Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Titans Talk Downing as OC, JJ Watt Rowland's Rant & NFL Headlines

Episode Date: February 3, 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 Bilt Bar. Go to BiltBar.com, use promo code LOCKEDON, and you'll get 20% off your next order of the best tasting protein bars in the galaxy. Last Friday, we finally got the news that we had

all been waiting on. Tight end coach Todd Downing was promoted to offensive coordinator, and outside linebacker coach and pseudo defensive coordinator from 2020, Shane Bowen, was officially promoted to defensive coordinator. Now, if you're like me, I'm still pretty upset about that Shane Bowen decision, and I'm still harboring some pretty negative feelings about the decision to make him the official defensive coordinator after what we saw in 2020. However, on the flip side of that, I grow more optimistic each day about what we might get from Todd Downing as the offensive coordinator. Yesterday on Tuesday's Locked on Titans podcast, I took a look at what Todd Downing's Raiders

offense did schematically in 2017 and told you what I liked and what I didn't like. And we're starting to get more positive comments about Todd Downing as we go as well. We got comments from Jonu Smith on Tuesday about what he thinks about Todd Downing as we go as well. We got comments from Jonu Smith on Tuesday about what he thinks about Todd Downing. We got some comments from Taylor LeJuan over the weekend as well. And then a non-Tennessee Titans player from Yahoo, their senior reporter Charles Robinson, had some thoughts on the Todd Downing hire as well. So we're going to go over all of those comments concerning the promotion of Todd Downing to Titans offensive coordinator. And after that, we are going to get into a little bit of a Rollins rant on this Wednesday edition of the Locked on Titans podcast. And I am

going to tell you what I think about the big buzz topic going around, and that is J.J. Watt on the Titans. And not only am I going to give you my opinion on what I think should happen with J.J. Watt or if he's a viable candidate for the Tennessee Titans, I'm also going to sprinkle in a little bit of audio or at least the comments that we got from an NFL reporter on Tuesday that may be linking the two together more than just pure speculation. So we'll rant a little bit there in the middle of our show. And we'll cap off this Wednesday by going over all of the other general NFL headlines

and football headlines that we have got from the beginning of the week. You know, we got a big trade in the NFL with a quarterback. We also got some news inside the Tennessee Titans division on a quarterback. So going to go over all of those general notes as well on today's edition of the Locked On Titans podcast. Let's get it. understandably so we've seen a lot of concern about the titans promotion of shane bowen to defensive coordinator pretty much universally so we haven't seen any titans players come out and talk positively about bowen we heard all last year about communication issues and obviously anytime there's communication issues and obviously anytime there's communication

issues on the defense that's basically players calling out the coaching themselves and in a roundabout way. So that is concerning but we were already concerned by the decision in itself. One thing that is less concerning is some of the more positive things we're starting to hear about Titans offensive coordinator Todd Downing. So I talked to you guys about some of the comments we saw as soon as the hire happened last Friday. One of them being Ted Wynn, a guy I really respect for his football acumen who covers the Raiders. Talked about how Todd Downing was a respected guy in the Raiders organization.

They even let Bill Musgrave go so they could retain Todd Downing because he was going to be poached by somebody else. And we heard comments from your boy Q from Locked on Raiders. And although he skewed a little bit negative in his view of Todd Downing, he did mention how he was viewed as kind of a young, hot shot, offensive mind. So some of those comments and some of those thoughts are encouraging. But some of the comments that we've gotten from Titans players who have played underneath Todd Downing have also been encouraging in recent days and number one we got a comment from Taylor LeJuan over the weekend and Taylor had this to say to A to Z Sports Buck Reising he said

quote Todd Downing is a stud awesome guy with an incredible mind for the game I thought when Arthur left he would be our guy, end quote. So that's pretty good stuff from Taylor right there. Obviously, Taylor throwing in his favorite kind of buzzwords, calling him a stud, but he says he's a guy with an incredible mind for the game, and you like to see someone's football intelligence be credited, and he said, I found this is the most interesting part of his quote here. I thought when Arthur left, he would be our guy. So if you have guys internally inside the offense saying, hey, we think Arthur's going to get a head coaching job.

