Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - #TicTacTuesday: Roster Changes, #TicTacFourPack & Sounds of the Titans

Episode Date: November 17, 2020

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You are Locked On Titans, your daily Tennessee Titans podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome to the Locked On Titans podcast. I am your host, Tyler Rowland. Titans fans, this Tic Tac Tuesday edition of the Locked On Titans podcast is presented by Pepsi. This football season will be different, and Pepsi is here to get you ready for game day no matter how you watch this season.

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We got some small pieces of news about the Titans that trickled out over the day on Monday. Some things that did take place with the roster, some things that didn't take place with the roster that I would categorize as big Titans news. So to begin our show today, we are just going to go over those little points of information that have come out in the last 24 hours, including another Tennessee Titan going back on the COVID-19 restricted list. So that's kind of big news as well.

So I'll dive into all of those pieces of information with you guys. And then we will get into this week's Tic Tac Four Pack, where I break down the four most impactful plays from the Titans game against the Colts. And I will use this Tic Tac Four Pack to give you guys a couple examples of things that are plaguing the Titans on offense, defense, and special teams. And then, we haven't done this in a while, but I think it's a good opportunity to let you guys hear directly from Tennessee Titans head coach Mike Rabel do a little bit of sounds of the Titans, and I'll give you the highlights from his Zoom conference on Monday.

So we will jump into that to cap off our show. So a big Tic Tac Tuesday here on the Locked on Titans podcast. We'll be putting up the visual aid to my Tic Tac 4-Pack breakdown on Twitter at Tic Tac Titans. So make sure that you follow me there. Make sure that you're subscribed to the Locked on Titans podcast as well on whatever platform you do stream. But it is Tic Tac Tuesday, which means it's time for this week's Tic Tac 4-Pack.

Let's get it. We got three big pieces of news from the Tennessee Titans as they started off their week on Monday. Two of those pieces of news are roster transactions that took place. And then the final piece of news is one transaction that did not take place. And we will start with the transaction that did not happen. And the anticipated cut of kicker Steven Gostkowski has still yet to take place and we will start with the transaction that did not happen and the anticipated cut of kicker Steven Gostkowski has still yet to take place and on Monday in Mike Vrabel's press conference he did say that as of right now Gostkowski is the Titans kicker so not a firm commitment to Gostkowski being with the Titans long term and throughout the rest of the season

but at this time no cut of Gostkowski is anticipated and that could be for a multitude of different reasons although Gostkowski is struggling at this moment in time making only 12 of his 20 field goal attempts on the season the Titans did pay him a decent chunk of change earlier in the year, $2 million to be their kicker this year, and Gostkowski did make some big field goals for the Titans earlier in the season. We may have reached a point of no return though where the Titans may just want to try someone else because it cannot be any worse than what they've already seen, but at this time, Gostkowski remains the kicker for the Tennessee Titans.

Two roster transactions that did take place for the Titans on Monday. Number one, we saw the Titans place their first player on the COVID-19 reserve list since the end of their outbreak earlier in the season, and the last day that the Titans placed a player on the COVID-19 list was October the 8th. So it's been more than a month since the Titans struggled with COVID-19 impacting their team. But today we do see a Tennessee Titan back on the COVID-19 list. And that is linebacker David Long.

And not a huge loss for the Titans, as Long had only played in 25 snaps on the season on defense, but he was a major contributor on special teams, playing the majority of his snaps on the season on special teams for the Titans, but with up and down results, Long was publicly chastised for his free agent ability after being inactive on game day a few weeks ago. And then made a critical special teams error on both of the obscure punts that the Titans had against the Colts on Thursday night. The shank punt where he allowed the major pressure from the Colts defensive line. And then the block punt where he also was responsible for the pressure on the punter. So not a stellar season so far for David Long after he showed immense potential in 2019.

And then the last roster move that we got from the Tennessee Titans on Monday was designating rookie running back Darrington Evans for return from IR. Evans went on IR after the Buffalo Bills game. He did miss the first two games of the season with injury as well, but has been out since week five against Buffalo so far this year. He's only played 13 snaps on offense, only 13 snaps total for the season. He has 21 rushing yards on five attempts, so not a bad average and Evans explosiveness out of the backfield would be desperately needed for a Titans team that doesn't really have a weapon like Evans at this time. Backup running back Deontay Foreman has been excellent in his spelling, Derrick Henry in his carries, but he doesn't have the versatility as a pass catcher out of the backfield to add to the Titans what Evans would.

