Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Titans Restructure Tannehill For Julio, Winners & Losers from Julio Trade

Episode Date: June 9, 2021

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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 Wednesday edition of the Locked On Titans podcast is presented by the Peacock and Williamson podcast. NFL analyst Brian Peacock and former NFL scout Matt Williamson host Locked On's Peacock and Williamson podcast. NFL analyst Brian Peacock and former NFL scout Matt Williamson host Locked On's Peacock and Williamson every Monday through Friday.

Brian and Matt give you a national perspective on all of the latest NFL news. Make sure you check out the Peacock and Williamson podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network, wherever you get your podcast. Titans fans, we saw step one of the Julio Jones trade take place on Sunday when both teams involved agreed to the trade compensation. But step two to the Julio Jones trade was always going to be the financial aspect. And we got some clarity on step two on Tuesday. And for the last few weeks throughout Julio Watch 2021, we have been saying that the easiest way to make room for Julio Jones cap-wise

was to restructure Ryan Tannehill's contract. And that is exactly what we got on Tuesday. But the details are even more interesting than initially expected because the Titans didn't just clear up enough room for Julio Jones. They gave themselves some extra wiggle room to do some very interesting moves. So we are going to talk about what exactly the Titans did with Ryan Tannehill's contract and give some credit to Titans cap specialist Vin Marino in the process. So we're going to talk about that to start today's show, but then we are going to continue breaking down this Julio Jones trade.

I'm going to get into some winners and some losers from the Julio Jones trade from the Titans perspective. So very excited to dive into this Wednesday edition of the Locked On Titans podcast. Let's get it! We are going to kick off today's Locked on Titans podcast by diving into the financial aspect of the Julio Jones trade. We got some clarity on Tuesday of exactly how the Titans were going to make that work.

Yes, we have discussed for weeks that a Ryan Tannehill contract restructure would be an easy, simple move to make this work and open up enough room for Julio Jones. But the Titans did a few interesting things within that contract restructure to open up even more room. So let's dive into that. First and foremost, at the start of the weekend, the Titans had about $3.5 million in cap space. Then newly signed free agent cornerback Kevin Johnson retired, which added about $2 million

of cap space to the Titans bankroll. So they had about $5 million heading into Sunday morning. They need $15 million to bring on Julio Jones. So clearly they don't have enough. But let's get into the Ryan Tannehill contract restructure that was announced on Tuesday that freed up not only enough room for Julio, but even more. So what the Titans did here is they took the salary that Ryan Tannehill was expected to get this year, $23.5 million. His actual salary for this season, not including his signing bonus money or anything like that. What they did was they took that $23 million and they converted it to a signing bonus, which took Ryan Tannehill's base salary down to $1 million for this year.

So what happens with that $23.5 million, $24 million, and why do the Titans do this? Well, rather than that $24 million hitting the Titans this year, the Titans take that $24 million, convert it from salary to signing bonus, and when your signing bonus hits your contract, it is spread out throughout the life of your contract. So to give you a good example, when Ryan Tannehill signed his original deal with the Titans last offseason, he got a $20 million signing bonus.

Well, that $20 million didn't hit the Titans last season. It was spread throughout the four years of his contract. So $5 million year one, $5 million year two, $5 million year three, $5 million year four. Well, that's the same thing that the Titans are doing here and they're doing it again. So they took that $24 million, they converted it from salary to signing bonus, and then it gets divided amongst the life of this contract. So you're thinking in your head, okay, about $24 million divided by the next three years on Tannehill's contract, 2021, 2022, and 2023,

that's about $7.5 million added to the Titans total for the next few years. The Titans and cap specialist Vin Marino got creative and they did something that we've heard about other teams doing throughout the offseason and that is using void years. So Ryan Tannehill's contract ends in 2023. But what Vin Marino did was he added two extra years on top of the contract. So now technically Ryan Tannehill's contract goes until 2025. Why do they do that?

Why do they add years onto the contract? Well, remember, I said that the signing bonus gets divided up amongst the remaining years on the contract. So if they took Ryan Tannehill's $24 million that they converted to a bonus and they spread that throughout three years, it's about $7.5 $7.8 million. But if you spread it out through five years, well now it's only about

$4.5 million added to each year. So basically what the Titans did was they just took a big chunk of money that they were going to pay Ryan Tannehill in salary this year, which kept his cap hit really, really high. And they converted that money into signing bonus, spread it out throughout the rest of the years on his contract,

and that brought Ryan Tannehill's cap hit down from $24 million to $10 million. So there's that $15 million, $14.5 million in savings that the Titans were expected to get. But remember, remember, now the Titans have created an additional $3 million because they added the void years. You add that to the $5 million that they had over the weekend, you get the $15 million from Tannehill's regular restructure. You get the extra $3 three from the additional void years so now we're at 18 you add in the five that the Titans already had we're at 23 million dollars you take away the 15 for Julio and that leaves the Titans about eight and a half to nine million dollars in cap space so the void years added basically an additional $3 million to the Titans cap space.

