Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Titans Add to COVID-19 List, Tannehill Breaks Down His Best Throws & How Does No College Season Affect Titans?

Episode Date: August 11, 2020

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Welcome to the Locked on Titans podcast. I am your host, Tyler Rowland. Titans fans, we are less than a month away from the NFL kickoff. And while the Titans are a little bit more than a month away from their specific kickoff, you can still smell the football in the air, at least for the NFL. We will talk a little bit about that later on in today's show, but we will start Monday. The Titans put another player on the reserve COVID-19 list.

I will tell you who that player is, give you a little information about them, and then talk about the process of getting off that list and coming back to joining the team for normal football activity. So we will discuss that first. And then the NFL Game Pass Film Session Series has been fantastic and I encourage all of you to watch all of the different episodes that the NFL Game Pass team has been putting up throughout this year. But finally, we saw Ryan Tannehill join the program, speak with Kurt Warner and Brian

Baldinger about some of his biggest throws of the year. And within that segment, Ryan Tannehill dropped a very interesting nugget that lets us inside of the relationship that is budding between him and offensive coordinator Arthur Smith. It's something that both of them have talked about individually this offseason and how it manifests itself out on the field is something we saw Ryan Tannehill break down. So I'm going to talk about that and how that progression in the relationship between Tannehill and Smith can help avoid some of the regression that seems to be the center of conversation

around Ryan Tannehill and his play going into 2020. So excited to break down that. And then at the end of our show, we will go over, like I mentioned before, the prospect of no college football season, how that will affect the Titans, and some other news-related items around the Titans that have popped up in the last two days. So excited to break everything down with you guys, as we are less than a month away from NFL football.

Let's get it. It was obvious that the NFL needed to make changes to how roster transactions work heading into 2020 due to all of the concerns around COVID-19. And one of the major changes that we saw the NFL make was creating the reserve COVID-19 list for NFL teams to place players who not only test positive for COVID-19 themselves, but players who have been in close proximity to someone who has tested positive, even if it's not them themselves. And on Monday, we saw the Titans for the third time utilize this list when they added outside

linebacker Josh Smith to the reserve COVID-19 list per the NFL's transaction wire. Now, as I just mentioned, that does not mean that Josh Smith himself has tested positive for COVID-19, but he could have just come in contact with someone who has. And the reason the NFL made the list have those two designations is so that they're not openly admitting the health status of NFL players. There are obvious legal ramifications and concerns that go along with revealing players' medical history in that way. It's something we saw Detroit Lions quarterback Matt Stafford and his wife Kelly talk about publicly. The issues and the negativity and the backlash that they received from it being

leaked that Matt Stafford was being placed on that list even though it was because of a false positive test so that's why the NFL has made this designation be one of the two options so they aren't openly letting the public know which players have actually tested positive but as mentioned this is the third time the Titans have utilized this list. In what was one of the biggest storylines heading into the beginning of training camp, Titans first round offensive tackle Isaiah Wilson was the first member of the Titans placed on the COVID-19 reserve list. He has since rejoined the team after either testing negative multiple times if

it was him himself who tested positive or he has passed through quarantine and then passed some negative tests for COVID-19 tested negative for COVID-19 and it has allowed him to rejoin the Titans but within the last four days we saw two additional Titans added to that list. Of course, we had defensive lineman Jack Crawford, who was added to the COVID reserve list on Friday. And then on Monday, outside linebacker Josh Smith also joined that list as well. Again, we don't know if Smith has tested positive himself or just come in contact with someone who does. As for someone like Josh Smith, he has been on the roster bubble for the Titans not only in this training camp but for quite some time. Smith was signed on to the Titans practice squad with three games remaining in the 2019 season and then

stayed on the practice squad for the Titans throughout the entire postseason as well. He was re-signed in January of 2020 and expected to come in and compete for a roster spot. Obviously, guys like Josh Smith, who not only being a roster bubble guy throughout 2019, but coming off being an undrafted free agent out of Vanderbilt, those type of players are at a major disadvantage this all season due to the limited amount of preseason due to the limited amount of preseason games and the limited amount of actual practices, padded practices in training camp. Now Smith will be behind even more in terms of trying to make the Titans roster as he's

going to miss a large chunk of on-field conditioning work as the Titans get ready to put on pads on August the 17th. So now at this time for Crawford or Smith to rejoin the team, they would need to submit multiple negative COVID-19 tests and pass through a momentary period of quarantine. And then they would be allowed to get back onto the field. And certainly the Titans need both those players to get back on the field as one. Josh Smith is a relatively inexperienced NFL player, and then Jack Crawford, of course, was signed as a free agent