Same with Jeremy McNichols, although he's been good in pass protection, specifically he struggles as a runner and out of the backfield as a pass catcher. So getting Evans back would definitely help the Titans offense add an explosive element that they are certainly needing at this moment in time. So Gostkowski remains with the Titans. David Long is placed on the COVID-19 reserve list. And rookie running back Darrington Evans is designated for return from IR, meaning within the next 21 days, he has to be activated

onto the roster or placed back on IR for the rest of the season. So we will monitor what happens with Evans going forward. But going forward in today's show, it is time to get into our Tic Tac Four Pack. So we are going to look at the four most impactful plays from the Titans game against the Indianapolis Colts. And of course, it was a loss for the Tennessee Titans. So we are going to break down exactly what happened and how they ended up there. And shocker, a lot of what we're doing is going to focus on those two breakdowns on those punts. So going to dive into that, talk about responsibilities, talk about what went wrong for the Tennessee Titans. Before we jump into this week's Tic Tac Foreback, I want to tell you guys about DoorDash.

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the League of Football Watchers. This football season will be different, and Pepsi is here to get you ready for game day no matter how you watch. Pepsi is the refreshment you need to power through any game day because Pepsi isn't made for those who play the game. It's made for those who watch it. Pepsi, made for football watching. Go to madeforfootballwatching.com to check out the latest football watching content from Pepsi. It is time to get into this week's Tic Tac Four Pack, breaking down the four most impactful plays from the Titans loss to the Colts from the previous week. And before we get into the Tic Tac 4-pack,

I do have to remind you all to follow me on Twitter at Tic Tac Titans. Even if you don't have a Twitter, it is a great idea to follow me on Twitter. Create one at Tic Tac Titans. I will be posting the visual breakdown to go along with this Tic Tac 4-pack. I also post other, you know, film breakdowns, different things like different film work to give you guys a better idea of actually what's taking place for your Tennessee Titans. And I don't see how you could listen to this show and not follow me on Twitter to check out the visual breakdowns that go along with these audio breakdowns. So that's enough of my preamble there before we get into this week's Tic Tac 4-Pack. But we are going to start on the offensive side of the ball.

It's a critical third down for the Tennessee Titans, 3rd and 11. There's 519 in the first quarter, about five and a half minutes left in the first quarter. The Titans are up in this game at this moment in time, 7-0. And this play, of course, is the A.J. Brown drop. So, going to give you an explanation of what's going on here. The Titans are in the shotgun with a running back to Tannehill's left-hand side. They have trips to the right side. Cam Batson in the innermost slot, then Anthony Ferkser in the middle slot,

and then Corey Davis on the outside. A.J. Brown is by himself to the left-hand side. Now the Colts defense is showing press man here and Cam Batson goes in motion over to the left-hand side and then back to the right and the Colts defender follows him in that motion. So the Colts are trying to tell the Titans that they're playing man coverage here, but on the snap, they go into cover too. And what we're going to do is we're going to now talk about some of the Titans that they're playing man coverage here, but on the snap, they go into cover two, and what we're going to do is we're going to now talk about some of the things

that are plaguing the Titans' offense during this poor stretch. So, Cam Batson is the innermost slot on the left-hand side, or on the right-hand side. That means that he's next to Dennis Kelly. Well, Justin Houston, Colts' talented edge rusher, is going up against Dennis Kelly, and the Titans want to help out their tackles because, well, they're not great. Dennis Kelly is just a guy. He's an average tackle. And then Ty Sambrello is, you know, pretty much average, a little below average.

