Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - #TicTacTitans - Ravens Offensive Film Review, Marcus Mariota's Role & Rowland's Rewind

Episode Date: January 9, 2020

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Welcome to the Locked on Titans podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Rowland, Titans fans. It is time to continue our game prep for the Baltimore Ravens game on Saturday night. We started on Tuesday, setting our statistical foundation, and then we went into Wednesday and had our crossover conversation with Keith from the Locked on Ravens podcast and added context to the numbers that we talked about. And today we are going to go into our film breakdown. It is time for another segment of Tic Tac Titans.

We are going to look at the Ravens offense and how the Titans defense can have success based on a particular matchup earlier in the season that gave the Ravens some issues, at least the little issues that they face throughout the year. Before we jump into our Tic Tac Titans film review, I want to talk about a key player for the Titans this week who may not even play in the game on Saturday. So we will reveal who that player is. And to wrap up the show, I got crushed on Twitter on Wednesday. Let me tell you why and how before we jump into a Rollins Rewind, which is connected to everything. So, going to be a really fun show.

And of course, if you aren't already, please subscribe to the Locked on Titans podcast and follow me on Twitter at TicTacTitans, where I'll be posting the visuals to match up with our TicTac Titans film review on the show today. But I'm ready to dive into it. Let's get it. All the reports coming out of Tennessee Titans practice this week indicate that longtime starting quarterback and current backup Marcus Mariota will be a critical piece to the Titans winning in Baltimore on Saturday night whether he actually

plays in that game or not because of his contribution to the practice squad right now Marcus is simulating Lamar Jackson who has had a fantastic season on the ground in the zone read scheme that the Ravens run. He's rushed for 1206 yards and seven touchdowns on the ground. That yardage being a single season record for a quarterback in the NFL. He ran for 695 yards and five touchdowns in his rookie season as well. So he has been a threat since he stepped foot in this league. Marcus has some similar talents though and while he doesn't have quite the level of athleticism that you see with a Lamar Jackson he has had quite the career on the ground himself both in the NFL in college he has the straight line speed that most quarterbacks in the NFL don't have and it's not just his athleticism and the things that he can

do on the field that helps it's all the experience that he's had running zone read read option RPOs those type of concepts those type of schemes he's done that for so long in his career Oregon that was I mean they wrote the book on that with Chip Kelly and his offense there and then that's been incorporated to every offense that Marcus has run while he's been in the NFL as well so he's had success with it he has a good knowledge of how to do it he's very good with reading the mesh point which is something you do with the running back when deciding whether to keep the ball as the quarterback or hand it off so he is ideally suited to fill that role for the Titans, and it's an advantage that they will have that most teams in the NFL, quite frankly, due to their roster, just do not have the ability to get a decent simulation of Lamar Jackson. The Titans, I believe, have the

best opportunity of anyone in the NFL right now to get that kind of look based on everything that I just mentioned about Marcus. Marcus has shown throughout his career based on his numbers that he can do similar things if not quite the level as I mentioned. 1,399 yards, 11 touchdowns. We saw that run for 87 yards his rookie season against Jacksonville. He's gone over 700 yards in every year that he was at Oregon, totaling 2237 yards and 29 touchdowns. So you look at that kind of success statistically on the ground and you have to think whether Marcus plays in the game or not on Saturday night, his presence at practice has already helped this team more than you would expect a backup quarterback could in the playoffs.

Let's get the latest injury update from Tennessee Titans practice on Wednesday. Linebacker Jayon Brown with his shoulder injury, receiver Adam Humphreys with his ankle injury, cornerback Adoree Jackson with his foot injury, and linebacker Kamalei Correa with illness did not practice on Wednesday officially. However, Adoree Jackson was spotted on the practice field, but just was listed officially as a did not participate. Guard Nate Davis, who missed practice on Tuesday with an illness, was back in a limited fashion. And running back Deion Lewis with a shoulder injury was also limited.

In great news, returner and wide receiver Kalief Raymond cleared concussion protocol on Wednesday and was a full participant at Titans practice. Be very valuable to get him back. And finally, receiver Cody Hollister with his ankle injury did appear on the injury report, but was a full participant. My only real concerns from the injury report are Adam Humphreys. He hasn't played in quite some time, so it's hard to expect him to all of a sudden jump back up into the lineup in the biggest game of the year. And then, of course, Jayon Brown. He looked to be in so much pain against the Patriots with those two injuries that were both related. It's hard to expect him to come

back into the lineup, and that means that the Titans will have to get David Long ready and we may even see more snaps from veteran Wesley Woodyard at this point the Titans can't bank on having Jayon out there and because of the uniqueness of this offense I think it would be incredibly unwise to throw Jayon out there unless he's had a proper amount to actually get reps with the first team defense in practice. So I would expect the Titans to lean heavily on David Long, who's athletic enough to play against this Ravens scheme. And he did have some rough plays last week, so hopefully he can bounce back. Okay, Titans fans, let's jump into our Tick-Tack Titans film review.

