Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - #TicTacTuesday - Jayon Brown's Development

Episode Date: November 26, 2019

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Welcome to the Locked on Titans podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Rowland. Titans fans, it is a Tic Tac Tuesday. We are going to step into the film room in our second segment and break down something that I noticed from the game that I want to make sure you guys are up to speed on. Before we jump into that film breakdown in our Tic Tac Tuesday segment, we are going to talk a little Ryan Tannehill.

He has been one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL since he took over as the starter. So we'll talk about that. I'll give you some stats so you can see how it's playing out statistically. And then also provide some context for on field so you know exactly how that's kind of manifesting itself out on the field for the Titans offense. So we'll talk about that. And then in our third segment, we will do Titans talk, as I like to do each week.

I want to make sure you guys hear from head coach Mike Vrabel's day after press conference, after the coaches have had a time to look at the film and digest everything and get their take on how the game went. So we are going to do that in today's jam-packed show. Can't wait to get into all of it with you guys. Let's get it. Your Tennessee Titans lead story has to be the play of Ryan Tannehill since he took over at quarterback for the Titans five games ago. It's been an incredible statistical output

from Ryan Tannehill, and we've seen that manifest itself in the Titans' offenses output as well. So what I want to do is I want to give you guys some statistics just to set the stage for Ryan Tannehill's performance so far this year. The first thing I want to point to is some specific things to the game on Sunday. Ryan Tannehill was the first Titans quarterback with two passing touchdowns and two rushing touchdowns in the same game since Steve McNair in 2001. Also, Ryan Tannehill had the highest graded quarterback performance of any Titans quarterback since 2006 at 91.2. Now in 2006, pro football

focus started covering football games. So that's why that's limited to 2006 and not before. So jumping into some more general stats from his play in all five starts. Looking at right now, Ryan Tannehill is third best in the NFL and expected points added per dropback. So that means every time he drops back, how many points are getting added to the total? I know that seems like a strange stat, but the whole point is right now Ryan Tannehill is third in the NFL. So each dropback that Ryan Tannehill has is helping the Titans get closer and closer to scoring more points. So that's pretty important as well. He leads the league in yards per attempt at 9.2. He's being incredibly efficient. Each of his attempts are being used

properly and he's trying to make sure that everything that they do on offense is positive and it's really helped out. He's got the highest quarterback rating in the NFL since he took over at 114.9. I know that this is just fantasy, but it does lend us to see what kind of production he's putting up. Right now, Ryan Tannehill would be second in fantasy points per game in the NFL. Only two, of course, as you would guess, Lamar Jackson because of his incredible running ability and throwing ability. So he's very dynamic, but Ryan Tannehill is right behind him there since he took over. Something that I've mentioned, the Titans lead the NFL in explosive plays since Ryan Tannehill took over in both categories. They are first in explosive

pass plays. That's pass plays of 15 yards or more. They are first in explosive pass plays. That's pass plays of 15 yards or more. They are first in explosive run plays. That's 10 yards or more on a run. It's just phenomenal. And you look at the points actually scored on the board. Right now, the Titans are scoring just a little above 29 points per game with Ryan Tannehill at quarterback.

If you kind of push that out throughout the entire season, that would be third best in the NFL. It's pretty incredible. And I hate to put the two against each other, but just look at some of the differences. Under Marcus, the Titans were scoring 16.3 points per game. They were two and four. These are their offensive touchdowns in those six games. Four touchdowns against the Browns, two against the Colts, one against the Jacks, three against the Falcons, one against the Bills, zero against the Broncos. So four, two, one, three, one, zero. Ryan Tannehill has five starts. The Titans are averaging 29.4 points per game. The Titans are four and one. They have three touchdowns, three touchdowns, three touchdowns, four touchdowns, six touchdowns in the last game. It's just undeniable at this point how great Tannehill is playing.

He is 4-1, as I mentioned, 71% completion percentage, 1,276 yards, 11 touchdowns, three interceptions, three rushing touchdowns. He's just been incredible. The Titans team in general has really taken off with him at quarterback, and at this point, the Titans have to consider bringing Ryan Tannehill back on a, I wouldn't say long-term extension, but definitely a medium-range extension of two to three years. Maybe that third year isn't guaranteed, but he's been doing it by actually throwing the ball into tight windows, giving his wide receivers an opportunity to make plays. He's checking into the right, when he goes up to the

line of scrimmage and the Titans aren't running the right direction, or they're running a run play that needs to be a pass or a pass play that needs to be a run. Ryan Tannehill is putting the Titans offense in the right position and in the right play. You can hear it on the broadcast. You can see it in his body language. It makes all the sense in the world that this Titans team has really blossomed when having really good quarterback play. It's something that we've mentioned all along. If the Titans had a great quarterback,

then this team and this roster would just explode. And Ryan Tannehill maybe isn't a great quarterback, but he's playing well and playing great. That is going to do it for our first segment, though. Happy we were able to talk about how well Ryan Tannehill is playing and how much just more enjoyable the games are to watch having an offense that is explosive and can go out there and put up points at any second.

