Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Titans Offseason Begins - Two Defensive Coaching Losses, Pro Bowl Additions & Futures Contracts

Episode Date: January 21, 2020

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Welcome to the Locked on Titans podcast. I am your host, Tyler Rowland, Titans fans. I am still dealing with the sting of defeat from Sunday against the Chiefs. Hearing about the Super Bowl conversation still hurts. It's hard for me to digest everything, but we did not have very long before we had another little bit of bombs dropped on us. Day one of the offseason brought big news. The Titans are now without two key defensive coaches.

So we are going to talk about that first, go over the ramifications there, and talk about how much these two coaches have impacted the Titans in the two years that they were here. So we'll do that first. And then we are going to talk about two Titans that are getting into the Pro Bowl. Obviously, with the Super Bowl teams not being able to participate in the Pro Bowl, they will need replacements, and two Titans were selected to fill those roles, so I'll go over that as well.

And then we dive deep here in the Locked on Titans podcast, and I'm going to do that throughout the offseason to keep you guys up to date on everything. So the Titans did sign some players to futures contracts today. That's for practice squad guys, possible guys that could make the team if they have a good training camp and everything like that. But primarily it's for your practice squad players. So we're going to go over that. Make sure you guys know those names.

And there are some names that you guys will recognize who had an impact during the season. So we will talk about that in today's episode. Ready to dive into everything with you guys. Let's get it. While most Tennessee Titans fans and players were still dealing with the loss to the Kansas City Chiefs and the abrupt end to the season, the Titans also had to start facing the reality of the NFL's offseason, and that reality has changed. And on Monday, the Titans found out that they would need to replace defensive coordinator Dean Pease and defensive backs coach Kerry Coombs. Dean Pease retired at the age of 70 after 14 seasons coaching in the NFL. He started in 2004 with the New England Patriots. He coached there until 2010, his last four seasons being the defensive coordinator there. And that's where he first established his relationship with head coach of the Titans, Mike Vrabel. Vrabel was a player there with the Patriots, of course,

and them working together on game plans, Vrabel as a player and Pease as a coach, definitely influenced Vrabel's trust in him to have him as his defensive coordinator. After his tenure with the New England Patriots, Pease went to the Baltimore Ravens, where he coached until 2017. His last six seasons there, he was the defensive coordinator for them, and then he retired after the 2017 season before he was persuaded to come back and be the defensive coordinator for Mike Vrabel and the Titans for the last two. One

thing that the Titans will definitely miss about having Pease as a coordinator he had tons of experience his experience against Greg Roman's offense and a rushing quarterback helped the Titans against the Baltimore Ravens as Pease was the defensive coordinator for the Ravens against the Colin Kaepernick-led 49ers in their rushing attack. That experience was definitely leaned on for the game plan against the Ravens, and a lot of similar concepts came up. And speaking of concepts, Pease was great about having multiple different coverages, having versatile defenses that could do multiple things. There are a lot of teams in the NFL that, you know, they'll mix up their coverages, but they do specific things. They play man, they play cover three over and over again, and they challenge other teams just to beat them

eventually. One thing about Pease is he liked to be multiple, and that's something that Mike Vrabel made an emphasis as well when he became the coach for Tennessee. The Titans ran multiple different coverages, cover two, cover three, cover four. They would rotate safeties around to confuse quarterbacks. They would play man. They would have robbers. They would have spies. They would have blitzes from cornerbacks and safeties and linebackers and drop defensive linemen back into coverage.

And they would do all kinds of different things to really keep their opponent on their toes. And that helped the Titans in so many different circumstances and so many different situations. So it's sad to see somebody like Dean Pease go, especially not knowing whether the Titans will begin a search to hire a defensive coordinator from outside the organization or whether or not they will promote from within. And multiple candidates they have, like outside linebacker coach Shane Bowen or inside linebacker coach Tyrone McKenzie. Those are definitely candidates that they may consider, but it just leaves the Titans with a gap to fill that was filled by a very experienced

and a very intelligent defensive coordinator that obviously worked very well with the head coach. So who they will replace Dean Pease with is yet to be seen, but you can only hope that he will have a fun and successful retirement. Finally, Titans defensive backs coach Kerry Coombs will return to Ohio State where he will become their defensive coordinator. If you recall, Coombs actually spent five seasons prior to joining the Titans with the Buckeyes as a special teams coordinator, as a secondary coach, and he's put out quite a bit of NFL talent from the college ranks. Prior to coaching at Ohio State, he coached at Cincinnati from 07 to 2011.

Word on the streets is that the current Cincinnati head football coach, Luke Fickle, will eventually take a more high-profile job, which will lead Coombs to possibly getting an opportunity to be the head coach at Cincinnati so it makes sense that he would take this opportunity to get back into college get back in the swing of recruiting where he's had major success I'm just curious to see whether or not the Titans actually go outside and look for a defensive coordinator replacement outside of the organization from some of the recent you know defensive coordinators that have been let go,

if they look to promote someone from elsewhere, or if the names I mentioned earlier, Bowen, McKenzie, someone like that. I mean, Dean Pease's son, Matt Pease, is on the staff as well. So you never know what they're going to do, but that's obviously going to be a big point of news whenever they decide who the replacement will be. And this Titans organization likes to be inclusive in the draft process. They like to, you know, as we've seen, Mike Vrabel and John Robinson will be hands-on with prospects at these different events for the draft.

And they like to get their position coaches involved, their coordinators involved with the scouts on the field doing workouts. So the Titans probably won't wait long to fill this position. And as soon as they do fill the position, I will be here to let you guys know and to break down what it means. I know that it is the offseason. And like I said at the beginning, it still stings that the Titans lost that game and are no longer fighting for a Super Bowl. But I'm going to be here with you guys throughout the rest of the week, throughout the entire offseason, Monday through Friday, breaking down all the offseason news and everything that comes next.