And now instead of only having about $4.5 million in cap space, now they have $8 to $9 million in cap space. And it gives them the potential to maybe go after another really valuable free agent. Knock, knock, Melvin Ingram. Knock, knock, Justin Houston. Somebody, or they can go out and trade for a tight end. It just gives them a ton of wiggle room and again I have a couple of additional pieces of information I want to give some praise

to some people here number one it is known that Ryan Tannehill does not have to agree to a contract restructure for the team to do it nor would he disagree he's going to get more of his money sooner so he wouldn't disagree anyway but the Titans added void years to his contract. Void years in 2024 and 2025. Now, Ryan Tannehill, those are void years. So remember, they're going to be voided, but it allowed them to put some signing bonus money there to save them money right now. Ryan Tannehill, to add void years to his contract, Ryan Tannehill has to agree to that. So no void years. You can restructure someone's deal

and they don't have to say yes. But to add void years, they do. So Ryan Tannehill, while this benefits him financially in every way possible, still, he had to agree to add those void years on to be able to make this possible. So thank you, Ryan Tannehill. But also, we've given a ton of praise to John Robinson, Titans GM, for getting this done.

But we've got to give a lot of praise to Titans cap specialist Vin Marino. I'm going to call him Vin Diesel Marino going forward. Just expertly done adding the void years, restructuring the contract, not only opening up that $15 million that the Titans needed for Julio Jones, but opening up an additional $3 to $3.5 million to give them some actual wiggle room to sign another player who can have a real impact. So just a master class in financial planning from Vin Marino and John Robinson in the Titans front office.

And big thanks to Ryan Tannehill for also being willing to add those void years. But we are going to talk about the winners and losers from the Titans perspective in the Julio Jones trade throughout the rest of the show. Before we get into that, I do want to remind you guys about BuiltBar.com, home of the best tasting protein bars ever. Right now, they have nine delicious flavors on their website they're always rotating in some limited time flavors

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Now, before we get into that, I do want to remind you guys, I am putting out Monday through Friday daily Tennessee Titans content here on the Locked on Titans podcast. So make sure that you never miss an episode by subscribing on whatever platform you do stream. Also, follow me on social media on Twitter at TicTacTitans and on Facebook at LockedOnTitansPod. But we're going to get into the winners first. And the number one winner is the Tennessee Titans fan base. The Titans are exciting.

The Titans have buzz. There's a ton of momentum. They've been one of the winningest teams in the NFL over the past five years. There is some momentum that the Titans could potentially make it to a Super Bowl, something that all of us dream about on a daily basis. Well, at least me. And I know you guys are very, very similar in that thought. So to me, the biggest winner here is Titans fans.

Not only do we get the big buzz during the off season and all the fun that we had online, not only on Sunday, but we're continuing to have right now, but also we get an exciting brand of football from the Titans on the field as well. This is going to keep the offense at a very high level. And ultimately that is very, very important when it comes to how much you enjoy watching the team. So the number one winner here is absolutely Titans fans. Number two though, a big winner here has to be Ryan Tannehill. You go from throwing to Cam Batson and Nick Westbrook-Akina to Julio Jones, I mean, it's hard not to call that a major win.

And overall, just outside the Julio Jones trade, look at Ryan Tannehill. Cast away by Adam Gase, most of the NFL had written him off as a potential impactful starting quarterback. He gets traded to the Titans, has to sit behind Marcus Mariota, who can't throw worth a damn right now.

And then his fortunes change. Not only does he get the chance to start, but the Titans draft an absolute stud, maybe the best wide receiver they've had since they moved to Tennessee in A.J. Brown. Derrick Henry goes from being an also-ran to all of a sudden the best running back in the NFL. You get Arthur Smith who just shows up

after being kind of just a guy on the Titans staff for over five years, and all of a sudden he's one of the best offensive minds in the entire NFL. Now you get A.J. Brown. You keep Derrick Henry. You get Julio Jones added to the mix. You get a big contract restructure. You get a big contract in general last year.

