Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Titans Self-Destruct in Carolina - Game Review, #TitanUpTitanDown & Rowland's Rant

Episode Date: November 4, 2019

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Welcome to the Locked on Titans podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Rowland. Titans fans, it is a very disappointing Monday. The Titans did not come out ready to play on offense at least, and they put themselves in a really tough position moving forward. Obviously, we're all frustrated. Let's talk about what's going on, what needs to happen to fix it, and who should share this blame. As always, we're going to review the game with a little Roland's review at the beginning. Just give you my key points, key takeaways, my raw emotions after watching the game. In our second segment, we will do tighten up, tighten down, quite a few tighten downs, but there were some tighten ups as well. So we will cover the tighten ups last, get all that nonsense out of the way first of all the mistakes everyone made and then jump into something positive in our last segment I will do a Rollins rant for you guys I

just have to get something off my chest it's been bugging me but seeing online so hope you guys enjoyed that we're gonna get into all of that right now so let's get it Your Tennessee Titans lead story is the implosion in Carolina on Sunday. The Titans lose 30-20, and mostly because they spotted the Panthers a 17-0 first half lead, where they shot themselves in the foot the entire quarter on offense. Overall, throughout the entire game, the Titans continued to make boneheaded mistakes. We will cover some of that right now. I mean, just look at the tape. 11 penalties, 99 yards, three drop passes, a fumble, two interceptions, so three turnovers. We had three missed kicks. You can't win football games like that. And the Titans ultimately only lost by 10.

Imagine if just half of that was gone. And the Titans gave themselves an opportunity to win. It's unbelievable. And then also, when you look, what would be the easiest game plan point you could think of when going against the Carolina Panthers in 2019? Any person. I watch tape every week. I don't need to watch tape to tell you. Anyone could tell you. A casual football fan could tell you. You have to stop Christian McCaffrey. He's an MVP candidate. The Titans give him 166 total yards, three touchdowns, a fourth quarter back-breaking run. Like always, it's a weekly occurrence for the Titans.

Their defense does the best they can for three quarters, and they get to that fourth quarter, and they're tired, and one person misses their assignment, and the running back's off to the races. We've seen it more times than not this year. But it's not just that. On Christian McCaffrey's first touchdown, on fourth and goal at the two-yard line, the Panthers run an easy flat route to Christian McCaffrey's first touchdown on fourth and goal at the two-yard line.

The Panthers run an easy flat route to Christian McCaffrey, a boot with the quarterback. He's the only person there. That's the way the play is designed, and the Titans miscommunicate, blow the coverage, and give, of all people, Christian McCaffrey the open catch. I don't see how things like that can be possible when you work all week about stopping one guy. So that should have been a sign that, you know, even the defense is going to have some lapses. And if the defense doesn't play perfect, the Titans are clearly going to have a difficult time winning the game. Another thing that's really going to make it difficult for the Titans to win

football games is having Arthur Smith as their offensive coordinator. I don't know what else we need to see. We are nine games into the season. It's third and two late in the game, and they take Derrick Henry out and throw a swing pass to Deion Lewis. What are we doing? How can other coaches be in the room and allow these things to continuously happen? Someone has to check Arthur Smith at some point in time. If Mike Vrabel doesn't have the offensive knowledge to do it, then somebody in that room has to. And unfortunately, I'm starting to think maybe nobody

does because this offense is so poorly coached and the game plans make no sense. Two weeks in a row, two weeks in a row, we talked about on the show. What do the Buccaneers do well on defense? They stop the run. At the time they were giving up 68 yards per game on the run. So what do the Titans do? Come out and try to run it right down their throats and not throw all over one of the worst passing defenses in the league. Flip that on its head this week. The Panthers. What do they do well? Incredible pass defense. Great pass coverage scheme. They utilize it. They bring four. That's all they need. Well, because of that, they give up a lot of yards on the ground. Over 120 yards on the ground. San Francisco went for 235 last week against the Panthers. Same defense last week. What do the Titans do? Come out,

same defense last week what do the titans do come out give derrick henry the ball once one carry two carries in the first half dion lewis has three five five carries for the two running backs total against the one of the worst rushing defenses in the league and a defense that gave up over 200 yards rushing the previous week these These are errors in planning. He had an entire week, Arthur Smith had an entire week to put a decent plan together. Now, the players shot themselves in the foot as well. The players did not come to play, but at some point, the players are not being put in a good position to succeed, and the constant issues that the Titans are having with false starts and holds and illegal shifts and just all the issues that they're having pre-snap and with the offensive line.