and doesn't have any prior experience in the Titans system. It'll be important for them to stay healthy and follow the protocols as best as possible so they can continue their NFL training camp with the Titans. And we will continue today's show by checking out the Game Pass film session featuring Titans quarterback Ryan Tannehill. So NFL Game Pass is the program that the NFL has created where you can go back and watch games during the NFL season. It's where you get the All-22, the coach's tape that I use for my Tic Tac Titans film breakdowns. Very useful resource. But during the all season, they've been doing a series

where they actually have NFL players come in and break down the tape with them. It's absolutely excellent. It's usually hosted by Brian Baldinger, Baldy's Breakdowns, as you've seen them on Twitter, I'm sure. And then former NFL quarterback, Kurt Warner, seen some excellent breakdowns. The one with Cameron Jordan as a defensive lineman from the New Orleans Saints. It's absolutely excellent.

Most of them are, but Ryan Tannehill is finally featured on the NFL Game Pass film session. So I encourage you all to go check that out. It was retweeted or just tweeted by the Tennessee Titans official account. It's also on the NFL's YouTube page. I would encourage all of you guys to check that out. But we are going to break that down. Ryan Tannehill talked about three of his biggest throws and what schematically went into making those throws.

And as I teased at the beginning of the show, he gave us an excellent quote that gives us a window into the relationship between him and offensive coordinator Arthur Smith. So excited to break that down with you guys. But I wanted to give you an update before we get to that on the Locked on Titans Fantasy Football League. So we have two new entrances to confirm.

That is KSaj on Twitter and then Keenan Jones as well. So that makes six spots filled for the Locked on Titans Fantasy Football League. Of course, I am the seventh spot, so that'll leave us five more spots. I am at a relative impasse right now. The international

listeners are having trouble taking advantage of the rockauto.com offer, so I'm currently working on something to make it possible for our international listeners to get involved as well. So right now, I'm stopping at the six people that I've confirmed in the last two episodes and looking for an alternative,

alternative, alternative. I need to find an alternative way to say that. An alternative way for our international listeners to get involved because I want to keep this league as diverse as possible in terms of where everyone is coming from. I think it'll make it very, very interesting when the season kicks off. So a momentary pause in the entrance phase, but I am working on something with the network right now for our international listeners. Wanted to give you guys an update on that.

But let's dive into the Ryan Tannehill film session with NFL Game Pass. As all of you know, I obviously put a very big premium on film, on breaking down film, on talking X's and O's, studying actual football, while of course we're going to spend time on this podcast as any other sports content programming on the storylines, on the drama that surround professional sports. That's part of the equation. I personally am always interested in the science of the game. Coach's son can't help it. I love watching the game pass film sessions that are put on by the NFL Network.

Brian Baldinger, for one, Baldy's Breakdowns are one of my favorite things to watch all the time and they have this series going with the film session series where they actually bring NFL players in sit down and have them break down some of the biggest plays of their season or some of the more technical aspects of their game and it was finally Ryan Tannehill's turn so I wanted to go through the film session with you guys

if you have not been able to check that out make sure you do on the NFL's YouTube page or on the Tennessee Titans Twitter page. It's an excellent watch. I've watched it like four times already. I really enjoy this stuff. As I said on Twitter, it is football porn, ladies and gentlemen. That's exactly what it is. So let's dive into these three plays and what Ryan Tannehill talked about and take a look at some of the deeper, more important themes here that are very promising for the Titans offense going forward. So the very first play out of the three that they took a look at with Ryan Tannehill was the touchdown to Anthony Ferkser at the beginning of the Patriots wildcard game and disclaimer here all three throws are playoff touchdowns so first off that needs to be put out there these are the biggest throws of

the season for Ryan Tannehill and another thing I want to point out is these are the three biggest throws of the year all during the playoffs all for touchdowns all-time plays by Tannehill, but he was carried by Derrick Henry. Tannehill was carried by the Titans team. Yeah, shut up. It doesn't even make any sense. And if anybody tells you that Ryan Tannehill was carried by anybody, one, they don't know football, first, because football is the ultimate team game. Nobody can carry anybody.

And two, they clearly didn't watch the Titans because that wasn't the case the entire year. But before I get too hyped up about those comments that you see all the time online, let's dive into these plays. So the Ferks are touchdown in the red zone against the Patriots. First off, this shows Ryan Tannehill's ability to kind of improvise on what's expected of him. So first off, the Patriots, as they did throughout the whole entire year, brought a cover zero blitz, and we've talked about that. That's where basically the Patriots are bringing the house.