Take a look at the Baltimore Ravens offense, and see if we can identify a blueprint to, at minimum, slow down this zone read, read option attack. It's time for our Tick, Tack, Titans film review. Titans fans, let's start the final installment in our three-step game prep plan. On Tuesday, we started with the statistical analysis to set a foundation of knowledge on the Ravens offense and defense. And then on Wednesday, in our crossover conversation with Kevin Ostriker from the Locked on Ravens podcast, we added

context to those numbers. And today, we will take three plays from the Baltimore Ravens offense and try to get an idea of how the Titans defense can slow down this zone read, read option, RPO attack that the Ravens have used to kind of revolutionize the way offense is looked at in the NFL. To do that, I want to start by just having a general conversation about what the Ravens have used to kind of revolutionize the way offense is looked at in the NFL. To do that, I want to start by just having a general conversation about what the Ravens are doing schematically on offense and the things that they like to do and go to more often than not. They're going to have multiple tight ends on the field. That's Mark Andrews, Hayden Hurst, Nick Boyle. They'll have a fullback out on the field and the reason for that is

they're looking to do something similar that the Titans were doing last week to the Patriots. I talked all last week about how the Titans wanted to use multiple tight end sets to get the Patriots into their base personnel packages. Patriots want to have multiple defensive backs on the field. That's their strength. A lot of NFL teams are going to running nickel with five defensive backs on the field, dime with six defensive backs on the field. It's something that the Titans have done all year, utilizing Kenny Vaccaro's physicality to have him play linebacker in these dime sets that they run. So that is how the NFL is going. The Ravens want to spin that on its head, make you get heavier, make you bring bigger bodies on the field, and then use the speed that these players have to kind of break you down and win one-on-one matchups.

You see someone like Marquise Hollywood Brown, Lamar Jackson, Mark Ingram. Hayden Hurst is very athletic for a tight end. Mark Andrews is very fast for a tight end. So they're using these different athletic players, getting teams in heavier personnel, base base personnel and then taking advantage of the matchups and the mismatches that they create by doing that and one of the formations that they use most often I mean they have a bunch of different formations but they'll come out in pistol that's another thing that Kevin mentioned to us on Wednesday and just to make sure that everyone's on the same page, a pistol formation is kind of like a shotgun where the quarterback is away from the center about five yards deep, but he has the running back directly behind him. So that gives you a really good opportunity to get into the zone read, which I want to make sure we're on the same page as well.

Basically, the offense does not block one defensive lineman. They allow that defensive lineman to decide whether he wants to hit the running back or hit the quarterback and whichever one that defensive lineman picks say it's the running back then the quarterback keeps it if he looks like he's gonna fire out and hit the quarterback then he'll give it off to the running back and it eliminates a defender and makes a defender not have to be blocked. So it gives offenses a really critical advantage in the man game when they're doing their rushing attack and Lamar Jackson having the skills that he has makes that even more difficult on defenses. So just wanted to make sure that we

were all on the same page on exactly what the Ravens are doing so we could get into how they're doing it. With that in mind let's go ahead and take a look at three plays from the Ravens versus the 49ers, all from the fourth quarter. Now, the Ravens were able to win this game 20-17, but I felt like out of all the games that I reviewed, this was the best defensive performance. So I wanted to give you guys a window into what the 49ers were able to do to make sure that they could slow down Lamar Jackson

even a little bit. Play one, Lamar Jackson is in the pistol and 12 personnel with two tight ends on the field. They're trying to isolate defensive end Eric Armstead with the read option here. Lamar Jackson's offensive line is blocking down to the right away from the run and the left tackle is to climb up to the second unit and get the middle linebacker. The two tight ends lined up on the left hand side are to take the slot cornerback and the outside linebacker. Here Lamar Jackson has to read the defensive end Eric Armstead at the mesh point. You would want Eric Armstead up to that middle arrow to force Lamar Jackson to go outside but instead he hesitates and follows Mark Ingram inside. This leads Lamar Jackson to go outside, but instead he hesitates and follows Mark Ingram

inside. This leads Lamar Jackson to pull the ball and run outside to the left. This is the alley, the area where the safety and Lamar Jackson are going to meet. The safety does a good job of filling the alley, forcing Lamar Jackson outside further to the left towards the sideline, and this is the most critical part. The linebacker for the San Francisco 49ers and the slot cornerback for the 49ers hold their ground against the tight end blocks, which forces Lamar Jackson outside even further to the contained player, which is cornerback Akello Witherspoon, who knocks Jackson out of bounds for a minimal gain. Play two has the Ravens in the pistol again, this time an 11 personnel with three wide receivers and one tight end on the field. They're trying to isolate Nick Bosa, defensive end for the 49ers. They bring the tight end in motion from the right side of the formation to the left. He will become the lead blocker, the here, Nick Bosa meets the mesh point.

