Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Titans Re-Watch Wednesday: Examining Data Points, Additional Insights/Observations & Roster Moves

Episode Date: September 23, 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 re-watch Wednesday edition of the Locked On Titans podcast is brought to you by NFL Game Pass. See all the action from every game with full game replays. You can also replay an entire game and catch all of the plays in just 45 minutes with condensed games.

Go to NFL.com slash Game Pass to start your free trial today. NFL Game Pass, where football never stops. And I want to thank NFL Game Pass as I got to re-watch this Titans game, re-watch the broadcast view, re-watch the All-22 tape multiple times for today's re-watch Wednesday. And we are going to start out today's show taking a look at some of the most important data points coming out of Sunday's game. We're going to look at snap counts, We're going to look at pro football focus grades and tell you what stood out to me the most

from those two different sources of data from the game. And then we will jump into my rewatch breakdown for Rewatch Wednesday. I'm going to give you guys all of my additional news and notes and analysis from those rewatches on NFL Game Pass. And we will close out today's show taking a look at some of the roster moves the Titans have made so far this week. We are going to close the door on the Jacksonville Jaguars win and go over everything I saw from the data points coming out of the game,

the rewatches of the game, and then take a look at the transactions the Titans made in correspondence to that victory. So a big day on the Locked On Titans podcast. On tomorrow's show, we will have Luke from the Locked On Vikings on the show for our crossover Thursday conversation. Make sure you don't miss that. And Friday, of course, will be our game preview on Football Friday, giving you my keys to the game, players to watch, covering fantasy,

gambling, and much, much more. So subscribe to the Locked on Titans podcast today and follow me on Twitter at TicTacTitans for additional content. We got a big show to get into today as we put a bow on the Jacksonville Jaguars' victory. Let's get it! Taking a look at some of the key data points coming out of the Titans' victory over the Jags, we will start with snap counts on both offense and defense. And on the offensive side of the ball, what stands out most is the Titans' reliance on their key skill position players. Tight end Jonu Smith, who has been arguably the Titans' best offensive player this season,

played in 87% of the Titans' offensive snaps. Likewise, Corey Davis, who, remember, is still recovering from a slight hamstring injury during the offseason and during the preseason time, played 81% of snaps. And at this time, due to the injury to A.J. Brown, the Titans rely on those players quite a bit and can't really afford to play them any less. Continuing to look at some of the eye-popping numbers coming out of the snap counts, especially on the offensive side of the ball, we will continue to look at the skill positions and

at the wide receiver position, Cam Batson in his first game on the active roster of the season played in over 55% of the Titans snaps and that is particularly interesting because Batson is getting his first action with the Titans and for them to rely on him in such a heavy role playing 55% of the offensive snaps it says a lot about what the Titans see in their current wide receiver group and also says a lot about what they think about Kalief Raymond and his impact and his role on this offense. Clearly, Batson is the more talented wide receiver, pure wide receiver. While Raymond has better straight line speed and is a much better kick returner, clearly Batson is the better overall wide receiver out on the field.

It'll be interesting to see how the Titans use those two undersized speedsters throughout the season. Finally, on offense, interesting is the use of the other running backs behind Derrick Henry. We saw Jeremy McNichols and center-rise Perry combined for 11 snaps with McNichols getting nine of those and Perry getting two. We got some interesting news on Perry, some unfortunate news on Perry. Earlier in the day, he will be going on IR, so it'll be curious to see how the Titans respond to that going forward as they clearly want to get at least 10 snaps a game of rest for Derrick Henry where they can still run the ball.

On the defensive side of the ball, Jayon Brown, Kevin Byard, and Kenny Vaccaro played 100% of the snaps. They are the Titans' most versatile players and their most important players on defense in the back end. Harold Landry was talked about as a guy who needed to get less snaps this season so that he would be able to be effective throughout the entire stretch of the year. But Landry got 96% of the snaps on defense on Sunday. On the defensive line as well, Jadavion Clowney, who cannot possibly be in football shape after missing the entire offseason, continues to get a heavy workload.