At some point, you look back at the coaches. The Titans cannot continue to do what they're doing right now and the issue is that it's the offensive coaching staff that's hurting them the most. But the NFL shows no mercy and the Titans will play a very good Kansas City Chiefs team next week who most likely is getting their MVP quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, back from a dislocated knee. It is difficult being a Titans fan, for sure. Well, that's going to do it for our first segment here.

Just wanted to give you guys some key takeaways and just my raw reaction to the game. In our second segment, we are going to do everybody's favorite segment, tighten up and tighten down. I will do the tighten downs first. And obviously we are going to have some of the same themes in tighten down as we did in our first segment, because some people are more to blame than others. We'll get to that next. Most guys have tried different ways to last longer, but saying the pledge of allegiance in your head or counting backwards from 10 doesn't always do the trick. The folks at Roman, a men's health company, are changing the game with Roman Swipes,

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$10 off and free two-day shipping. Once again, getroman.com slash locked on NFL. Tighten up and tighten down so let's get into the tighten downs as I said we would in the first segment I just want to get some of this out of the way and as I alluded to in our first segment the number one first tighten down that I have to give out and seems like I give out every week, even sometimes in the wins, is Arthur Smith. Yes, I even tweeted at Tic Tac Titans that he designed a few plays that were pretty good. I mean,

Deion Lewis fumbled. That's not on Arthur Smith. A.J. Brown's drop. Johnnie Smith's drop. Those are well-designed plays that were open, but it's not consistent enough, and week to week, the overall plan makes no sense. You can't run the ball five times against this defense in the first half. You can't consistently have guys buy each other within their route concepts. You can't run all hooks where you just go five yards and turn around every receiver so often. Luke Keekly was out there changing his defensive formation based on our checks. So Ryan Tannehill is audible-ing at the line, changing it from a pass play to a run play.

Keekly knows exactly what play is coming, brings up his safety, puts him in the box, and then the guy makes the play immediately, tackle in the backfield. It's so predictable. We telegraph all our play calls. It's frustrating to see a non-NFL level coach have control over an NFL offense that is not as bad as it looks. The last two weeks are not a complete fluke. This offense is much more productive lately.

But the coaching behind it and the philosophy, like I said in the first segment, from the plan last week against the Bucs defense to the plan this week, of course, once they put the ball in Derrick Henry's hands and actually consistently run the ball, the Titans go all the way down the field and score in the first half. Shocker. It's just mind-numbing. And that brings me to my next big Titan down.

Mike Vrabel and John Robinson. How could you guys have allowed this to happen? You wanted to say it was good to great year, a make-or-break year for Marcus. All these things, and this is what we gave the team? At this point, it transcends, Marcus. This is what you gave this team, these players who put their heart and souls on the line and on the field for the fans every day. This is what you gave the fans and what you gave those players.

Arthur Smith. It's inconceivable that this is an NFL offensive coordinator. It's inconceivable. I have nothing else to say about it. He must be fired. He won't be, but if Arthur Smith is the offensive coordinator for this team next year, then we should all riot. We should all riot. That's all. I don't condone vigilante violence unless it's Batman, but I don't know what else to say. It's so frustrating. It's endlessly frustrating

to not see an NFL caliber offense. And of course, they were able to rack up some stats and the players were able to produce there close to the end when it was garbage time, just like in Jacksonville, same thing, but just really disappointing that that Arthur Smith is who we have to look to. And the entire coaching staff on the offensive side of the ball, I don't see routes improving. I don't see releases improving. I don't see good spacing from the wide receivers. We see consistent mistakes from the offensive line, getting beat on stunts, getting beat on twists.