I mean Ryan Tannehill is just such a monster winner overall. It's kind of hard to put into words. But outside of the Titans fan base, outside of Ryan Tannehill, another big winner in my opinion is the Titans defense. So the Titans defense has to be improved this year no matter what, and the Julio Jones trade is going to give them a better opportunity to do it. Simply put, if the Titans score more points, if the Titans keep the ball, they convert third downs more, that's going to give the defense more time to rest, but it's also going to mean that the defense has to do less work because the Titans are scoring more points, so they can kind of ease into becoming a league average defense, we hope.

The next big winner to me is the Titans offensive line because now the Titans have another guy out there who can win one-on-one no matter what over and over and over every single week. The Titans have another guy out there who can win one-on-one no matter what over and over and over every single week The Titans just had AJ Brown. Now you have Julio Jones That means Ryan Tannehill is going to be able to get the ball out of his hands quicker He's going to take less sacks less sacks ultimately make the offensive line look better Also teams aren't going to be able to stack the box as much because the Titans have Julio Jones and AJ Brown Which is going to open up run lanes for Derrick Henry. More rushing yards, less sacks, all of that benefits the Titans

offensive line. Next, of course, A.J. Brown. And I'm not going to talk about the on the field stuff. A.J. Brown gets to play with his idol. I mean, you guys all watch sports most of your life. You have your favorite players, your heroes out there. Imagine if you grew up, not only do you get to play football for a living, play a sport for a living, not only are you one of the best players at your position in the entire world, now you get to play with your idol and compete to win a championship. I mean, man, that's just a major dub, as the kids would say. And then finally Todd Downing, Todd Downing, man,

you were going into the season. No Corey Davis, no John who Smith, all they gave you was a rookie wide receiver who's projected as a sixth round pick. And you were expected to follow in Arthur Smith's footsteps, man, that would have been tough sledding for Todd Downing.

But now everything that Todd Downing likes to do, create an individual matchups, isolating guys, in formations, even a quick pass RPO game, Julio Jones is going to excel in all that. It's going to make it easier on Todd Downing to run what he wants to run. So Todd Downing, a major winner here. Of course, there are more winners. There are a ton of winners we could go through, but those are the six that I nailed down. We are going to go into the losers portion. And I say losers tongue in cheek because the reality is from the Titans perspective,

there is no way that anybody is a loser here. But I'll explain in our next segment. Before we get into that, do want to remind you guys about betonline.ag, the fastest and easiest way to bet on all your sports action. Yeah, there's no football right now, but baseball is in full swing.

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You'll get a 50% welcome bonus on your first deposit. BetOnline, your online sportsbook experts. We are going to cap off today's show talking about the quote-unquote losers in the Julio Jones trade from the Titans' perspective. Before we do, I want to remind you guys about the Locked On Today podcast, all the biggest sports stories in under 20 minutes every single weekday. Make sure you check out the Locked On Today podcast on whatever platform you do stream. But we are going to dive into the, like I said, quote-unquote losers from the Julio Jones trade. Of course, there are no actual losers, but it'll make a little bit of sense once I dive into the list.

But just remember, you know, obviously, I don't mean that they actually lost anything. This is good for anyone and everyone associated with the Tennessee Titans. And the number one loser, though, has to be Josh Reynolds off the gate. In his mind, when he signed, even though it was a very small deal, he had to think, man, I'm going to get more opportunity. I'm going to get more snaps. I'm going to get more targets than I have ever gotten before. I'm going to use that opportunity to prove that I'm a solid number two wide receiver

in the NFL. Heck, in his mind, he might even think he's a potential number one wide receiver, just hasn't been given the opportunity. So no matter which way you want to slice it, Josh Reynolds is going to lose snaps. Josh Reynolds is going to lose targets. Josh Reynolds is going to lose opportunity. And in some form or fashion, that does make him a loser in all of this situation. And then next, on a similar vein, is the tight end group. I mean, this is obviously going to take away snaps from Anthony Ferkser. In my opinion, and we're going to talk more about this tomorrow when I talk about some schematic analysis based on this Julio Jones trade,

I think that this is going to take the Titans out of two tight end sets. It's going to put them in more three wide receiver sets because now the Titans have three wide receivers who are big and physical and they can run 11 personnel with three wide receivers, get the defense and a defense that matches that, and then run two tight end looks with three wide receivers because all their receivers are so big and physical. So this is going to take away snaps. This is going to take away targets from the tight end group. And those guys probably wanted to prove themselves and thought they were going to get a great opportunity.