83% of the snaps for Clowney, 80% of the snaps for Jeffrey Simmons. The most interesting snap count note after that on defense is at the cornerback position where Christian Fulton and Chris Jackson, the two rookies for the Titans, both played over 50% of snaps. The other note that I want to give you on defense is that outside linebacker Kamalei Correa only played 12 snaps, that's 16%. And when you consider that the Titans only dressed three outside linebackers in the first two weeks of the season it says a lot about the Titans view on Correa and the fact that they don't really view him as much of a pass rusher more of a special teams contributor and that's

why maybe he's not getting on the field and why Clowney and Landry are playing such heavy snaps as for the player grades coming out of Sunday's game, the top five graded players on the Titans offense per pro football focus, Jonu Smith is the top with an 87.2 grade, Adam Humphreys at 85.8, Tannehill at 80.9, Corey Davis at 70.6, and then Ben Jones at 70.6. On defense, the Titans top defender was Imani Hooker who came in with an 80.0 grade despite playing limited snaps as the dime safety. Jonathan Joseph, the cornerback who was injured during the game for a moment, came in with a 74 grade. Harold Landry had a 71.6. Rookie cornerback Christian Fulton with a 71.2. Jadavion Crowney with a 65.9, and the Titans' worst grade of the day was rookie

cornerback Chris Jackson, who had a 27.2. He is the lowest graded cornerback in the NFL at this time. Hello, Adoree, can you hear me? I miss Adoree Jackson so much, and if the Titans are going to rely on man coverage the way that they tried to on Sunday, then they're going to need Adoree Jackson back out there as soon as possible. But speaking of the Titans playing so much man on Sunday, it's time to get into our re-watch Wednesday segment where I give you all of my additional news, notes, and analysis after my multiple re-watches of the game on Sunday. So we are going to dive into that next.

But the reason I was able to do all of those watches is because I'm able to get football on my time with NFL Game Pass. You can catch every snap from every game with full game replays, see all of the plays in just 45 minutes with condensed games, which I recommend is a great way to get started on scouting the Titans' future opponents, including the Minnesota Vikings, coming up this weekend. You can relive all the gutsy calls, crazy catches, wild comebacks, and breakout stars from every game every week. It's all the action, all the football you can handle, all in one place, all the time.

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Let's dive into my additional notes, additional insights, additional analysis from my multiple rewatches of the game from Sunday. And we will start on the offensive side of the ball where I had much less takeaways that popped out to me than on the defensive side of the ball. So we will start with offense. And the number one thing that popped out to me, and it was very early on, and we saw it on the Corey Davis touchdown catch that I have broken down at length, really. The Tic Tac 4-pack is out right now.

Make sure you check out my Twitter account, at Tic Tac Titans. You can see exactly what I'm talking about, but it surprised me because as we have discussed on this show at length, the Titans schematically on offense run a wide zone running scheme, and the zone scheme of blocking is where you wouldn't see it typically down blocks and pulls from offensive linemen. Fullbacks on iso going straight up the middle through the hole. The Titans run a zone. All the offensive linemen will take a step one way or the other wherever the run is going. And they're blocking an area of the field rather than having a designated man.

Now, more times than not, you already know which man is in your zone, so you know who you're going to block, you know who the guard and the center are going to combo block to move out of the way before one of them gets up to the second level to a linebacker. But this was a little bit of a change from that schematically, and I don't know if it's something we should expect from the Titans going forward or

just something that Arthur Smith has kind of sprinkled in to give a diverse look to defenses and confuse linebackers but on that Corey Davis touchdown the Titans use a play action fake to Derrick Henry but what's most interesting is they don't use a zone run play action fake. They actually pull Roger Saffold from his left guard position over to the right side. That's something you see power teams do all the time. It's very common. You see the New England Patriots do that a lot. There's a lot of teams that do that quite a bit that run power schemes where they pull offensive linemen a lot more,

where they down block a lot more. Things that the Titans don't necessarily do on a regular basis. So I was really surprised to see Art Smith add in pulling action into a play action fake to help sell that run to the defense. And it got the linebacker to bite up. It left just enough of a hole at the back of the end zone for Corey Davis to catch that ball with a pinpoint pass from Ryan Tannehill. So very interesting. Will Art Smith actually run some power runs with pulling guards? Or was that just a wrinkle that they threw in with their play action fake to try to confuse

the defense? I'll be monitoring that situation throughout the season. On offense again, as you guys probably aren't surprised to hear and notice during the game anytime anytime the Titans went with two tight ends or more than that three tight ends anytime they had two or more tight ends on the field the Jags are putting nine in the box I mean they're going to have eight in the box guaranteed eight in the box guaranteed no question about it and then they'll usually have a cornerback who is tight to the formation. The other safety creeping up a little bit.