We see play design that doesn't make any sense and play design that, play calls like the swing pass to Deion Lewis that don't make any sense. It's incredible, and I'm sure you guys are all just as frustrated as I am. But moving forward, another Titan down. Taylor LeJuan killed the Titans early with back-to-back penalties. I believe it was a hold and then a face mask

or a hands-to-the-face. Just has not been worth the money. Combine that with the suspension. He has some good plays, but all in all, very disappointing day for Taylor LeJuan in my opinion. The run defense at this point, the run defense is not good. It's not like the back-breaking runs in the fourth quarter are all too often. I can't give them any kind of excuse for the run defense. The run defense on this team is not good. It's not. When you have a six-foot, 210-pound middle linebacker in Jalen Brown,

who's great. I think Jalen Brown's a great player, but obviously it's going to hurt you in run defense. You're missing Jarrell Casey. I don't think the Titans have a lot of talent inside other than Daquan Jones, who's just slightly above average in my opinion. So the run defense needs to get better. And then my last Titan down, and there could be a million tighten downs today,

but mostly I think this is an organizational failure for the day. The coaches, John Robinson, the people in control, not necessarily completely the players who did have their fair share of just on the players' mistakes, but I think you get put in the wrong position enough times. You have a terrible game plan. You're not going to succeed no matter what the players are doing. So they didn't help their cause today,

but they haven't been helped by the coaching staff all season long. My last one, Ryan Suckup, three missed kicks. The second one would have been his career long, so I don't really blame him for missing short. It was accurate. It was right down the middle. That was encouraging. But he's not going to make that kick back from a nearly half a season injury and make his career long.

So that's going to cover my tighten downs. Like I said, I see this game as more of a picture of an organizational failure than I see it as, you know, the players really not performing. This is something that Titans fans, we need to worry about who is picking the coaches and then the coaches that get picked because unless the offensive staff is wiped out completely, I don't see much getting better. So a massive Titan down to John Robinson and Mike Vrabel for hiring Arthur Smith, who's not qualified for this job, and then Taylor LeJuan, the run defense, and Ryan Suckup. So let's go to the Titan Ups. Let's try to have a good time here, talk about the things that were exciting.

I mean, the Titans put 20 points up on the board. At some point, I thought this might be Denver and we might get blanked. So it's exciting to at least see some good football, even though it was a loss and incredibly frustrating at the beginning. Ryan Tannehill, 331 yards, had a touchdown. Of course, the two interceptions, the four sacks, one of them came late. It was three for most of the game. Got most of the yards in garbage time, but he's slinging the ball.

He's trying. He made a few bad throws today, held the ball once that I pointed out where he could have checked it down to Deion Lewis it would have been productive and it led him into a sack so he's not playing perfect he's not elite he's not the answer whatever but he's out there giving his players a chance he's out there throwing the ball down the field and taking chances trying to do something to compensate for the the terrible play design and play calling and just overall philosophy of Arthur Smith. Derrick Henry, King Henry has been showing out 99 total yards,

two touchdowns. If they would have given him the ball more, he would have balled out even more. So Derrick Henry has to be incredibly frustrated. He's doing everything he possibly can, in my opinion, to lift this team. I don't know what else he can do. He's not Saquon Barkley. He's not Ezekiel Elliott. I don't think he's the talent of those guys,

but he's doing literally everything he possibly can for this offense. He is the offense at times and should have been more involved today, so I'm sure he's incredibly frustrated, but you get a tighten up for me, Derrick Henry, if that is any kind of consolation prize. On the defensive side of the football, Harold Landry, baby, it is a coming out party. Like that was one thing during the whole game. I just kept telling myself in the back of my head, Harold Landry is a stud. Harold Landry's great. Had a sack, had a pick, seven tackles, one for loss. I thought he was incredible all day. And he consistently put pressure on Kyle Allen, forced him into some tough throws.