He's probably not going to be with us next year. And you have guys on the offense already saying to themselves that Todd Downing's probably going to be the guy that's next. To me, that's a positive sign. It should make the players comfortable with the person that's going to be leading their a positive sign it should make the players comfortable with the person that's going to be leading their offense so I like seeing that as well the next set of comments or the next comment that we got here was from Titans tight end former tight end Jonu Smith and Jonu Smith had this to say on Sirius XM Radio, the NFL channel, quote, one of the best offensive

minds I've been around. He just knows ball so well. We're putting the pieces in place that we need. I think we've got a lot of room for success. But that's the end of the quote. Jonu did point out later on that the uncertainty of his contract situation obviously plays into the use of that we word, but I do like to see in here more positive comments. One of the best offensive minds I've been around. That's very high praise from John

Smith. And remember, Todd Downing was the tight ends coach. So John who worked directly with Todd Downing every single day. And to have that takeaway, it would be one thing to just say, Hey, yeah, he's a good coach and have nice things to say. John, who may be on his way out of Tennessee, doesn't have to, you know, talk peachy about anybody for no reason. So to not only give him positive comments, but to go out of your way to go above and beyond and say he's one of the best offensive minds you've been around. That's really nice. But then you do got to point out John Smith saying the pieces in place that we need. I think we've got a lot of room for success sounds like a guy who wants to be back in Tennessee and while I would like to have Johnnie

Smith back have to make sure that it's at uh you know a price point that makes sense for the Titans who have a lot of pieces they need to put in place on the defensive side of the ball as well the last comment that I want to talk about here comes from Charles Robinson, a senior writer from Yahoo. And while it's not incredibly praising comment for Todd Downing, it's still a comment that I thought would be valuable for us to read. And the comment here is quote on the Todd Downing hire. That to me is a little less concerning than Shane Bowen. I don't really know what you can say worked well consistently throughout the season. He's basically just earning the title. Well, obviously, most of that quote is about Bowen to bring us down to earth,

but hey, a little less concerning than Shane Bowen. That's kind of positive, right? But it just goes to show you that universally around the NFL, no one understands why Shane Bowen was hired. We're going to dive into the optimism around Todd Downing for that reason in itself. But that's going to do it for our opening segment here. We are going to move into a Rollins rant about J.J. Watt and his potential fit with the Tennessee Titans.

Before we do that, though, do want to remind you guys that you can catch Monday through Friday daily Tennessee Titans content here on the Locked on Titans podcast. So make sure you subscribe on whatever platform you do stream. Let's continue this Wednesday edition of the Locked on Titans podcast. And we've talked quite a bit about the coordinator hires throughout this week. So let's dive into another big hot topic going around Titans Twitter right now. And that is the possibility of J.J. Watt on the Tennessee Titans. So first, let's talk about how that would even be possible.

J.J. Watt is set to make $17 million in 2021. Obviously, that's not going to work for the Titans. But, here's the key. None of it is guaranteed. And a lot of people around the league do believe that J.J. Watt will probably be cut by the Houston Texans as they try to fix their salary cap situation. They'll probably get rid of Deshaun Watson. More on that later on in the show.

But the Texans are going to be in the middle of a full-scale rebuild. And having a guy like J.J. Watt who is so upset with the organization, the comments he made at the end of the season, it just wouldn't make a lot of sense to keep a guy like that around whose career is winding down. He's getting in the twilight phase of his career. He's not going to want to sit around another couple years of rebuilding in Houston, especially without Deshaun.

So J.J. Watt right now is a very popular cut candidate that the Texans will probably let him go. Now, of course, of course, the Houston Texans will likely try to trade J.J. Watt. Everybody's looking at trade possibilities for J.J. Watt. But let's be honest here. At $17 million with the injury history, his age, I just don't see a team that's going to be willing to pony up a good amount of draft capital for J.J. Watt.

Also, the Texans have a lot of stank on them right now, to say the least. They don't have the best public view. They don't have a very good approval rating. We could say with the public or with their fan base. That's what matters most right now with their fan base. When you play football in a state like Texas with the Dallas

Cowboys, you can't trade Deshaun Watson, do J.J. Watt dirty and trade him to a place that he doesn't want to go and have a terrible team. I mean, you can't just do all of that after trading DeAndre Hopkins and the way that they've treated the team and the Jack Easterby stuff. I mean, at some point, they got to cut their losses here

and do something to save face with their fan base. So holding J.J. Watt hostage and trading him potentially somewhere he doesn't want to go, I just don't think that's a great move. And that's why a lot of people around the NFL think it's possible that he's just outright cut. No guaranteed money, no dead cap for the Texans, and they let him go find a winner. Go play somewhere he wants to play to finish out his career. to play to finish out his career.