Maybe both guys are a little below average. But the Titans have to help them out, so they've been doing a lot of chipping. And if you don't know what chipping is, that's when a wide receiver or a tight end, before they go out into their passing route route they hit one of the edge rushers and help the offensive lineman and try to slow down the pass rush this is designed to help the quarterback out when the offensive line isn't playing great and give him a little bit more time and it's something that really hurt the Titans last year at the beginning of the year when the Titans started out two and four all the chipping with the tight ends because Luan was out. Well, the Titans have been struggling with that again. And the big problem here is, is Cam Batson is chipping at the beginning of his route. And

what he's not doing is getting out into his passing route. So the Titans love curls. They love sit down routes, not real route combinations. They love to take a guy, send them about, you know, 10 to 12 yards. This is third and 11. So 12 yards and then just turn back around and look for the ball. And Tannehill will fit it into a zone or fit it into the guy. Well, that doesn't work when teams are playing aggressively downhill and the Titans don't have a deep threat to really challenge defenses down the field and make them worried about getting beat over the top. So they play downhill aggressively. They play forward on those curls and those stop routes. So the Titans run a curl with Corey Davis

to the right-hand side. They run a curl with Anthony Ferkser into the middle. They run a chip and then a flat, flattened chips. No one gets the joke. Okay, never mind. Move on. They run a chip and then run to the flat with Cam Batson. None of those routes are going to be open. The Colts are playing aggressive zone downhill. They're ready for these curls. And the Titans run them way too much. It's way too predictable. We need to have some vertical downfield concepts.

What about a curl and a seven route? A curl and a flag? a curl and a corner, you know, to try to disrupt this cover two zone that the Colts run, this cover four zone that the Colts run. So these stop curls are just, they're not getting guys open enough, and the Titans don't have guys who create great separation through their routes with Ferkser and Corey Davis and even A.J. Brown. That's just not their game. So Titans are running route concepts that aren't going to help them get much separation.

They're chipping with their wide receivers, which takes less people out. And on this play, Cam Batson chips and Jeremy McNichols in the backfield blocks. So you only have three guys out in a route on third and 11. And the Colts are in a zone. They have seven guys out in a route on third and 11 and the Colts are in a zone they have seven guys eight guys who have to cover three guys for the Titans it's easy to do for a zone defense so when you're chipping and you're leaving in a running back to pass block every single time you're only

having three guys go out in a passing route who aren't great separating from man coverage so over the course of a game it's going to be difficult to find openings. And when you do find openings, like Ryan Tannehill did on this vertical route to A.J. Brown, remember, this is the A.J. drop, you just can't fail to cash in on those opportunities. Ryan Tannehill got absolutely blasted because DeForest Bunkner wrecked Roger Saffold in pass rush. And Tannehill is not going to want to take these shots going forward if he thinks that his guys are going to drop drop the ball and let him down he's going to become more tentative his accuracy is going to fall off because

he's not going to stand and take the hit and we're already seeing that happen and that take place for the Titans let's move from the offense because those are some things that's plaguing them poor performance on the offensive line and pass rush. Not enough separation and man coverage because of the wide receiver and the tight end skill sets. Tannehill getting a little tentative because he's taken so many shots. And then A.J. Brown dropping the ball. The Titans, I don't like their route concepts either. So just a bunch of different issues on offense.

But let's get into the special teams here. The first punt, the one that just went off of the foot of our punter here, Trevor Daniel, a guy who never should have been playing in this game, but his first punt was a 17-yard punt that he shanked out of bounds. And the big problem here that we're going to look at is the alignment for the Titans punt team. So in this alignment here, basically the Colts have three guys to the right hand side. Let's do it from the punter's view. The Titans have three guys to the left hand side, including David Long. They have the snapper in the middle, and then they have three guys to the right hand side, and

Amani Hooker as the up back. The Colts have seven guys in the box here. That's a critical number to watch. The Titans have eight guys, not including their punter. So the Titans have them outnumbered. And what happens here is David Long and Jeff Swaim are responsible for 44 and 45. That's two rushers on the right-hand side of the Colts defense defense. Well, what happens is David Long just blows his assignment. He darts into number 44 with Jeff Swaim. They both block 44. 45 gets a free run through the line of scrimmage.

