Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Titans Target Julio, Derrick Henry Endorsement, Titans Joint Practices & AFC South News

Episode Date: May 21, 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 Friday 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 every Monday through Friday.

Brian and Matt give you a national perspective on all of the latest NFL news, so make sure you check out the Peacock and Williamson podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network, every weekday, wherever you get your podcasts. But to cap off this week of the Locked on Titans podcast, we are going to go over some Titans related or Titans adjacent news stories that have popped up in the last 24 to 48 hours. And we are going to start by talking about the latest information on Julio Jones. So obviously a big time target for Titans Twitter. But this recent report indicates Julio's status currently with the Falcons,

what teams could be interested in his services. I'll also tell you how much cap space the Titans have right now to make that move and how they can create more. Also, one very popular Tennessee Titans player seems very fond of the trade for Julio Jones, or at least the idea of trading for Julio Jones, and I will tell you which Tennessee Titan that is. And then we are going to talk about some preseason events that will take place for the Tennessee Titans, one of them confirmed and one of them very much expected to take place. So I know that preseason games are being cut down, but here's a great way for the Titans to make up that competitive work.

So we'll talk about that in the middle of the show. And then finally, we will move into some, as I mentioned, Titans adjacent news, talking about some of the bigger stories that have come out recently with some Titans division rivals. And I'll just speak my piece on those moves and those stories. But excited to cap off this week here on the Locked on Titans podcast. Let's get it. Titans fans, we are going to get into this latest report on Julio Jones.

But before we do, I want to remind you, I'm going to be putting out Monday through Friday daily Tennessee Titans content, not only during the season, but all year long here on the Locked on Titans podcast. Make sure you never miss an episode by subscribing or following on whatever platform you do stream. episode by subscribing or following on whatever platform you do stream. Also, follow me on Twitter at TicTacTitans and on Facebook at LockedOnTitansPod. But this most recent report on Julio comes from the athletic writer Jeff Schwartz, and he had two very intriguing quotes. And the first quote is, quote, the Falcons would like to trade Julio Jones.

End quote. Next one, one league source said the Titans also may show interest, but they are close to the cap ceiling. So there are a couple of different teams that were involved, I guess, or were put into this report as having interest in Julio Jones. And those teams consisted of the Ravens, the 49ers, the Patriots, the Colts, the Chargers, and then, of course, the Titans. So those are the teams that will be battling it out for Julio Jones' services.

They mentioned in this rumor that the Titans are up against the cap. Essentially, that is one of the concerns. Now, we have talked a lot this offseason about how the Titans could instantly create more cap space. All they would have to do is restructure Ryan Tannehill's contract. So right now, the Titans are showing at about $3.9 million in cap space per NFL sources, specifically Albert Breer from Sports Illustrated. So like I said, the Titans could really carve out a good amount of cap space per NFL sources, specifically Albert Breer from Sports Illustrated. So like I said, the Titans could really carve out a good amount of cap space and much more

than they need to absorb Julio Jones's $15 million contract with one swift move restructuring Ryan Tannehill. And John Robinson earlier in the offseason said they didn't want to do that because they didn't want to push money into the future. Also, to me, that looks like kind of an ace in the hole card. Some cards that John Robinson wants to leave up his sleeve. But you leave those cards up your sleeve for a moment like this. For a moment like this.

Okay, I won't put you guys through that any longer. But you know what I'm saying. These are the type of moves where you hold your best card in case you need it. This is the kind of thing that we're talking about here. So the Titans only have about $3.9 million. They need over $15 million to get Julio. But of course, an easy move to restructure Ryan Tannehill would make that possible for the Titans. So I really like that as a possibility. We've talked about that a lot. Now, what was very interesting was one particular Tennessee Titan who came out and endorsed the move, you could say,

but Derrick Henry saw a tweet, basically, that came out about this move, and it was from Bleacher Report, and it basically went over the report from Jeff Schultz, like we talked about, the team's interested, that the Falcons would like to trade Julio. And all Derrick Henry had to say was, tighten the F up. So take that for what you will,

but if Derrick Henry is publicly endorsing the move, well, that's obviously going to get me excited. It's going to get a lot of Titans fans excited. And I can only hope that Derrick Henry would, in fact, find a way to make this move more possible if he could. I know that he would, and he's not a guy who's going to get, I guess, overly public or overly aggressive with his public sentiments, but I just found that interesting, just fun, nice to see. Now, one thing that I do want to point out is one of the teams on that list that would just absolutely break my heart to see Julio Jones go to