He comes up the field and hits Gus Edwards, forces Lamar Jackson to go outside. And they will need that from Harold Landry or Roberson or Correa on Saturday. And then the 49ers linebackers here, 54 and 57, both beat their blocks and keep their responsibility, keep contained, stay disciplined, and stay outside on Lamar Jackson. So as Jackson runs left, he has nowhere to go as he approaches the sideline. He's forced to turn back in where Nick Bosa is still pursuing and able to make a play. The Titans will need that sort of contained that we saw from the 49ers linebackers, from Kenny Vaccaro, Logan Ryan, Kevin Byard, Rashawn Evans, David

Longer, Jayon Brown to be successful against the Ravens on Saturday. In our third play, the Ravens come out and pistol again in 13 personnel. That's three tight ends on the field, one wide receiver, one running back. They are bringing a tight end in motion to the right side, so all three tight ends will be on the right side, and the line line is down blocking trying to make the 49ers think it's a read option with Lamar Jackson going to the right they want to isolate outside linebacker number 51 for the 49ers on the back side and make him bite in on the fake he doesn't do that and I want to highlight this because this is a counter that the Ravens run quite a bit where Lamar Jackson kind of pivots reverse pivots out and goes the opposite direction the Titans will need to stay disciplined no matter what the play looks like if they want to contain this zone read offense that is going

to complete the offensive portion of our tic-tac Titans film review as always I'm going to be posting the visuals to go along with this on my Twitter account at Tic Tac Titan so please follow me there if you aren't on if you aren't already on Friday we are going to be back in our second segment with the defensive portion of our breakdown give you guys an idea of what the Ravens are doing on defense very similar to what the Patriots were doing but want to make sure that you guys have a refresher and see what they're doing just slightly differently and the Titans will have to be much better than they were against the Patriots with some of these similar concepts we are going to jump into our Rollins review and with that I'm going to marry that up with you guys crushing me

on Twitter on Wednesday so I'll explain why that is next Roland's Rewind so I want to do something a little special for you guys in this week's Rollins Rewind. As a lot of you noticed and noted on Twitter, as I said, I got crushed. And I say that in jest, but it was worthy. So a lot of you noticed that I omitted 2008's divisional playoff loss to the Baltimore Ravens when having our conversation on Tuesday about the history of this rivalry and what can I say it was on my notes and I simply skimmed over it so I am going to make it up to you guys and talk about the 2008 divisional round loss to the Ravens in today's Rollins Rewind because who really wants to go back and look at that 2018 matchup that was 21 to nothing with 11 sacks? Not me. So let's go back and talk about that game that

got lost in the wash. The Ravens currently lead the playoff matchup series 2-1. What's most crazy is all three victories were by the underdog on the road. So hopefully that trend continues here and the Titans can get back to even with the Ravens and renew this rivalry. Let's jump into the 2008 divisional game. The Tennessee Titans were the number one seed in the AFC that season going 13-3 and getting home field advantage in the playoffs. The Ravens just came off a wild card win and were 11-5 during the regular season, the sixth overall seed. Hmm, a sixth seed wild card win going into the number one seed. Okay, anyways, the Titans weren't able to win this game 13-10.

The Ravens were able to take advantage of some turnovers and a Chris Johnson injury here. Just want to kind of go over what I saw from the game. Kerry Collins was good, but not great. Had an interception. The Titans had a fumble from Lendell White in the red zone. Had a fumble from Algie Crumpler. Algie Crumpler in the red zone. Had a fumble from Algie Crumpler. Algie Crumpler in the end zone. Ray Lewis had a vicious hit on Ahmad Hall.

And unfortunately with the turnovers, that hit Chris Johnson's injury. And a despicable missed delay of game in the final three minutes that allowed the Ravens to pick up a 20-yard pass still to this day gets my blood boiling so that might have something to do with me psychologically forcing that memory out of my head because I was so upset what I do want to do is for nostalgia's sake and have some fun here is name off just some of the players from that 2008 team. Really talented team and a lot of fun to watch. Of course, they had Kerry Collins, the vet at quarterback. Chris Johnson and Lendell White, smash and dash in there.

Justin Gage, who had a great game against the Ravens in this matchup. 10 catches, 135 yards. We're looking at Justin McCarron, Bo Scaife, Algie Crumpler out there. On defense, you're looking at Keith Bullock, Chris Hope, Kevin Vickerson, Michael Griffin, one of my favorite Titans of all time, Steven Tulloch, Javon Kurse, Albert Hainsworth, Cortland Finnegan, Kyle Vandenbosch, Jason Jones. I mean, the list goes on here. Michael Roos and Craig Stevens and Rob Baronis all on this team. Just a fantastic team. The Ravens had guys like Bart Scott, Ray Lewis, Helody Nada, Terrell Suggs, Jim Leonard, Ed Reed,

Samare Roll had crossed over to the Ravens as well with Derek Mason on offense. Todd Heap, Lorenzo Neal, Willis McGahee. It was Joe Flacco's rookie year. What a crazy throwback game it was. So I wanted to go over that with you guys a little bit. Before we got out of here for the day. I will be back on Friday to give you our game preview. Talk a little bit of daily fantasy.

And the gambling aspect. Which if you listened last week, the Titans plus four and a half hit. That was fantastic. So we will do that as well as add to our Tic Tac Titans film review and do the Ravens defense for you in our second segment. So that is going to do it for today's show. As always, I am your host, Tyler Rowland, and this was Locked on Titans.