They're going to leave five people to cover the five eligible receivers. That would be the running back and whatever combination of tight ends and wide receivers is on the field. You'll have your five offensive linemen and the quarterback those six so you know you can blitz six people on defense you have five eligible receivers and if the running back stays in usually on defense the guy who's responsible to guard the running back if they see that the running back is staying inside the block that's their trigger to go ahead you might as well blitz too because you don't have to cover that guy. So that's what the Titans are looking at here.

They got four people outside of the formation. They have Deion Lewis at running back in the shotgun. The Patriots are going to blitz seven here because Deion Lewis stays in to block. So what Ryan Tannehill has to do is he knows there's only going to be six blockers and they're going to be seven blitzers. So somebody is coming in free. What Ryan Tannehill has to do before the snap is he has to identify which one of those Patriots defenders is going to be the unblocked guy. So on this play, the design is for Ryan Tannehill to take the snap out of shotgun and have a three-step drop. Once with the back foot, once with the front foot, set that, plant that back foot.

That's your three, and then fire. That is the design of the play. But Tannehill talks during this film session how he knows that he's not going to be able to have someone open early enough to get rid of it on that third step because the Patriots are playing tight man coverage. He's going to have to wait a little bit and allow these routes to develop against man coverage before someone's going to be open and he can get rid of the ball. So he talks about how he knows that, and he adds depth to his drop.

He can't do the traditional three-step drop here. He won't have time. The guys won't be open in time for him to get rid of the ball there. So he adds a few steps to his drop, just improvising to buy himself time for Anthony Ferkser to fake out the defender over the middle where he gives an excellent move with his left foot faking outside and then breaks back inside on the post and catches the touchdown pass. So Ryan Tannehill does a great job of identifying which Patriot defender will be the free rusher.

And he knows it's going to be, it's a safety, but they're playing at linebacker depth right in front of the offensive tackle. And Tannehill talks about how he knows that blitzer is going to come up the middle. So it's going to take that blitzer some time to get from the outside over the offensive tackle into the inside gap where you have the center. Think that's going to take time than if the defender was just going straight and trying to blitz through the B gap, which is right by the offensive tackle. This is an A gap blitz, so he's got to make his way, the blitzer,

inside in between the guard and the center. And the amount of time it takes him to get there, that's why Tannehill adds depth to his drop back, which gives him time to complete the pass to Anthony Ferkser, who Tannehill says during this has a great feel for space comparable to a basketball player with a crossover move just finding a way to get space create space from the guy guarding you so excellent improvisation from Ryan Tannehill there and that's part of his game that allowed him

to do so well think about the 91 yard A.J. Brown during the Raiders game where Tannehill basically threw the ball as far as he could off his back foot. That wasn't the design of the play. He was supposed to get rid of the ball sooner, but sometimes you have to improvise out there and give yourself some more time. Going to the next play, and it's the Jonu Smith touchdown against the Ravens where we learned one cheek equals two feet. But this one was awesome because Tannehill talked about how he reads the defense pre-snap.

So he mentioned there was only one safety and that was Earl Thomas. And he was on the backside of where Jonu Smith caught the ball on the left-hand side. Earl Thomas was on the right-hand side deep in a two-safety formation, if they have two deep safeties, but he was on the right-hand side away from the trips formation that the Titans had on the left-hand side with Corey Davis, A.J. Brown, and then Jonu Smith. So Tannehill talks about looking at the defense pre-snap.

He knows because Earl Thomas is on the right-hand side, Corey Davis is set to do a crossing route where he's supposed to get either behind Earl Thomas if he's playing up or in front of Earl Thomas if he's playing deep. But Tannehill can look at the formation and know Corey Davis is going to have a hard time against man coverage with Earl Thomas playing safety on the right side. He's going to have a hard time against man coverage with Earl Thomas playing safety on the right side. He's going to have a hard time getting it to Corey Davis right there. But Corey Davis is going to be able to occupy Earl Thomas. So he says that he figures that A.J.

Brown on the post, one-on-one on the post with the cornerback, is going to be where he's going to go with the ball. But the cornerback for the Ravens, the Ravens have an excellent secondary. He sits in the middle. He does, A.J. Brown tries to sell like he's going outside and then cut back inside for the post like Anthony Ferkser did on the play before. The exact route that Ferkser was running is what A.J. Brown was meant to run. But the Ravens cornerback did a great job, didn't bite for the outside sale,

stayed inside and took away the post. That left Jonu Smith on the wheel route out to the outside of the sideline to the corner of the end zone. And Tannehill talked about nobody was open. Jonu Smith was covered. The man coverage was good. Earl Thomas, as a safety, took away the crosser to Corey Davis, who had an option route to go up or go across.