That 28-point third quarter and that quick turnaround on those couple of touchdowns was just incredible to watch, and I have no other word other than just fun. It was just a fun time a good a good time had by all we could say anyways we're going to jump into our second segment here it is tic-tac Tuesday so we're going to jump into the film room and break down some x's and o's for you guys my focus today will be Jayon Brown in his return Jayon Brown had 11 tackles for this ball club he was tasked with guarding Leonard Fournette out of the backfield and being very stout in the run game as well,

which he was able to do. So I'm going to break down how well Jayon Brown tackled. Specifically, he played great, but his ability to tackle and tackle well by himself was really what impressed me on Sunday. So I want to make sure you guys caught that as well. We'll jump into that next. Attention, past, present, and future MyBookie players. During Thanksgiving week, MyBookie is offering a risk-free bet on the Bears-Lions game. Simply choose a team against the spread for up to $250. If you win, congrats. You've got extra holiday spending money.

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Tick,Tack Tuesday. All right, guys, let's step into the film room and break down some X's and O's here. Now, one thing that I will tell you is today's Tick-Tack Tuesday segment isn't so focused on the scheme and what the Titans are actually running on defense, but I want to focus and make sure we give appreciation to Jayon Brown. As an undersized linebacker in the NFL, he was primarily tasked as a fifth round draft pick with being a role player, being a pass coverage linebacker due to his size, only about six foot, about 210, 220 pounds. He's not a huge

guy by NFL standards and especially NFL linebacker standards. But this man made tackle after tackle on Sunday that allowed this game to kind of go where it went. So what I want to do is I want to kind of step in here and show you guys exactly what kind of tackles and what kind of situations Jayon Brown stepped up in after coming off of an injury. It's even more impressive and taking on a guy like Leonard Fournette, who is the opposite of Jayon Brown as an undersized linebacker. Leonard Fournette is a huge running back, a powerful man, not much different than how we view Derrick Henry. And

tackling him and bringing him down is a tough task for any defender in the NFL, let alone an undersized pass coverage style linebacker. So let's jump into the film. Play number one. It is third and seven on the Jacksonville 30 with 1134 left in the second quarter. The score is currently zero to zero. So the game is in the balance. And like I said, this is a big third down. The Jags are trying to get some things going.

Well, the Jags here try to run a crossing concept where they bring their slot receiver, DeeDee Westbrook, over the middle on a short crosser. The Titans are in a zone coverage, and Nick Foles drops the ball off to DeeDee Westbrook with about three to four yards to gain to get the first down here. Well, Jayon Brown comes out of his zone, rushes up, and just makes a great tackle on DeeDee Westbrook. DeeDee Westbrook is a very quick guy. He's an athletic guy. Well, he kind of gets through Jayon's initial attempt, but Jayon just grabs onto his ankle and his leg and holds him there, holds him there until he can get some help from his brothers, Kevin Byard, Kenny Vaccaro, Harold Landry, and Rashawn Evans all show up for the party.

So just an excellent effort right there by Jayon Brown, and it literally caused a punt for the Titans. So we'll move to the second play, which is also in the second quarter. It's first and 10 with two minutes and 50 seconds left in the first half. Now this may be the most impressive play of the four, at least in my opinion, just based on everything that Jayon does here. His open field tackling is really what I want to highlight, but he does just a little bit more on this play, so I wanted to make sure that I put it in. As I mentioned earlier, he's an undersized linebacker. Keep that in your mind this whole time. So on this play, it's like I said,

first and 10, 250 left in the first first half the Jaguars earn an eye formation what I really love here is the Titans are lined up in a 4-3 alignment they have four down linemen here with Kamalei Correa as a stand-up weak side linebacker so I really like that and I'll show you guys that when I put the breakdowns on my Twitter at Tic Tac Titans but Nick Foles changes the side of the run. He audibles, adjusts what side the run is going to go to, and he pushes it over to Jayon Brown's side. And you can kind of see Jayon readjust his position for a moment because he realizes what's about to happen. Like I said, the Jags are in an I formation. So the tackle kicks out Harold Landry,