Basically, anytime the Titans went into heavy personnel at all, the Jags were bringing nine people into the box. So very difficult to run under those circumstances. And the more I watched the game, the more I was impressed with Derrick Henry and his runs in the second half, making something out of, you know, what really wasn't a lot there. And then also, I was impressed with the fact that the Titans had any success on the run. 25 carries for 84 yards for Derrick Henry doesn't sound like a great day.

When you consider the boxes they were running into, I mean, you look at the Pittsburgh Steelers in week one against the Giants. Saquon Barkley had negative rushing yards in that game for the majority of the game. There are much worse outcomes than Derrick Henry getting 84 yards on the ground. The Titans continued to run the ball, and that balance allowed them to stay effective with their play action late into the game. And then eventually, late in the game, Derrick Henry started ripping off some 8-10 yard runs. And on the very last drive that got the Titans into field goal game, Derrick Henry started ripping off some 8-10 yard runs. And on the very last drive that got the Titans in the field goal position,

Derrick Henry got stuffed in the backfield because the Jags loaded the box up. But he physically made a play and got around some defenders and got up and got a 10-yard gain on a first down. The Titans didn't gain a lot of yards on that final drive. So they needed every single play that Derrick Henry made for them there. So when it mattered most, Derrick Henry was able to make some plays. So I feel much, much better about the rushing offense going forward, considering how many defenders were in the box and what the Titans were able to accomplish in the run game.

My final note here on the Titans offense from the game has to do with that run game, and this is part of why I'm not as worried, I guess, as maybe some others are, but the people who let the Titans down in the run game most often on Sunday were the skill position players. Johnnie Smith had a great game, but he was terrible blocking, and Corey Davis was terrible at blocking in this game. Terrible is maybe too strong of a word but it was not their best day by far and let me give you an example of what's going on here. So the Titans will have obviously Jonu Smith's a tight end so he'll be right next to the tackle but the Titans like to bring Corey Davis tight into the line of scrimmage

lined up right next to Jonu Smith or sometimes right next to the offensive tackle and what they'll ask Johnnie Smith or Corey Davis or even Adam Humphreys at times to do is block down onto the defensive lineman or the linebacker that's right in front of the offensive tackle or the tight end and quite frankly they just got their butt whooped all day uh Goddess the defensive lineman for the Jags. Goddess, the defensive lineman for the Jags. Taven Bryan, the defensive lineman for the Jags. Both of them at times had one-on-ones against Corey Davis and John U. Smith and Adam Humphreys, which shouldn't really happen anyway. A few linebackers, number 46 for the Jags, had a few good darts in against John U. Smith.

But John U. Smith, Corey Davis, Adam Humphreys down blocking when they were close to the formation just had a really bad day. And on some of those pitches that Derrick Henry had, some of those outside runs that Derrick Henry had in big situations where you thought that, you know, why is he getting hit in the backfield and not even being able to get to the line of scrimmage? A lot of that is because Johnnie Smith, Corey Davis, and Adam Humphreys were missing blocks on linebackers and defensive linemen when they were asked to do that. So should they be asked to do that? That's a question for Arthur Smith, but the reality is they didn't execute very well in those situations on Sunday. Let's move to the defense where I have a lot more news and notes, but they're a little bit less in-depth news and

notes, kind of just some observations that I have here. The Titans defense is really committing to that front multiplicity that Mike Vrabel talked about in his opening press conference when he got the job. They just fluidly switched back and forth between a 3-4 and a 4-3 alignment, and the reason they're able to do that is because Harold Landry and Jadavion Clowney are stellar athletes. So basically, at any moment in time, if the Jags motioned or changed their formation pre-snap, the Titans would react to that and drop Harold Landry back off the line of scrimmage,

rotate the defensive line the opposite direction, do the same thing with Clowney on the other side. So having Clowney and Landry allows the Titans' versatility to show a 4-3 front or a 3-4 front, which will be very important going through the season to keep this defense as versatile as possible. Next is talking about coverage. The Titans just fully committed to cover one robber, and I show an example of that in my Tic Tac 4-pack, so make sure you check that out so you can see on the field what a cover one robber actually looks like but basically you got man coverage on the five receiving options and then you have one player at linebacker depth covering everything over the