And luckily, because the Titans, remember, they have eight guys in the box. The Colts only had seven because the Titans had them outnumbered. Imani Hooker was able to slide from the right-hand side over to the left-hand side and pick up the guy that David Long missed. So that pressure was enough though to scare off Daniel and a shank off the side of his foot led to the Colts touchdown that put them ahead 20-17. Now let's get into the touchdown or the punt that was blocked. So remember, David Long didn't hold his assignment and the Titans were saved by Imani Hooker because they had a numbers advantage. Well, the Colts don't allow the Titans to have a

numbers advantage next time. They've recognized the issue with David Long and this time they put five guys on David Long's side and three guys on the other side. So they've increased their number from seven to eight. The Titans keep their number at eight. All they've done is move Imani Hooker from being away from David Long's side over to David Long's side. But here's where the Colts get tricky. They take the up back. Remember, there's five guys on David Long and Imani Hooker's side. They take the guy who's not on the line of scrimmage and they send him in motion to the opposite side of the punt formation. Well what this does is that leaves four guys still on David Long and Imani Hooker's side but it puts four guys on the other side and just that motion alone it triggers Imani Hooker's eyes and he looks at that

motion guy on the other side of the formation and he starts to slide away from David Long over to the middle of the formation, and David Long again makes the same exact mistake, two punts in a row of helping too much on the inside with number 44. He lets 45 blow past him, a second straight punt in a row, and then 45 gets the block, and it turns into a touchdown for the Colts. This is David Long being terrible on special teams, which Mike Vrabel warned us about before. This is also coaching, though. This is the Titans getting whooped in the special teams coaching battle. Adjustments by the Colts taking advantage of things that the Titans

should have noticed on tape. Craig Aukerman, the Titans special teams coordinator, should have noticed David Long making this mistake and should have coached him up, but he didn't. And the same mistake got made two times in a row on back-to-back opportunities. Killed the Titans. These two plays killed the Titans. They had a four-point lead turned into a 10-point deficit.

How did somebody not coach David Long up on this on the sideline? How was this not addressed? Unacceptable coaching, unacceptable special teams play from David Long as well. So just a whole bunch of different issues from coaching and playing. And then finally, let's get into the last play here, and that is on the Titans defensive side of the ball and this just kind of shows how disjointed this defense is right now so the Titans are down 27 to 17 they just missed a field goal the Colts get the ball back the Titans defense has to bow their neck here they have to stiffen up and prevent the Colts from scoring a touchdown if they hold them to a field goal here the Titans are down by 13 it was already already a two-score game. There's about 12 minutes left in the game. They have plenty of time

to come back. Well, not anymore. The Colts come out in shotgun as they did most of the game, and they bring a motion man. They have trips to the right-hand side and a tight end on the line of scrimmage to the left-hand side. They bring motion from the right-hand side, Michael Pittman over to the left-hand side. The Titans are in man coverage. So Malcolm Butler, when this motion happens, he follows Michael Pittman from the right-hand side to the left-hand side. Just goes over with him. So it's obvious that it's man coverage. But somewhere along the way, Malcolm Butler thinks that they've switched

to a zone coverage, or he follows the man in motion trying to show that it's man coverage, but really they're trying to fake him out and go zone. I'm inclined to think that Malcolm Butler is the one who made the mistake here, because basically once the ball is snapped, Pittman goes on a deep or a short shallow route underneath across the field and back over to his right-hand side, and Malcolm Butler just doesn't follow him. Everyone else is in zone coverage, and Malcolm Butler just stays on the side of the field that he ran over to after the motion

like he's playing a zone coverage, like he's playing a flat, and doesn't follow his man. It's a wide-open Michael Pittman running across the field, a 40-yard gain for the Colts. Basically broke the Titans back on this night. And it just shows on the biggest drive of the game late in the fourth quarter, the Titans' defense isn't on the same page. And also during this play, I believe Rashawn Evans is supposed to be the robber,

the zone defender covering up the middle. But he kind of tries to rush, but it's a terrible rush attempt. It looks like he's playing a quarterback spy of some kind which can't be the call against Philip Rivers so I don't know if Rashawn Evans is supposed to be blitzing if he's supposed to be dropping in coverage if he just got lost in the sauce or what happened but just a terrible effort from the Titans defense and they're not on the same page miscommunications on whether they're playing man or zone just the most fundamental things that have to be communicated they're playing man or zone. Just the most fundamental

things that have to be communicated. They're not doing their job right now. So it's just indicative of the coaching struggles that the Titans defense is having along with the poor play from the players. But that's going to do it for this week's Tic Tac 4-Pack. We are going to jump into some sounds of the Titans next. Hear from Titans head coach Mike Vrabel and all the highlights from his Zoom conference on Monday. Of course, that audio is courtesy of TennesseeTitans.com. Before we get into that though, I do want to tell you guys about Built Go. From the guys who gave you the best tasting protein bar ever at Built Bar brings you the best tasting workout gel ever in Built Go. Whether it's a mental or physical wall, break through it every day with Go. Go comes in easy to take 1.5 ounce