So, my rant here, my stance is all based upon the fact that I think J.J. Watt will be cut, not traded. The Titans cannot trade for J.J. Watt. They can't give up draft picks and pay a $17 million salary. Now, of course, there's the, you know,

you could work a trade and then go directly into an extension where you move the money around, and maybe potentially in that circumstance. I just don't think that's what's going to happen. Okay. I think that Watt is eventually cut by the Houston Texans. They allow him to go and find somewhere to play and be happy and see if he can win a Super Bowl.

I think that the Titans would be a fantastic fit. Now you add in the history with Mike Vrabel. You add in division familiarity. You add in proximity to his house and where he actually lives, where his family is. You also add in that J.J. Watt would fit in a place like Nashville. I mean, Nashville has a Midwest charm with that Southern hospitality. So J.J. Watt as a personality would fit in Nashville. And then think about it schematically speaking. I've talked about how Jadavion Clowney coming back would be a major improvement in that Jack Crawford role that we saw Jack play at the end of the year. I've talked about a guy like

Patrick Jones, talked about a guy like Gregory Russo in the draft who could fill that role. I have my eye squarely on that elephant role in the Titans defense. It's one of the key roles that allows them to function as a 3-4 or a 4-3. You have to have somebody who can rush on the interior and play five technique defensive end, also even play a 3-4 outside linebacker but they can also kick down and play a 4-3 defensive end spot and hold up against the run while rushing the passer I mean having that kind of guy gives you versatility to do what the Titans want to do and be multiple up front and J.J. Watt would be a perfect guy to do that and like I said on Twitter at Tic Tac Titans if you bring in a guy like JJ Watt and you have him there to play that elephant role

then John Robinson can just laser focus on speed edge rushers in the draft you don't have to worry about a tweener guy like a Patrick Jones or a Gregory Russo. You can focus squarely on a Jalen Phillips. You can focus squarely on a Quincy Roche. You can focus squarely on an Aziz Ujulari. You can focus squarely on a guy like Joseph Asai. Man, I'm feeling good, baby. I'm in draft form. You're rattling them off. Boom, boom, boom. I'm in draft form you're rattling them off boom boom boom anyways you can allow John Robinson to focus on those pure edge pass rushing guys and develop those guys and when those guys are in the game or when you're rotating them in they don't have to worry about in their rookie season holding up against the run you can get a veteran guy to help you do that on the outside and your five-man alignments with whatatt kicked in as a five technique.

And then you can allow that guy to just focus on being a pass rusher, which is what the Titans need most. You got Harold Landry and you got J.J. Watt to kind of anchor the edges of your run defense. You can bring in maybe a cheaper veteran like a Ryan Kerrigan who can help you on early downs too. And then you draft an outside edge pure speed guy like I talked about the Titans got to go full force and fixing the edges and fixing

the pass rush here and Watt can rush on the interior imagine if the Titans had Harold Landry Jeff Simmons JJ Watt and then their first round or second round rookie edge rusher on the outside or a Ryan Kerrigan as a as a cheap veteran in the cam wake mold I mean that that's what you got to hope for that that's part of the ideal scenario here for the Titans which I plan to get into a little bit later in the offseason probably next week maybe even this week depending on how the content schedule rolls out the last thing that I want to mention about here with JJ Watt is something that was said on the two guys and a girl podcast which is a new podcast from Matt

Miller formerly of Bleacher Report NFL Draft Scout on Twitter Justin Mello who does great draft content and then I don't know this person to shout them out on Twitter, but Paige, somebody who is moderating their show, a host on their show, doesn't have the last name in the description, but Paige. Shout out Paige. Want to give them credit for their show. You can check out the Two Guys and a Girl podcast on whatever platform you do stream. But the big point here is Matt Miller had this to say about J.J. Watt and the Titans.