No one was open. And Tannehill said, at this time, I'm throwing it up. I'm giving my guy, Jonu Smith, a chance to get it. And if he doesn't get it, it's going to be incomplete, out of bounds, and we're at least kicking a field goal. That is awareness. Everybody wants to label guys as a game manager like it's a negative thing. But that's game managing 101 by Ryan Tannehill.

Knowing the circumstance, knowing the situation, knowing you might as well give your guy a shot in the end zone. And if not, you got a field goal waiting for you and you can get some points on the board. So excellent heady advantage right there. That demonstrates Ryan Tannehill's ability to read defenses pre-snap and then adjust post-snap to what the situation calls for. Situational football to the max from Ryan Tannehill.

I don't know if you can tell, but this stuff gets me so hype. It gets me lit. I love it. So let's go to the final play here of the film session, and it is the Kalief Raymond touchdown against Baltimore that basically broke the Ravens back. The Titans stop Lamar Jackson on a fourth and short, get the ball back in their own territory with great field position about 45-47 yards away

from the end zone. The Titans want to take a shot play here and this is where we get to the comment about the relationship between Arthur Smith and Ryan Tannehill. Both of them in Zoom conferences this offseason have talked about how they've been able to really strengthen their bond, strengthen their relationship, and dive deep into the details of the offensive playbook. And we see a preliminary sign of that relationship with the way Tannehill talks about this play. So the Titans had been working throughout the game. They wanted to get to a shot play where they took a shot deep down the field off a play action.

That was the Titans offense. Get these teams sniffing out the Derrick Henry runs, throw play action at them, catch them sleeping, catch them stepping forward, hit them deeper, hit them over the middle with an A.J. Brown dig route or crosser. That's what the Titans were doing. So they were looking to get to a play like that. And anytime you get a quick change in possession and you get good field position, that is an absolute sign that you should take a shot downfield. action play to take a shot downfield. Tannehill went to Arthur Smith because of this relationship,

guys, the relationship between them allowed Tannehill to go to his coach, his superior, and say, hey, he said, I don't like the play that you called from the hash mark that we were on. I think we should run a different play. The play that you're calling doesn't work as well when we run it on this hash mark. Arthur Smith listened to his player, changed the play, found a different play action shot that they could take downfield. And now we get to the actual play. Ryan Tannehill talks about how he saw same thing as I talked about with the Ravens and the Patriots before. They had a two safety set, two deep safeties in the back end. Well, Tannehill saw Earl Thomas creeping up towards the line of scrimmage at the beginning of the play, so he knew he was going to get a single high safety look with just one safety deep. The Titans ran the play action fake to Derrick Henry. Earl Thomas and the linebackers

bid up as they were expecting and then Kalief Raymond really does run a fantastic route basically he runs vertically up the field fakes to the outside and since it's a cover three where the two outside corners have the deep third on the outside and then the safety in the middle has the the middle of the field the hashes in the middle to cover that zone deep what happens is Kalief Raymond fakes to the outside, and that pushes the outside corner back closer to the out-of-bounds line, and then Kalief Raymond bends his route back inside to go vertically up the field. That gives him space from the outside corner, but then Ryan Tannehill says,

he stays thin. Kalief Raymond keeps his route thin. He's going to bend outside and then cut back over the middle for a corner post but what Raymond does is instead of bending too far inside which would allow the deep inside safety to get closer to him and maybe break up the play, he stays thin, stays closer to the outside without going all the way into the middle like a post would call for, and that keeps enough space between him and the safety for the Titans to complete a 40-plus yard dagger against the Ravens. So right there, going through those three plays,

we see Ryan Tannehill's ability to read a defense pre-snap, adjust post-snap, and improvise to the rush that is coming. On the second play, we see not only his ability to improvise on the fly based on what the defense gives him, but also keep his head about him and play situational football to take advantage of what the defense has given him and keep the team in the best position possible. And then on the third play, we saw that budding relationship and his confidence to tell Arthur Smith he would like something different and then actually go out and execute that based on what he's seeing

from the defense. This type of stuff, like I said, it is football porn. I encourage all of you guys to go check it out, but could not be more excited to watch this relationship grow with Ryan Tannehill with Arthur Smith and I think that is the number one reason why the regression talks around Ryan Tannehill are overblown and Titans fans should still expect some amazing results from Tannehill in 2020. had to get the towel had to get a drink had to calm down after that one got me a little bit too excited maybe but it is the stuff that i love the actual science of the game. But speaking of the game and the game of football in general,