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a kick of caffeine, B6 and B12. Visit builtgo.com and use promo code LOCKED and you'll get 20% off your next order. Once again, that's promo code LOCKED for 20% off at BuiltGo.com. Let's go. We will cap off this Tic Tac Tuesday with a little Sounds of the Titans. And audio is courtesy of TennesseeTitans.com. But I wanted to give you guys just a few quick highlights from Mike Vrabel's Zoom conference on Monday. I have three different clips for you guys that I wanted to play. The first one is just his message to the team, then an answer on Gostkowski, and then finally an answer on special teams. So those are

three big things that I wanted to take a look at from his Zoom conference. So first, let's talk about what Mike Vrabel's message to the team was after losing three out of their last four games and having three critical games ahead you know i think that the message is is this is what it looks like every year you know every team's you know a lot of teams are bunched up you know just like they were last year um and so we're trying to win a game we're trying to put our head down we're trying to win a game. We're trying to put our head down. We're trying to focus on continuing to improve at this point in the season, knowing that teams go in different directions. And we need to improve. We need to focus on us today and then continue to improve

and get on to Baltimore. At the end of the day, that is the case. While the Titans are disappointed to go from 5-0 to 6-3, the reality is the season does continue, and the Titans have a critical game against the Ravens coming up that they need to turn their attention to in a hurry. So one of the big points of consternation that'll come when they actually do play the Baltimore Ravens

is who will be the kicker and a lot of fans are calling for the job of Steven Gostkowski after he's gone 12 for 20 from field goals throughout the year but it doesn't sound like the Titans are ready to do that as quickly as the fan base may be this is what Mike Vrabel had to say about the kicker position going forward. You know, I mean, as of today, right now, you know, we have one on the practice squad. You know, we've got, you know, Tavecchio on the practice squad who's kicking. You know, but as of Monday at 1036, you know, Stephen would be our kicker as of right now. Well, all we can say about that answer is that it is not a ringing endorsement of Gostkowski,

and Mike Rabel clearly is not committing to Gostkowski in any way going forward based on that noncommittal answer there, keeping things very vague. As of right now, sounds like, depending on what we see in practice with this week there could be a change for the titans but gotta watch that competition play out don't want to replace you know goszkowski with somebody who's gonna you know be the same or worse so that's something to to monitor going forward throughout the week as they continue that competition and then the last blurb here the last clip from mike rabel's Monday press conference, Zoom conference,

is talking about adding starters to the special teams units to try to improve their performance that has dipped mightily over the last four weeks. So would Mike Rabel add starters to his special teams units to try to help things? I mean, I think that that's something that, you know, we certainly want to talk about. You know, that was mentioned this morning. You know, I think we have to have all hands on deck. You know, it's something that, you know, I try to not ask guys, having played,

I try to not ask them to do things that I wasn't asked to do. I know we have some guys that have some snap counts that are getting up there, but if we need that, that's always something that we should be able to do. You would hope that the Titans would not have to do that, considering that John Robinson, Titans general manager, put such a premium on special teams players. You think about Chris Milton, you think about a Dane Cruikshank, you think about a Nick DeZubnar, Darren Bates. The Titans use a ton of special teams only players really on this roster.

So incredibly disappointing that they're performing so poorly in special teams. But that's going to do it for today's edition of the Locked on Titans podcast, the Tic Tac Tuesday. We are going to be back for Rewatch Wednesday tomorrow, going over my additional schematic analysis and my extra tidbits from rewatching the coaches tape multiple times throughout the last few days. Had a lot more opportunities to watch the tape than I would normally on a Rewatch Wednesday, so got a lot of good information ready for you guys tomorrow.

But that's going to do it for me today. Make sure that you're subscribed to the Locked on Titans podcast on whatever platform you do stream so that you don't miss that rewatch Wednesday or crossover Thursday or a football Friday game preview. But as always, I am your host, Tyler Rowland, and this was Locked on Titans. you