And they still will. But clearly, having Julio Jones out on the field is going to cut into the amount of snaps that they have. Two tight ends out there. It's going to cut into the amount of snaps or the amount of targets that those tight ends get thrown when they are on the field. Another set of pass catchers that are going to be hurting from this is the free agent market. One, the Titans aren't going to have a ton of cap space to go out and sign multiple

guys. And if they do go out and sign another impact free agent, it probably won't be as a pass catcher. I talked about a guy like D.D. Westbrook coming off an injury, a guy like Golden Tate, a veteran who could have fit in. Those guys are losers right now because the Titans will not go out and pay decent money for those guys because the Titans simply aren't as desperate for the help. So the free agent pass catching market definitely took a hit once the Titans got Julio Jones. And then finally, well, not finally, but the second-to-last loser that I want to mention

is anyone campaigning for Derrick Henry to rush for 3,000 yards. Heck, I think a bid for a second season at 2,000 is going to be very, very difficult for Derrick Henry at this point now as well. The Titans are simply just going to throw the ball more than they would have if they would not have gotten Julio Jones. So any chance for Henry to repeat 2K, any chance for Henry to make it to 3K for some reason, I think that might have gone by the wayside with this trade, but we will see. And then the last loser that I'm going to talk about here, is the rest of the NFL. The Titans just added Julio Jones to an offense that looked like it might have a great chance to regress.

But I don't see that regression now. I think the Titans offense has a chance to be better than last year. I think Julio Jones doesn't completely cancel out the loss of Jonu Smith and Corey Davis. It certainly doesn't cancel out the loss of Jonu Smith and Corey Davis. It certainly doesn't cancel out the loss of Arthur Smith. But I think with what the Titans have done, the increased opportunity for Swaim and Ferkser, and then now having Julio Jones and Josh Reynolds instead of Corey Davis and Adam Humphreys,

I think that's an improvement. I think the Titans were most certainly improved on the defensive side of the ball with the moves that they have made. So the fact that they might have improved on offense while also improving on defense, I mean, that has to be scary for teams around the NFL, especially within the division. You're seeing the Jags. Trevor Lawrence is already dealing with a bunch of injuries during training camp. He's throwing pick sixes.

Now, ultimately, that doesn't matter a lot. We've learned that time over time that you can't over-exaggerate the results that you get in many camps and training camps, but the Texans are going through just absolute turmoil non-stop. You think of that, you think about the Colts. I'm skeptical of what the Colts could be. I think Wentz could be, you know, could return to good form form but I'm just skeptical that's all I'm going to say I was last year though and the Colts ended up being decent so we'll see but I think if you're the AFC South and we saw it from some fan bases online over the weekend as well teams and their fans are very worried about what the Titans have the potential to do like I said I think it definitely raised the Titan ceiling from a 10 win team 12-win team, from a team that would get

knocked out in the first or second round to a team that can win the Super Bowl. So ultimately, a big loser in all of this is going to be the rest of the NFL, because now the Titans have a chance to run roughshod over all of them in 2021. But we talked about how the Titans restructuredructured ryan tannahill's deal how cap specialist vin marino made an awesome move to add some void years which helped the titans free up even more cap space for this all season looking at maybe a pass rusher like justin houston melvin ingram maybe a trade for a tight end like oj how, Zach Ertz, David Ninjoku, Evan Ingram. Who knows, but this gives the Titans a lot more wiggle room to make some other impactful moves.

So we discussed all that, talked winners and losers from the Titans perspective in this Julio Jones trade. Tomorrow, I'm going to talk about some statistics that are very interesting from a schematic standpoint, and then I'm going to give you guys just my take on what the Titans could do schematically on offense based on what they did last year, based on Todd Downing, what he did in Oakland, and then based on just what I think will happen this upcoming season.

So we are going to get into the nuts and bolts of what this Julio Jones trade can do for the Titans actually out on the field in tomorrow's show. Make sure that you're subscribed or following the Locked on Titans podcast so you don't miss that episode or any episodes coming forward. I do want to say big shout out to all of you guys, everyone who listens, everyone who interacts with me on social media. As of Tuesday morning, the Locked on Titans podcast was a top 100 football podcast in America on Apple's charts.

It was a top eight podcast in Argentina, so shout out my Argentines, but just want to give a big thank you to all of you guys who listen to the show, everyone that subscribes, like I said, everyone that interacts with me on social media as well. This wouldn't be possible without you guys. The Locked on Titans podcast is going to continue to climb, and I can't do that without your guys' support.

So thank you so much for the bottom of my heart and excited to continue breaking down this team that we all love. But that is going to do it for me today, folks. As always, I am your host, Tyler Rowland, and this was Locked on Titans.