Quote, just want to throw this little nugget in there though. Keep an eye on J.J. Watt there. There's been reports over the weekend that he could be on the move. Reuniting with Rabel would be a very good move for the Titans. End quote. And then Page kicked in and had this to say, quote, in the city of Nashville would love J.J. Watt. That seems like a match made in heaven.

And of course, most cities would, but that seems like a perfect fit, end quote. So that's what they had to say on the two guys and a girl podcast. Obviously, it's nothing concrete, nothing firm, but hearing somebody like Matt Miller, who's obviously concrete, nothing firm, but hearing somebody like Matt Miller, who's obviously plugged into the NFL, discuss that and say, keep an eye on that possibility. It gives you, I guess, a good reason to think that it's something that is on the Titans radar. So I wanted to rant a little bit about J.J. Watt there.

Going to keep this episode moving, and we are going to talk about some general NFL headlines and general football headlines that have popped up early in the week. Before we do move on, I want to tell you about the new podcast from the Locked On Podcast Network, and that is Locked On Today. Host of Locked On Packers, Peter Bukowski, takes you through all of the biggest sports stories from the previous day in under 20 minutes, so check that out on whatever platform you do stream. Also want to tell you about our friends over at betonline.ag. The Super Bowl is on Sunday.

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Write LOCKEDON in the How Did You Hear About Us box right underneath where you put your shipping information so they know that we sent you. Amazing selection, reliably low prices, all the parts your car will ever need. RockAauto.com. Let's cap off today's show by talking about some of the big NFL stories, some of the big NFL headlines that have come out in recent days, even a big football story that there's no way I could go the entire show without bringing up. Now, before we do that, though, I want to tell you where you can get all of your NFL national news, and that is the Locked On NFL podcast.

Whatever platform you use to stream, you will be able to find the Locked On NFL Podcast there. So make sure after you're done listening to today's Locked On Titans Podcast, you go check out the mothership, the national show Locked On NFL. Now let's dive into some of the headlines that they would have discussed on Locked On NFL in recent days. And number one is Friday's trade, the weekend's trade. Matthew Stafford traded to the Los Angeles Rams. So what a move here for the Rams. I like the move. They're giving up first round picks.

So just to tell you about the trade, you got Matt Stafford going from the Detroit Lions to the Los Angeles Rams in exchange for a 2021 third round pick, a first round pick in 2022 and 2023, and quarterback Jared Goff. Now the Rams will have to eat $20 million of dead cap in 2021, even though they traded Goff.

And then on the flip side, the Lions have Goff on a four-year $106 million deal, but only two years of that is guaranteed. So they basically got themselves two years of Jared Goff, two first-round picks, and then a third-round pick in this draft this season. So from both sides, first off, I think it's a win-win here. I think the Rams were tired of Jared Goff. They weren't going to go as far as they needed to go with Jared Goff and his contract. Stafford is clearly a more talented player, although being an older and beat-up player.

But this is great for Matt Stafford, too, because it gives him a chance to shine outside of the Detroit organization that he had been stuck in since they went 0-16 and got the first pick to draft him. So Matthew Stafford, in my opinion, is one of the more underrated players in recent memory in the NFL. He's always been a top 10 talented quarterback, just hasn't had an organization to really surround him with a ton of help all the time. So we'll see what he's really made of. He's got plenty of time left in his career to make up for lost time and win some games and show people exactly who he is. On a Los Angeles Rams team that had the number one defense in the NFL last year. Has Cam Akers, a decent offensive line.

Has Tyler Higbee, has Cooper Cupp, has Robert Woods. So they have weapons to surround Matthew Stafford and let him live up to his full potential at his age at this moment in time. On the other side for the Lions, I mean, they brought in Dan Campbell. They're clearly going into a full-scale rebuild, getting not only a first-round draft pick in 2022, but also one in 2023 in the future, a third-round pick this year too. They get Jared Goff, so they're not going to fall off a cliff completely at quarterback, and it doesn't put