So if you aren't, please subscribe to the show on whatever platform you listen to podcasts and follow me on Twitter at Tic Tac Titans. Next, we are going to talk about two Tennessee Titans who will now be in the Pro Bowl next week as they were selected as alternates. We talk about physical fitness a lot, but there's another side of the game that's just as important. I'm talking about mental fitness. Calm is the number one app for sleep and meditation and has teamed up with LeBron James to help you train your mind. LeBron and Calm know that your mind is like any other muscle in your body and Calm can help you train your brain so that you sleep better, have less stress, and perform at your best. For LeBron James, sleep is an important part of his mental fitness routine. He says, getting good sleep and finding time to rest is one of the

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that means that the numerous players that they had that were selected to the Pro Bowl will now need alternates and the Titans were able to benefit from this by having the Pro Bowl will now need alternates, and the Titans were able to benefit from this by having their Pro Bowl participants double. Ryan Tannehill and Jarrell Casey will now be joining Derrick Henry and Brett Kern. Of course, Derrick Henry with his 1,500 rushing yards and Brett Kern, who was the best punter in the NFL hands down throughout the season, of course, they made the original selection. They were originally announced with the AFC roster, but now that Patrick Mahomes will be going to the Super Bowl

and interior defensive lineman Chris Jones will be joining him from the Kansas City Chiefs. The Titans' Ryan Tannehill and Jarrell Casey will replace them. Tannehill is incredibly deserving of a Pro Bowl appearance. He had a 117.5 passer rating throughout the regular season that led the NFL. 2,742 passing yards with 22 passing touchdowns. He added four rushing touchdowns and only had six interceptions and three lost fumbles. This is actually his first Pro Bowl and hopefully the Titans are able to re-sign Tannehill, and he's able to make a few more. Jarrell Casey will be going to his fifth straight Pro Bowl, and while he had a down year by his standards, he still is a captain that is deserving of representing this Titans team.

I think at some point in time, the alternates are selected kind of subjectively, and the Titans made a nice push into the playoffs, and Casey had a huge impact in the playoffs with his two sacks against Baltimore, and consistently lining up as a defensive end and a rush end in a lot of the Titans passing situations on defense. While his regular season was a little bit underwhelming, still very productive, and that points to the kind of player that Jarrell Casey is and the kind of leader that he is. He ended up with 61 tackles, 30 pressures, five sacks, and he actually recorded his 50th sack of his career during the season. There's only

seven players in Titans history with 50 sacks, including Casey, so definitely deserving of his spot in the Pro Bowl, even as an alternate. The Pro Bowl will be held at 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Sunday in Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Florida. I know that the Pro Bowl is widely joked about for the players not taking it very serious and there not being very much physicality whatsoever. But crazily enough, it's still the most watched all-star game of any of the American pro sports. So if you tune into the Pro Bowl, you'll have a couple extra Titans to pay attention to

and a couple extra Titans to root for. We are going to round out the show by updating you guys on some roster transactions. The offseason doesn't sleep and neither do I here at the Locked on Titans podcast. So the Titans did sign a bunch of players to futures contracts, which I mentioned earlier is basically practice squad guys that they are just wanting to keep under their roof for the time being. So I'll go over all of those with you guys. And, of course, there are some names that you're going to recognize,

and I'll make sure to point out those people who had an impact on this season. And it shows that the Titans are able to take people off their practice squad and turn them into useful players during the season. So you'll want to make sure to hear those names next. Welcome to the future let's take a look at some titans futures contracts so let me explain what the titans are doing here is they are signing their practice squad players to contracts to keep them in their building so that they will have them ready for training camp and mini camp and those guys can work out in their facility throughout the offseason. So let's get to the players who the Titans brought back with one of those futures contracts. Quarterback Logan Woodside.

He's been with the team for quite some time now. Really good as a show team quarterback. Helps with the practice squad. Obviously getting ready week to week and acting as the opponent. Really important to have him in the building and have comfortability there. They know they can rely on him to give them a good look with the scout team. Defensive end, Amani Bledsoe, he played a little bit with the team this year. Running back, Daylon Dawkins, also got brought up and played a little bit with the team this year.

Linebacker, Nigel Harris, definitely had some contributions on special teams. Tight end, Parker Hesse, center Daniel Murner, defensive back Kareem, or he got to play with the ball club this year and had a couple of, you know, crucial snaps at cornerback when the Titans dealt with all those injuries. Offensive lineman David Questenberry, who obviously is a cancer survivor, who caught that touchdown pass earlier this season. Wide receiver Travion Thompson, and then running back Sean Wilson. So the Titans secured all of those people to make sure that they were in their building

throughout the offseason, and we will monitor every transaction throughout the offseason. We will also talk draft class. We will talk free agency previews. We will do player profiles from the previous season. Tomorrow, we are going to break down statistically the offense and defense and do a little bit of a season review of both sides of the ball and special teams. So a lot more coming up during the offseason on the Locked on Titans podcast. Please subscribe if you aren't already. Follow me on Twitter at TicTacTitans as I've said before. If you guys have a question, I think I'm going to start doing a little bit of a mailbag. So feel free to hit me up on Twitter, leave a review, ask a question.

I got a few in there. I want to get a few more and then I'm going to go after it here probably the next week. Get us on a nice schedule with those. So the point is I'm going to have a lot more content for you guys throughout the offseason, Monday through Friday, going to continue to bring it. So as always, I am your host, Tyler Rowland, and this was Locked on Titans.