is the Indianapolis Colts. They need wide receiver help in a similar way to the Titans. Now, they don't have an A.J. Brown, but they still need a lot of help. But here's what Pat McAfee had to say on the Pat McAfee show, that he texted GM Chris Ballard about getting Julio Jones, and his only response was a laughing emoji. And then the Locked On Colts podcast Twitter account, our guy Evan Sidery, who runs the Locked On podcast for the Colts,

said, said, quote, Pat McAfee says Colts GM Chris Ballard sent a laughing reaction text in response to McAfee asking if they would go after Julio Jones. Yeah, it was never going to happen. Boom. So nice to know, at minimum, that the Colts will not be getting Julio Jones because if the Titans missed out on Julio and then he went to the Colts that would be as I mentioned heartbreaking but we are going to move forward talk about some of the Titans all-season plans and how they can make up for pre-season

the pre-season game that will be lost this year as the NFL cuts down to three before we do want to remind you guys about betonline.ag the fastest and easiest way to bet on all your sports action no there isn't any football to bet on but you got baseball season in full swing NHL playoffs NBA playoffs there's golf events UFC MMA action throughout the summer make sure that you head over to the website betonline.ag, sign up for free today. Use the promo code LOCKEDON, that's one word, LOCKEDON, and you'll get a 50% welcome bonus on your first deposit. BetOnline, your online sportsbook experts.

We kicked off this Friday edition of the Locked on Titans podcast talking about the most recent update on Julio Jones and the Titans' pursuit of the wide receiver. But now I want to dive into some recent changes we got in the way of the Titans pre-season. So of course this year the NFL added a 17th regular season game and to offset things they removed one of the four pre-season games. So there are only three pre-season games for the Titans this year. First week of pre-season Is a game against the Falcons in Atlanta. The second week of the preseason. Is a game on the road in Tampa Bay.

Against the Buccaneers. And then the Titans finish the preseason. With a home game against the Chicago Bears. Now. What is interesting about that? Well look at the first two opponents. The Titans face. The Atlanta Falcons.

And the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Two teams who the Titans have direct contact and direct ties to each organization for different reasons. But what does that mean and how can that benefit the Titans? Well, here's why. The Titans are losing a preseason game, which of course, any coach in the NFL won't want to lose opportunities to get looks at the end of the roster guys or to, at minimum, start installing a system if it's new. Think about Arthur Smith in Atlanta. We want to get as many reps as possible before the real games kick off

to practice his offense, get guys comfortable. So any game reps that coaches can get, they want those. So when you take away a preseason game, something that we have seen teams do for quite some time now, we're going to see ratcheted up in the future. And that is joint practices where two teams come together and practice together for the week. One, some of the benefits,

not only are you getting to see your guys practice against a different team, that's going to help you. You get used to certain guys. You learn their tendencies when you're with them every day. You get used to the routes that are going to be called. You get used to the routine of practice. When you start going against guys who you're not used to going against every single day, one, as a coach, you get a better look at the players in a competitive environment. And from a player perspective, you get an opportunity to sharpen your craft, get tools in your toolbox against guys you're not used to seeing, which is more of a replication of what you'll get during the season. So a ton of different benefits there.

But the Titans officially, we know, will have a joint practice with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers before their preseason game on August the 21st. So like I said, week two, the Titans play the Buccaneers in the preseason. They're going to go down to Tampa. They're going to practice with the Bucs for the week leading up to it and then ultimately culminating in that preseason game. So it's very exciting. Now, why the Tampa Bay Buccaneers?

Well, one, general manager John Robinson for the Titans came from Tampa Bay. Yeah, he spent time with New England, but he came directly from Tampa Bay when he was hired by the Titans. He's got a close relationship with a lot of people in the building, including the Buccaneers General Manager Jason Light. So it makes all the sense in the world. Not only do they have a preseason game together, but they also have a ton of connections and ties throughout both organizations. So I really like

that. And let's be honest here. The Bucks won the Super Bowl last year. I want the Titans going up against the Super Bowl champions every single day. Iron, iron, let me try that again. Iron sharpens iron. So to me, I could not think of a better outcome than the Titans getting to get some practice reps in and spend an entire week going up against the Super Bowl champions, not only for the competitiveness on the field, but for the habits and the day-to-day practice. And then, of course, not only the organizational ties between John Robinson and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but you can't forget to mention Mike Vrabel and one of his best friends, Tom Brady. So get a little bit more of that banter.