them in a spot where they have to go get a rookie quarterback this year or they have nothing to sell the fan base. Jared golf may not be a great quarterback he's probably a little below league average but he's not going to be the reason that your team completely falls apart and loses a bunch of games and like I said the Lions just don't have to feel pressure from the fan base to go out and draft a quarterback right now. They're not ready for that. They can build up a roster. They have a first round pick, not this year, but next year, another first round pick two years from now. They have the ammo to trade up and get the quarterback that they want if he's available in the draft next year or the draft after that. Or I guess if he is in this draft, they can go up and get him too. But I just don't think that that's the move right now. You kind of build up the team while

you have Jared Goff's contract. You get that rookie QB after Jared Goff's contract expires with all the capital that you have. And now you have the makings of a really solid roster that's on a solid timeline as well. So I like the deal. If I had to pick a winner, I mean, it's hard not to like what the Lions did with this one loading up. I was kind of surprised at the haul. And if they're getting that for Matt Stafford, that brings us into the next storyline. What would the Texans get for Deshaun Watson? So Deshaun Watson officially requested a trade. Love to see that for the Texans. Last week, Derrick Henry said, it's a great thing to get them away from us. And I agree 100%.

Get Deshaun Watson out of the AFC South, please. If Trevor Lawrence is coming in, we got to get Deshaun Watson out. But here's where this is going to get interesting. When head coach Nick Sirianni was announced, or Nick Sirianni, sorry, talking about the Eagles. When head coach David Culley was announced, and we Sirianni, sorry, talking about the Eagles, when head coach David Culley was announced, and we had Nick Casario, that's who I was searching for, the general manager

speak, both of them said for the Texans that Deshaun Watson's a Texan, they'd like to keep him around for a long time, all the reports out of the organization are they're making all these fancy hires and bringing in all these different people and they retain Tim Kelly and all this because they think they can get Deshaun Watson to stay. They're planning on, you know, holding out on him, not trading him. Well, Deshaun Watson came out on Tuesday and his representation sources close to him basically said he'll sit out the season. He doesn't care.

He's not playing for the Houston Texans ever again. So the Texas standoff that we are about to see is going to be very interesting to watch and monitor going through the rest of the offseason. And then the last piece of news. Yes! We made it! The last piece of news.

NCAA football is back. That's right. After being pump faked for so long, EA Sports officially announced on Tuesday that NCAA college football video game will return on the new consoles, the PlayStation 5, the Xbox Series X.

I'm a big video game person. A lot of you guys have asked questions about video games in the mailbag, things of that nature. Talk to me about video games on Twitter. I love video games. I especially loved NCAA, one of my favorite video games all time growing up. It's like two games in one.

You get the football. You get the recruiting. It's legendary. As I said all along, EA Sports would have an easy way to get around the rules that you can't use players' likeness and think the Ed O'Banion case. It's easy. Just create a roster of entirely fake people and then let the crazy people on the internet

create the real-life rosters where they upload the size, the names. I mean, that's what they did on the old NCAA games at the end anyway. They weren't allowed to use players' names. I mean, that's what they did on the old NCAA games at the end anyway. They weren't allowed to use players' names. Now they use their likeness. You know, if you had a star, it'd be Tim Tebow, number 15 for Florida, white quarterback out there with running game. You know, that's obvious. It's Tim Tebow. But heck, if Florida has Kyle Trask at quarterback, then make it a Hispanic quarterback who's a totally different

number or whatever, and then there will be people who create custom rosters, and you can just upload those, and now the problem's solved. The users are happy, they get the rosters and the game that they want, but you still get NCAA, and EA gets to make money off their game. Now, I've heard a lot of people bring up the concerns, Madden is trash, and you're right, Madden is trash. It's a terrible game, but guess who still buys Madden every year and still likes playing Madden every so often me so guess what I'm gonna do I'm gonna get NCAA and it may be a trash game but I'm gonna

love it okay they have me I'm stuck there's nothing I can do I like the games even though they suck okay I got nothing for you all right? That's just what it is. But very exciting news for most of the football community and I couldn't go recording this podcast today without mentioning that to you guys. So that's going to do it for us today though. This is the Wednesday edition of the Locked on Titans podcast.

Going to be back with you on Thursday tomorrow. Glad I could get an episode back to you guys early in the morning for your morning commute. If you didn't listen to yesterday's show because it didn't come out in the morning, well, hey, today you get a double up. But that's going to do it for me today, folks. As always, I am your host, Tyler Rowland, and this was Locked on Titans. Thanks for watching!