middle of the field at about 10 yards uh kenny vaccaro does that a lot for the titans defense and they'll have rashaun evans rushing i'll get to that in one of my other observations. And then they'll have Bayard deep or they'll have Bayard be that robber, have Kenny Vaccaro blitz, and then Imani Hooker is deep covering anything that goes past the cornerback's head. So the Titans have been fully committing to cover one robber and they can only do that if they're able to cover and man coverage and getting a Dory Jackson back will help them be even more effective at that coverage on the defense the next thing is the all the rushing success that the Jags had for the most part for the most part came against the backup defensive line which would be Laurel Murchison backing up in the three technique for Simmons and then Matt Dickerson backing up for Daquan Jones

as the nose tackle but the reality is is that Daquan Jones and Jeff Simmons didn't have a great day against the run. The Jacks have a very formidable interior offensive line with guards A.J. Cannon, guards Andrew Norwell, and then center Brandon Linder. That's a very good trio in the middle. Quite frankly, their tackles, Robinson and Jawan Taylor, are good tackles too. The Jacks have a very good offensive line, very solid offensive line, and the Titans interior defensive linemen struggled in the run game, especially later in the game, third quarter, fourth quarter. They were clearly tired and affected, and the Jags offensive line was able to win a lot of matchups. The Jags offense targeted

Malcolm Butler in that man coverage. I said the Titans played cover one man with a robber a lot of the game. Well, they targeted Malcolm Butler as much as possible because Butler does a great job, but one, DJ Chark is their best wide receiver, and that was a matchup that happened all day, so it only makes sense the Jags would look for Malcolm Butler because they're really just looking for DJ Chark, but Butler obviously struggles with speed and quickness, so if you can beat him off his press at the line of scrimmage, you can have success in man coverage. Something for the Titans to watch.

Hopefully Adory Jackson can take those more pivotal matchups, allow Malcolm Butler to be on the second best wide receiver, and that'll help him out a little bit. We saw a lot of diamond formation from the Titans. That's where they let Rashawn Evans rush as a pass rusher in the front four, bring Kenny Vaccaro down to linebacker, and then bring in Imani Hooker to play the deep safety. Gives more versatility to Kevin Byard where you can move him over the field. Puts Kenny Vaccaro in more advantageous situations where he's not

guarding wide receivers or people down the field. He's close to the line of scrimmage with tight ends and running backs and able to help in the run game as well. Also takes advantage of Rashawn Evans' versatility, allows him to pass rush, which he may be one of the best off-ball linebackers in the NFL at rushing the passer. It's something he did at his early stages in his career in Alabama. So, love seeing the Titans take advantage of the versatility of the defense using that diamond formation in passing situations. And then finally, the Titans defensive line was really tired in the second half, as I've mentioned, as it affected Jeffrey Simmons and Daquan Jones in

the run game. It affected Harold Landry and Jadavion Clowney in their pass rush. At the beginning of the show, I talked about the excessive snap counts for those two players as well, not to mention all they were being asked to do shifting back and forth between 3-4 and 4-3 alignment. So everyone was tired on the defensive line, but the Titans made a great adjustment, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the coaches told them to make this adjustment. It's something I would love to ask Mike Rabel. Did the coaches tell the defensive line to not worry as much about getting to the quarterback and start worrying more about getting their hands up in passing lanes?

There is a general rule in pass rushing that if you know that you're not going to get to the quarterback and start worrying more about getting their hands up in passing lanes. There is a general rule in pass rushing that if you know that you're not going to get to the quarterback because you're stumped on your original move out of the snap, then you should focus more on getting your hands up in the passing lanes and disrupting the quarterback in that way so that you're still affecting the play even if your pass rush move wasn't a win. So the Titans defensive line started doing that late in the second half. Harold Landry did that quite a bit. Jack Crawford obviously did that quite a bit. And then Jeffrey Simmons and Jack Crawford together were able to do a double down on blocking the passing lanes for Minshew.

And it ultimately resulted in that tipped interception for the win. So a great adjustment by the Titans defensive line who were clearly fatigued, clearly tired, but they still found a way to be effective and disrupt the game by getting their hands up in Gardner Minshew's passing lanes. That is going to do it for this re-watch Wednesday. That's all of my additional news, notes, insights. Once again, a lot of what I'm talking about here on offense and defense is highlighted in my Tic Tac 4 pack for this week.

Make sure that you follow me on Twitter, at Tic Tac Titans, and go check that out. In my opinion, some of my best work, probably my best film breakdown that I've ever produced. So I would appreciate any support that you guys would throw towards that breakdown. That's going to do it for this Rewatch Wednesday, though. I'm going to come back and talk to you guys about some of the transactions

that the Titans have made and some of the roster moves they have made so far this week as they get ready for a game against the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday. Before we get into that, I want to tell you guys about MyBookie. Invest in your intuition. Use promo code LOCKEDON and double your first deposit. New players get up to $1,000 in free play. Designed to add more excitement to the sports you love and the games you bet, your winning season begins today, only at MyBookie.