And I do want to say that the last time that the Tennessee Titans and Tom Brady had joint practices together for a week, the Titans beat Tom Brady in the playoffs later that year. Titans beat Tom Brady in the playoffs later that year. If the Titans were to beat Tom Brady in the playoffs later this year, that's a Super Bowl championship. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. Now, the next team that I want to look at here is actually the Titans' week one preseason opponent,

and it's the Atlanta Falcons. And obviously, guys, you got Dean Pease there you got Arthur Smith there the Titans could most certainly set up joint practices with the Falcons for the week before that matchup as well and I would absolutely love that the Titans defense would get to go against Arthur Smith's offense. And the reality is here, a lot of offenses in the NFL now are mirroring the type of offense that the Titans are. So you get to not only go up against the Titans version of it, you get to go up against the Falcons version of it. Man, it would be great if the Titans were to trade for Julio Jones

and he would get to go against his old team in those practices. But either way, I just think it is a perfect way to test the Titans defense to go up against that sort of offense. It's similar to theirs. And I also think it would be a great test for the Titans offense because Dean Pease is the defensive coordinator and he knows that offense almost just as well as Arthur Smith and the Titans offense does because he went against them every single day in practice for two years as well. Well, not obviously in 2020, but the years before. So I just think that's a fantastic concept. It works out perfectly that two organizations, probably the top three organizations I would say the Titans have ties with are the Patriots, the Bucks, and the Falcons

now. So the fact that two of those people are on the Titans preseason schedule and it's essentially seamless for them to conduct these preseason practices. I am such a big fan of these joint practices for all the reasons that I mentioned before, but also with the removal of preseason games, with the dumbing down of preseason games anyway, these joint practices are more important than they ever have been before. And quite honestly, I think the joint practices are more beneficial and more productive to coaches than even the preseason games. That's how I view things because you can put guys in certain situations. The NFL game is all about situational football. I read a quote from Chip Kelly when he was coaching with the Philadelphia Eagles

where he talked about the NFL being so much more specialized with situational football. We're talking red zone. We're talking two-minute drill. We're talking four-minute drill. Things like that. So when you consider that, these practices, these joint practices give you more time to practice situational things rather than just going through a normal game with your backup. So for me, while preseason games do have a ton of benefit, I think the joint practices are even more beneficial than the preseason games on the face. So very exciting to see if the Titans do end up adding a week of joint practices with the

Falcons before week one of the preseason. But what we do know is we do know that they will be spending that second week of the preseason prior to week two playing against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Tampa in joint practices. So that's absolutely awesome. Cannot wait for all of the reports to come in, the videos to come in, the pictures to come into that. Heck, I can't wait for minicamp and everything that's to come. I'm just ready for some football.

I'm dying for it at this point. But we are going to conclude this week of the Locked on Titans podcast in this Friday episode by just talking about some miscellaneous news items that popped up for some of the Titans division rivals. Going to speak my piece on that, including some big news for the Houston Texans and even bigger news for the Jacksonville Jaguars. So we'll get into that to cap off today's show next. Titans fans, before we get out of here, just want to remind you guys,

make sure you check out the Locked On Today podcast hosted by the great Peter Bukowski of the Locked On Packers podcast. Basically, the Locked On Today podcast is all of the biggest sports stories, not just NFL, but all of them in every major sport condensed down into under 20 minutes. The way that I always explain it, it's like having the sports section read to you. So of course, you're going to listen to the Locked on Titans podcast and get all your Tennessee Titans specific news.

But to get all of the major sports stories, again, in under 20 minutes, make sure you check out the Locked on Today podcast on whatever platform you do stream. But let's talk about some of the Titans division rivals here and we are going to start with the Houston Texans and in a very peculiar move the Texans signed another quarterback free agent Jeff Driscoll who I actually had hoped the Titans maybe would kick the tires on as a backup quarterback I think he'd be far better than Kaiser or Logan Woodside. But either way, he's on the Texans now. And that means that the Texans have added four quarterbacks this offseason. They added Tyrod Taylor.