Some guys were open down the field at times. And because of the pressure from Harold Landry, it caused just a little bit of delay and really saved the Titans on a couple of occasions. So monster game from Harold Landry. Thought he was fantastic. And then I thought Adoree Jackson played pretty well. You know, he's been dealing with injuries lately.

Everyone's banged up. I get that. And he's made some mistakes this year and definitely cost the Titans at times. But he had two good passes defended, pass breakups. Almost had a pick on a couple of plays. He had a really good tackle at one time on the double reverse that Harold Landry shut down and stayed home and made a good play. So I thought both those guys had pretty good days and were pretty productive.

And if you're watching Harold Landry play football this year, I don't see how you couldn't be excited. What a steal he was in the second round. It's crazy that he lasted as long as he did, but it's a good thing the Titans got him because he has consistently been their only pass rusher to be able to get pressure down to downs really impressed by him so that's going to do it for our tighten up and our tighten down segment wanted to cover as much as I could with you guys before we jump into our third segment and our Rollins rant where I just have to get something off my chest here I do want to remind you guys that you can treat yourself right into the meal that you deserve

and have your favorite restaurants come to you with DoorDash. Right now, our listeners can get $5 off their first order of $15 or more when they download the DoorDash app and enter promo code LOCKEDON. Rowland's rant I have to get something off my chest I see it every Sunday on Twitter throughout the week you see it in the Facebook communities and I just can't understand how we can have such a dishonest conversation as Titans fans. So the number one thing that I want to put out there is the biggest problem with this offense is Arthur Smith. The offensive line has been bad, but the offensive line wasn't bad today. I mean, they gave up four sacks. Yeah, but I mean, watching the game, the offensive line wasn't bad today. I mean, they gave up four sacks. Yeah, but I mean, watching the game, the offensive line wasn't destroying the game plan and not allowing it to flow like early in

the season. You know, there definitely were times where the offensive line was that bad, but that hasn't happened in quite a few weeks where the offense was just so bad that the offensive line was so bad that the offense couldn't get going. The offensive line's been bad. The offensive line was so bad that the offense couldn't get going. The offensive line's been bad. That's true. Today we saw finally the drops catch up, you know, in a big way and turn into turnovers. The Titans have been dropping the football all year. They were high ranking in the NFL in drops for quite some time early in the season.

So they dropped the football. But today it really made them pay. Everything kind of came to a head. So yeah, there's blame there as well. The offensive line, the's blame there as well. The offensive line, the weapons, the quarterback play. There's plenty of blame to go there. Marcus was definitely not playing good enough football, but also not being put in a very good situation to succeed with everything that was going on. And Tannehill is trying out there as well to do his best, but

he has flaws as a player and limitations as a player. And the offense, again, not really doing much to help the player succeed on the field. So I give you that huge caveat to say that the quarterback play is not the end-all, be-all here. is not the end-all be-all here but but to watch the games the past three weeks and say things like Marcus needs to come back in or um you know the offense isn't any better the Titans aren't winning games put eight back in for a spark. Where was the spark? This is insane. Ryan Tannehill has played way better than Marcus played at the beginning of the season. It's not close. The Titans are scoring. Remember the Denver game, like I mentioned earlier, zero points. Plenty of times we had seven points. Marcus was not getting the job done. Tannehill has played much better, and I don't care

if the Titans didn't win the game. I don't care if the offense still looks rough at times. I don't care if Tannehill throws two interceptions. I don't care. He's clearly better at playing quarterback than Marcus, and using today, the Titans scored 20 points today points today. The offense looked bad, but they scored 20 points. To act like you don't see the difference in the offense from the last three weeks to the first six of the season, it's just intellectually dishonest is what it is. Now, it's going to bring me back to my overall point, though. The quarterback play, like I said, is not the end-all be-all, but I want to make it clear. Tannehill is a better quarterback than Marcus, period. And it doesn't matter what happens here. Tannehill is going to

be the quarterback now, but that's, like I said, going to lead me into my last point. And I'm ranting here. I know, I know, but I'm just so frustrated by not only the team, but everything I see from the fan base too. It's incredibly frustrating. Ryan Tannehill's not the answer. That's not what I'm saying. No one's ever said that. And I hate when people say things like that. Ryan Tannehill is not the long-term answer for the Titans.