and the fullback has a dead-on path for Jayon Brown. Jayon Brown stones the fullback with his right shoulder at the line of scrimmage, waits for Leonard Fournette to come right into him, wraps him up and puts him on the ground for a two-yard gain in a huge situation in the football game. Just a beautiful play by Jayon Brown there to stack the fullback. He hits him with the shoulder, stacks him up, ruins his block, and then gets to the ball carry. I don't know what else more you could ask from a linebacker, period,

let alone a linebacker of Jayon Brown's size. That is such an impressive play from the, I mean, just the fifth-round pick. What else could you ask for? He's been phenomenal this year when he is on the field. Not to mention the context here. What else could you ask for? He's been phenomenal this year when he is on the field. Not to mention the context here. That was 1st and 10 when the Jaguars were on the Titans 28. That makes it 2nd and 8, only a 2-yard gain.

The Titans draw a penalty on 3rd down, 3rd and 13, passing complete. Titans hold the Jags to a field goal, going to halftime with a 7-3 lead. If for some reason the Jags were able to get a good play on first down, keep things going, stay ahead of schedule on offense, who knows if they score. If they score a touchdown there at 7-7 at halftime, things feel different. Who's to say what happens next? So just an absolutely beautiful play by Jayon Brown combining a bunch of different techniques and things that he's worked on personally on his development as an every down linebacker and we see it here I can't express through words how excited I am to see that kind of play from Jayon Brown just fantastic so we're going to jump into the second half now go to the third quarter with nine minutes and 44 seconds left it is second and seven for the Jaguars offense

the Jaguars attempt to run Leonard Fournette out of shotgun here, and I just want to mention again, just like the last play, Jayon Brown takes on the fullback and then makes the play on the running back. Fournette gets a five-yard gain here, but what's most impressive to me is Jayon Brown is the backside linebacker on this run play. Fournette goes up the middle, and as Jayon Brown is flowing to the middle to try to take on Fournette, the Jaguars right tackle, Jawan Taylor, comes up and tries to put a block on Jayon Brown. He's able to disengage from the block getaway and then ultimately put Leonard Fournette on the ground for only a five-yard gain. Now, that may not seem too impressive. It was a five-yard gain.

That's a pretty good run play, generally speaking. But this is why it's important. The Titans got the Jags to third and two at this point. Pass incomplete to Leonard Fournette, or pass was complete to Leonard Fournette, but he was hit instantly by Correa and dropped. Then it was fourth and two, and the Jaguars punt. Next thing you know, the Titans score another touchdown. And while the game at this point was 28-3, most likely the Jags weren't going to come back.

These are the type of plays that you don't just judge based on where the game is at. You look at this play and you say, Jayon Brown made a great play against a run, and the circumstances or the score at the moment in time don't change how great of a play it was to get away from an offensive tackle at his size to be able to bring down a ball carrier like Leonard Fournette at his size just incredibly physical plays from Jayon Brown who's known primarily for his athleticism he is like I've mentioned throughout the segment his development is just on tape and it's clear and it's obvious how he's developing and shout out to the coaching staff for obviously working

with him on some of these run game techniques that he needs to use and work on to become the best possible player he can be which we are seeing him become so we're going to jump to our last play here it is going to be in the fourth quarter eight minutes left it is first and ten for the jaguars and one of the reasons that i wanted to bring up this play specifically was going back to our first play of this segment. I wanted to kind of put Jayon Brown's open field tackling on display. Our two middle plays put Jayon Brown's improved technique in run defense on display. Now, I want to go back to his open field tackling. Once again, Leonard Fournette, a very physical guy, breaks a lot of tackles in the NFL, and is just a big human being in general. Jayon Brown undersized for his position. Well,

here on this play, the Jags are obviously throwing. They're down 42 to 17 at the time. The Titans bring four, and Leonard Fournette kind of chips Harold Landry, and then he escapes out of the backfield. Foles doesn't have anything downfield because the Titans' defense is locked in man coverage. So he tries to get it out to Leonard Fournette in the flat. Well, it's just Jayon Brown and Leonard Fournette out there in the flat. Once again, Leonard Fournette gets five yards on this. He catches the ball. But Jayon Brown wraps him up by himself with no help from anybody else on the team

and takes down Fournette for only a five yard gain. This is incredible open field tackling. It's so hard to tackle these skill position players in the NFL. They are talented guys who get paid a lot too, but Jayon Brown at his size, one-on-one, taking down somebody like Leonard Fournette one-on-one. It's just fantastic. And you see energy and excitement from Jayon Brown afterwards. He knows that he just made a great play. He comes back to the huddle and back to the middle of the field with his hands raised, shaking his fists in the air. He knows he made a great tackle.

