derrick Henry. They had Marcus motion out of the backfield and ran wildcat for Derrick Henry for a touchdown in the red zone in the last touchdown of the game.

Marcus had a lot of success with play action out of shotgun, throwing over the middle, and taking advantage of those matchups. So while I don't want to disrupt Tannehill's momentum here and I'm not taking the better quarterback off the field consistently, I do understand why they threw Marcus out there in Week 17 to run two plays just to let the Patriots know that we know you struggled with it last time and it may be on your front door again so would not be shocked if we saw in some some certain situations now they're probably going to have Tannehill on the field just to not completely give it away but wouldn't be shocked to see Marcus run a couple read options run a couple pitch options and then

obviously if he gets the matchups that we're looking for, the looks that we're looking for, the throw to A.J. Brown from what we've gotten in press conference was that was actually an audible from Marcus at the line of scrimmage because they got a look that they thought they could throw on. It was supposed to be just a read option run. So you never know what Marcus is going to audible to. He's capable of doing that. I didn't think that this is something that they would do do but considering how much the Patriots struggled against those type of college option concepts last time they played it only makes sense that the Titans would let them know that they may see some of that and possibly utilize some of it so very very interesting to see schematically what

the Titans are going to do in this game. We went over what the coordinators think about everything going into this game in our first segment with some Titans talk. We had a very extended Tic Tac Titans film review this week talking about how the Patriots use their concepts in concert with each other and over the course of the game find ways to show you similar looks and similar motions from similar personnel groupings, but turn those into different plays and different concepts. It's really impressive on both sides of the ball. So we have a good understanding now of the statistical foundation of what these teams are, what the Patriots are on offense and defense. We have the context from

getting good information from Mike Debate on our crossover Wednesday conversation. And then today we have a good understanding of what they're doing schematically out there and the type of coverages that the Titans are going to see down after down and the type of running plays and how the Patriots are going to use that with play action and what we're going to see from the offense. So hopefully you guys enjoyed that. You feel more knowledgeable and you feel more ready for this game. I'm so excited. On Friday, of course, we are going to do our game preview. Talk a little bit of fantasy. I know a lot of you guys play daily fantasy during the playoffs, but we'll get into a little bit of that. We are going to focus more on the game. Might do

a back-to-back game preview segment for you guys, one and two, and then leave our third segment for any kind of odds and ends or loose ends we got to tie up. So I hope you guys have enjoyed this week of shows. I think they've been excellent. I know you guys are ready for this game and I am too. So I will be back with you tomorrow. Of course, as always, I am your host, Tyler Rowland, and this was Locked on Titans.