At the most, he will be the bridge quarterback next year for a young quarterback or be in a competition with another veteran that the Titans bring in whether via trade or free agency either way we know that Ryan Tannehill let's put it bluntly will not be the quarterback for the Tennessee Titans if they're able to win a Super Bowl anytime soon the Super Bowl that the Tennessee Titans win their first Super Bowl that the Titans win Ryan Tannehill will not be the quarterback of that football team and everyone knows it and no one is saying that but he's still a better quarterback and the offense is better when he's playing over Marcus now for the offense to be good that is a different conversation it goes back to everything we talked about in the first segment and everything we talked about at the beginning of the second

segment. Arthur Smith has to go. Keith Carter has to go. Pat O'Hara has to go. These guys don't know what they're doing. They are not NFL caliber offensive coaches. They aren't. And it's obvious. And we don't have to, I don't have to have played in the NFL. I don't have to be in the meetings every week. The proof is in the pudding at some point. We've seen nine games here. It's not a small sample size anymore. Marcus was playing terrible quarterback.

Tannehill was playing better quarterback, but it doesn't really matter unless the Titans get rid of Arthur Smith, and at the end of the day, my biggest worry about the future of this football team is, will we have to sacrifice Dean Pease's defensive mind, like Dick LeBose, in order to get rid of the offensive cancer that is Terry Roe, I mean Arthur Smith. I'm having flashbacks. This is Titans offensive PTSD. I'm sure you all feel like me, but I just wanted to rant for a moment and explain that while the Titans offense isn't great, Tannehill is still clearly playing much better football than Marcus has played all year.

And even though Tannehill is playing much better football than Marcus all year, it's not going to matter unless the Titans fire these offensive coaches and bring in competent ones. Matt LaFleur was a competent one and things were still up and down, but I think that's because Marcus was injured all year and the Titans didn't have a competent backup and a lot of reasons that LaFleur wasn't able to get the offense off the ground when clearly he's a decent coach. It's obvious he's a decent coach now. You know, we have to admit that as Titans fans, but Arthur Smith isn't and we have to admit that as well and I'm not certain if Mike Vrabelel, who's shown blind loyalty and misplaced loyalty and trust all year,

will Mike Vrabel be able to fire Arthur Smith and this offensive coaching staff, or will he fall on the sword like Mike Malarkey did? I don't mind Mike Vrabel as a head coach. Some people really dislike him, and he does make some questionable decisions. But I don't think he's a terrible actual coach. What I do worry about is his trust in people that he shouldn't have, and maybe him being a player, he's not willing to make the cold, calculated decisions that a coach has to and think that way.

So will he be able to fire Arthur Smith? Will the Titans replace this entire offensive coaching staff in hopes to cure this ill that Will the Titans replace this entire offensive coaching staff in hopes to cure this ill that is the Titans offense and continue to waste this defense? Or will they blow up the whole thing, tear it all down, sacrifice Dean Pease's pretty solid defense, and just completely start over? We will have to see, but clearly we know now and we can make the statement, Arthur Smith must be fired. Well, as much as my soul hurts, I do feel a little better. I hope you guys do too, but that's going to do it for our show today. Very disappointing and frustrating loss, I know, but the Titans will

have to respond quickly for our game against the Chiefs this weekend. We're going to break down all of it this week, so if you aren't already, please subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Google Play, on Spotify, wherever you listen to your podcast. I will be there for you. My name is Tyler Rowland. I am your host. And this was Locked on Titans.