And that's the type of play in the film room when the team watches the tape that he's going to get applause for because that's the type of plays one-on-one that in the NFL, your guys just have to make if you want to win ball games. So that's going to do it for our segment. As always, I'm going to post these plays with some more visual help and more visual guidelines on my Twitter at Tic Tac Titans.

Please follow me there. So you can kind of marry up the podcast and the things I'm breaking down with some of the videos as well. I want to make sure you guys are able to take advantage of that. Once again, that's at Tic Tac Titans if you weren't following me already. That is going to do it, though, for our Tic Tac Titans segment. And on a Tic Tac Tuesday, all jumbled up with all the Tic Tacs, all the Ts. Whew! Got to calm it down a little bit.

Anyways, we are gonna jump into our third segment as I always do on the Tuesday show. I want to play for you guys Mike Vrabel's day after press conference. He obviously has the opportunity to review the film. We're gonna get his thoughts

on what he saw during the game. Probably give us some insight that we wouldn't know otherwise. It's always good to get as much information as we possibly can from the people in the building. So I will do that in our third segment of some Titans talk. Before we jump into that, I want to let you guys know that you should treat yourself to a meal you deserve and have your favorite restaurants come to you with DoorDash. Right now, our listeners can get $5 off their first order of $15 or more

when you download the DoorDash app and enter promo code LOCKEDON. Listening on the go, if you can't go to DoorDash right now, you can find this and all our other offers from the LockedOn sponsors at LockedOnPodcast.com slash offers. okay guys we are going to jump into some titans talk here going to play you the highlights of mike vrabel's day after press conference as always audio is courtesy of titansonline.com sure well i think that when

you looked at the schedule um you know i kind of realized that you know if you could kind of put yourself in a position you had a chance to to make some um some progress uh late uh with the division games um obviously the next opponent now is the Colts, but it's going to give us a great opportunity to try to, you know, to pick off the next team that really that's in front of us. You know, it'll be huge for us to have a great week, again, like we did last week with the bye. But, you know, they have a few days on us, having played on Thursday.

They'll have the weekend and some extra rest. But, you know, our guys have to get back on us, having played on Thursday. They'll have the weekend and some extra rest. But, you know, our guys have to get back to work, and so do the coaches. Yeah, I guess we lost to them in a close game early in the season where, you know, when you look back, you know, Brissette, we have to be able to tackle. You know, we play the run up until, you know, again, late in the game, and they busted one. But, I mean, if you want to go that approach, I certainly will never do it. We'll have to do it each and every week

and we'll have to perform each and every week in this league. I don't think that whatever we've done against them before I was here or while I've been here is going to have much bearing on the game on Sunday. You'll have to refresh my memory Wednesday when we hook back up, but really the focus is going to be on this Colts team, our team here trying to go on the road, division opponent. A chance to get to 7-5 is really the most important thing. So, again, if I led you astray by saying something last year that you're holding on to,

I apologize, but I'll try to do better the next time. Well, when you can run the football and we hit some screens, you know, you guys all chuckled at me last year, last week when I talked about the screen game and you guys all chuckled and giggled and then we hit some screens again. So, but we ran the ball, you know, guys could, I thought the line did a really nice job. I thought Derek ran hard. I think that we got the ball out of our hands and got it to receivers and the run after catch. Just to be able to, you know, Corey had a huge block on somebody downfield.

You know, there were linemen hustling to get second-level blocks, whether it be 12-yard run or 15-yard run. You know, I know we got a holding call on Derek's screen, but guys were hustling to get out there and take advantage of getting the ball in space. So it takes everybody, whether you bust one in a run game, it's going to take everybody rallying to get their blocks at the front level and then getting the guys on the second level. Same thing in the passing game. We had Corey. I thought he

ran a really nice route down the sideline there. Had some separation late, and I know Ryan felt like he needs to come back and try to hit him and just kind of overthrew it just a little bit. So we'll keep working on some of those. Well, I mean, they run the ball very well. They stop the run very well. That's a great sign of a tough football team. The offense stays in third and short, so they have their top ten on third down. That's what they've done.