Let's go ahead and cap off today's Rewatch Wednesday, taking a look at some of the roster transactions the Titans have made after the game against the Jaguars. And this will also cap off our analysis of that week two matchup. We will look at the roster moves the Titans have made to get them ready for a matchup against the Vikings as we move forward into our analysis of the Vikings. And that will start on Thursday's show. I will go over the most recent injury report and also we will have a crossover Thursday conversation with Luke from the Locked On Vikings podcast. You will not want to miss that. Make sure

that you subscribe to the Locked On Titans podcast on whatever platform you do stream so you don't miss that crossover Thursday or my game preview on Football Friday coming up later this week. But let's dive into some of these roster transactions and what they mean. I am going to start off taking a look at the changes to the 53-man roster. First off, running back center-rise Perry sustained some sort of injury during the game on Sunday. I wasn't able to pick it up on tape what exactly happened. He had two carries, two snaps. Not certain where he got injured. Didn't see him visibly affected after either of those carries, so it could have been a special teams incident, but either way,

Perry has been put on the IR for the Tennessee Titans. That opens up a roster spot and opens up a seat in the running back room. The Titans clearly don't have a lot at the running back position right now because of the injury to rookie running back room. The Titans clearly don't have a lot at the running back position right now because of the injury to rookie running back Darrington Evans. But running back Jeremy McNichols has been brought up to the active roster for both games, even though he's on the practice squad so far this season. So the Titans went ahead and bumped him up to the active 53-man roster. Hopefully the Titans are able to get Evans back.

We will talk about that in my injury report breakdown at the beginning of tomorrow's show. But right now, the Titans have Jeremy McNichols and Derrick Henry and then Kari Blossom game as their only backs. And quite frankly, Blossom game is not a real running back for an NFL game. So that's why McNichols is around. But the Titans desperately need rookie running back for an NFL game. So that's why McNichols is around. But the Titans desperately need rookie running back Darrington Evans to get healthy and get back in the mix at the running

back spot. But that is Jeremy McNichols taking an active spot as center rise Perry has gone to the IR. Talking about the practice squad, the Titans protected four players again this week on their practice squad, as is the limit set by the NFL for this season only. And those protected players are, of course, no surprise here, quarterback Trevor Simeon, linebacker Darren Bates. Easy. Glad to see him one more week, making sure he'll stay with the Titans organization. And then Cam Batson and a lot of you are confused right now hearing that but Cam Batson like Jeremy McNichols was brought up from the practice squad to the active roster and then placed back on the practice squad

so that's one of those new rules that the Titan that the NFL has instituted this year to help teams deal with COVID-19 but Batson is protected on the Titans practice squad. And then again, another one that's not a surprise, kicker slash punter Tucker McCann is protected as well. Gives the Titans versatility in case there's an injury to either of the special teams kicker or punter, Brett Kern or Steven Gostkowski. So it makes a lot of sense there.

But that is the transactions that we have seen so far. As I mentioned, I am going to be back with you guys tomorrow for a crossover Thursday conversation with Luke from the Locked On Vikings. Make sure that you don't miss that. Subscribe right now so that you do not. I do want to let you guys know, I know

that today's Rewatch Wednesday is coming out in the evening as opposed to the morning. It's my gaffe. I'd be up front with my audience at all times. I left my charger for my laptop at the office. By the time that I noticed this, it was about 9.30 at night. I live about 35 minutes away from my office, so it just wasn't in the cards for me to go back and get my charger and then be able to record in a timely manner to still

get some dang sleep. You can't rewatch all these football games if you don't sleep, folks. Have to sleep to have the energy. A lot of you comment on my energy on these podcasts. Well, that energy requires at least a solid six hours of sleep every single night at the minimum. So, had to make sure I got that in. I appreciate your guys' patience. Sorry for the delay.

But hopefully, either you're listening to this on your afternoon commute back home, or you get yourself a double up on a Thursday as we kick off the football week with Thursday Night Football. So, either way, wanted to explain that scheduling delay for you guys. But that is going to do it for me today. You will have a Crossover Thursday podcast with Luke from the Locked On Vikings in your feed on Thursday morning. As always, I am your host, Tyler Rowland, and this was Locked on Titans.