it's in a tough spot right now. The NFL, of course, as we know, is ironed out. All of the things that need to be so that they can go on with their season, but not so much for college football. There's been a lot of talk in the last two days about the fate of college football going forward. And I just want to quickly talk about how that could impact the Titans. And if there is no college football season or not the college football season that we're used to in 2020,

that is going to put a premium on the top scouting staffs and scouting departments in the NFL. And I think the Titans over the past few years after some of the misses that they experienced early on in the John Robinson era, I think it's clear that the Titans scouting staff is one of the best in the NFL. They've hit back-to-back years on big-time second-round picks, gotten steals at that position. You look at some of the steals that the Titans have had previously, like a John U. Smith, a Jayon Brown, a Kevin Byard late in the draft in the mid-rounds there. So I think that no college football season, while it would be disappointing for me as a football fan, and I'm sure you all as well,

especially being in the heart of SEC country and how important football is to the South in America, I think that it wouldn't hurt the Titans as bad as some other teams because the Titans have a fantastic scouting staff that they can rely on, but it would make things much more interesting. And how does this affect the combine? How does this affect the draft date if college football conferences want to push the season into the spring? Some want to play. We're hearing if some conferences don't play,

some of their top teams will look to play in other conferences. It's very interesting, and it will affect the NFL, but I just wanted to say to you guys as these rumors swirl that I do believe that the Titans scouting staff is so strong that the Titans would once again, like we see with the COVID-19 restrictions, it would be an advantage for the Titans because they're so strong in that scouting department. And teams that are weak in the scouting department will fall even further behind

when these sort of obstacles pop up like we're seeing with COVID-19. I think the Titans' continuity and the type of organization they have, it'll actually benefit them when tough situations arise because of how strong and sturdy they are as an organization teams who are not will fall further behind teams who are will get even more of an advantage and I believe the Titans are one of those teams who will get more of an advantage wanted to send you guys off into your Tuesday with this last news story here and it's about former titan logan ryan so logan ryan's agent basically sent out a statistical graph showing how logan ryan compares to safeties in the nfl because logan

ryan in an attempt to extend his career is trying to tell teams that he'll transition to safety now that's not a shock if you're honest honest with yourself, although Logan Ryan was productive statistically last year, he was one of absolutely the worst cornerbacks in the NFL in man coverage and pass coverage. It's something Jason Spray talked about on my show, that Logan Ryan had pliability issues, flexibility issues in his hips, and that's something that they were trying to work on. And those sort of issues that he had showed in his pass and that's something that they were trying to work on and those sort of issues that he had showed in his past coverage play last season and that's why the Titans ultimately moved on from Logan Ryan even though there wasn't an immediate suitor for his services because

you just can't play Logan Ryan at cornerback anymore and the Titans already have great safeties in Vaccaro and Bayard and an emerging young safety in Imani Hooker. So that's why the Titans didn't look at Logan Ryan and officially announced earlier in the offseason that he wouldn't be coming back because quite simply they don't have a spot for him at safety and he doesn't have much use to them as a corner anymore and it's shown throughout the NFL based on the people interested in him that other teams don't view him as a cornerback anymore either and I I just want to say, it's sad. Logan Ryan is one of the most stand-up guys in the NFL. A leader changed the Titans locker room culture.

And as I mentioned before, I think that Logan Ryan should be getting the amount of love that Marcus gets on social media. I think Logan Ryan was more important to the Titans transformation as a franchise than Marcus was over the last few years so it's sad for me to see someone who I loved so much as a Titan to basically beg for a job like this I'll change positions whatever it takes the reality is Logan Ryan was telling teams he wanted 10 million dollars or he won't play and he's just not going to get that 10 million dollars from anybody and if you have to change your position to beg for a job you have to realize you're not going to get the money that you want so will logan ryan you know drop his asking price change his position and take a job somewhere just so he can play or will an intelligent guy a leader like that just

sit out the season because he's not getting paid what he thinks he's worth I don't know for certain but it's just sad to see Logan Ryan out there begging for a job like that and it would be nice if some way the Titans could find a way to bring him back but unfortunately I just I just don't see the need or the fit right now on the Titans roster but best of luck to Logan Ryan And I certainly hope he gets the money he deserves. He wants, and he's able to play in the 2020 NFL season, but that is going to do it for today's show. As always, I am your host, Tyler Rowland, and this was Locked on Titans. you