They added Ryan Finley via trade. They added Davis Mills out of the draft. And then they just added Jeff Driscoll as a free agent as well to go along with Tyrod Taylor. So why are they doing that? Well, obviously the Deshaun Watson situation is up and down. Who knows what's going to go on with Watson. There are some people that believe he won't play a snap in the NFL this year. I don't know about that. I'm not going to make my ruling on what's going to happen there because I simply don't know. But why in the heck would you sign Tyrod Taylor to a decent deal, trade assets to get Ryan Finley, use the first

draft pick that you have in the draft when you're probably going to have the number one pick next year on a quarterback, and then sign another free agent quarterback as well. What the heck are they doing in Houston? I don't really know. I mean, obviously this is going to benefit the Titans. I want Houston to go 0-17 if possible, but I can't even, from a reasonable mind standpoint, just looking logically at the roster, understand what the heck they are doing.

I mean, as I mentioned, anything bad for the Texans is good for the Titans, but it's just completely perplexing. I just have absolutely no idea why that would be the case. But with that being said, the next piece of Texans news that's perplexing, they signed Taewon Taylor. What? Why? Why? Why would they do that?

I don't understand. So I just wanted to take this opportunity to let you guys know that I'm really looking forward to the division crossover thing when we get to talk to the guys from Locked On Texans because, man, it's an embarrassing offseason. It's an embarrassing time for Houston. Cannot lie. But let's talk about the next division rival for the Titans that was in the news,

and that is the Jacksonville Jaguars. And I may have mentioned this on a previous podcast, but today, or Thursday, they made it official. They're signing Tim Tebow as a tight end. I just wanted to take a minute and speak on this. So number one, I want to preface this by saying, when Tebow was in the NFL last, what, eight years ago as a quarterback, I loved Tebow.

That run with the Broncos was awesome, and I do fully believe that if a team would have given Tim Tebow the opportunity like the Ravens have given Lamar Jackson and totally suited an offense to his skill set, they would have been a successful team. Now, I don't think they would have won a Super Bowl or anything like that, but they would have been a successful team for a short time. I want to say that.

But this is all nonsense, man. It's just nonsense. Tim Tebow's not a tight end. He's not going to be a productive tight end. This is an Urban Meyer ego stroke. This is, hey, I know the guy shouldn't be in the NFL. I know he hasn't played in eight years. I know that there are 50 other tight end prospects

who deserve this opportunity more than he does. But hey, that's my guy. It's like when Urban Meyer hired that strength and conditioning coach from Iowa, I do believe, and had to fire him a month later. from Iowa, I do believe, and had to fire him a month later. Urban Meyer does not care about your merits. He does not care about whether or not you're good enough to be there, whether or not you should be there.

All he cares about is having his guys, that buddy-buddy club in the NFL that we always hear about. Urban Meyer is going to fit right in because he's only going to deal with guys who he has a very close personal relationship with. And the reality is that's how life is, guys. You hear the saying, it's not what you know, it's who you know. That is the truth. Now, you could say it like that and it sounds negative with a positive connotation. It's just called networking.

It's what we call that in the professional world. But either way, this is just too much, man. This is just too far into that. I'm sorry, but Tim Tebow is a heck of a leader. But when you're a guy who shouldn't even be on the roster and you're getting an opportunity, it's hard to lead. And it's hard for guys to respect you. And they're all going to talk nice down in Jacksonville no matter what.

But there's no way around this. Tim Tebow being on that team is a distraction. And for a rookie head coach who's trying to transition from college into the NFL, who's already had some issues, ooh, man. Not off to a hot start. If they didn't get Trevor Lawrence, this would be a very, very rough beginning for Urban Meyer. So I just wanted to mention that quickly. I'm not worried about Tim Tebow whatsoever. Quite frankly, the way I view it, it's basically just for publicity and just for jersey sales

for the Jags. That's kind of how I see things at this moment in time. But either way, the division, it's in shambles. If Carson Wentz really isn't any good in Indy, the Titans have a very easy path to repeating as ASC South champions. But you never know how things could go, and that is why they play the games. But that's going to do it for me today, folks. Hope you guys all enjoy your weekend. As always, I am your host, Tyler Rowlandland and this was Locked on Titans.