There's always going to be injuries that happen throughout the course of the season. And, you know, there's always going to be injuries that happen throughout the course of the season. So, you know, whether Max in there or somebody else, they're finding ways to run the ball, whether it be with Hines or Williams. I mean, it's just kind of what they've done. The O-line, I believe, has stayed intact. I think Kelly went down the other day. I won't have an injury report, but I think I saw him go down against the Texans.

I'm not sure if he returned. But, you, but I think those guys have been intact up front, offensive line-wise. Their defense is long and fast, and they've done a nice job. Listen, I think what we've done is we've tried to fix the mistakes when we say we're close on some things, some of those plays that we hit yesterday were the same plays that maybe we ran earlier in the year that you missed one block or somebody on the backside kind of knifes through or Derek

maybe misses a cut by one gap. It's just something little. And then we come back and we hit one, and it's a big play. And so I think that that gives you the confidence to keep rolling, and then you could pick and choose kind of how you call the game, whether that's throwing the football, whether that's getting the quarterback out of the pocket, whether that's the play passes or the screens, is that mix and continue to change tempos.

But again, it's hard to get into mixing tempos when you don't convert or you have third and longs. And yesterday, the majority of our third downs were in that third and manageable. We talked about Humpf with that huge sequence of plays. We got a strip sack fumble. They made a great play. Our defense forced him to punt. We gained 11 yards on a run. We gained eight yards on a run.

Humpf had a great conversion on third and three, and we went on the ball, and we were able to get Ryan there out of the pocket, and he went in and scored. So when you're able to convert, then you're able to now be able to get in and mix up plays that complement each other. I did yesterday. Sometimes, you know, if you run two plays and don't get any yards, it's probably not a very desirable effect. And so when you can mix tempo and still be able to move the chains

and get some chunk plays, you know, it forces them to make a decision. Are they going to, you know, blitz you? Are they going to just stay in base defense? And, you know, hopefully we can continue to be successful when we mix tempo. Sure, finish longer than the guy with the ball. And, again, we've seen a million times whether Derek's growing 99, 67, 72, whatever it may be, all of a sudden we don't need to look around and see where the guy is.

Like, he's running. And so if he gets stood up at the line, you know, he needs to keep his feet moving like he did, and everybody else needs to push the pile. I think you saw that on the goal line as well. I think that was a great example of, you know, a well-blocked play that got us close to the goal line. Derek kept his feet churning.

You know, Benny came in, and Nate was coming in there to push the pile into the end zone. I imagine they'd make it. Well, again, when you don't play the game, we talked about it, when you play the game behind, we're dropping back a million times, and you drop back a million times against some of those guys that they have, they're going to rush, and they're going to hit the quarterback. But we were able to throw the ball on our terms yesterday. We were able to run the football. We were able to control the ball on our terms yesterday. We were able to run the football.

We were able to control the line of scrimmage. When we did throw it, there was a pocket for the quarterback to operate in. So guys made plays for him. We ran the football. The quarterback was decisive. And, again, you're absolutely right. That approach doesn't always lead to performance, but you have to have a routine that you believe in

and that when you go out there and whatever you're doing, you're confident in that the preparation has led you to a spot where you feel like you can go out there and do your job. Okay, guys, that was Mike Vrabel's day after press conference. Want to make sure you had the opportunity to hear directly from the coach after he's had the opportunity to review the tape. That is going to do it for our show today. We did our Ryan Tannehill breakdown in the first segment. We did our Tic Tac Tuesday film review and checked out Jayon Brown's development as a linebacker in our second segment.

And then, of course, we just heard from Mike Vrabel's press conference. So hope you guys enjoyed this episode. I'm still kind of high off that win on Sunday, high off the way the offense has been performing. We have said multiple times, or I have said multiple times, and I've seen this reciprocated from you guys on social media, that the Titans may not win a Super Bowl. The Titans may not win the division every year. The Titans may not be the best team in the league all the time, if ever. But at the minimum, as fans fans what we could hope for is exciting football exciting football games and we're getting that right now with this offense so been been fantastic to see this team kind of take a leap here four and one in the last five weeks it's not going to mean much

if they don't come out and produce against indianapolis so tomorrow we are going to jump into our preparation for indianapolis and start about the Colts, put this fun game behind us, and move forward now to the task at hand and the job ahead of the team. So we will have our crossover Wednesday pod tomorrow. It'll be the second time that we have the Locked On Colts host on the show. You guys always enjoy those. I hope you do as well. I hope I see you tomorrow.

Come back and enjoy that. That will do it for our show today though. As always, I'm your host Tyler Rowland and this was Locked on Titans.