Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Victory Monday - Titans Slay the Colts, #TitanUpTitanDown & Song of the AFC South

Episode Date: December 2, 2019

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Welcome to the Locked on Titans podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Rowland. Titans fans, it is a victory Monday, and it feels so, so sweet to get a victory over the Indianapolis Colts when it matters the most. The Titans definitely made us hold our breath. They made us wait. They made us cringe to get it, but that second half explosion showed us exactly the kind of team that this Titans team has become.

And they proved it again for us. So excited to break it all down with you guys. Go back to some of the stuff that we talked about on Friday to see how it turned out. Because a lot of it ended up being the reason the Titans were able to win this ball game. They were complimentary in all three phases. All three phases showed up and made a major impact on this game. So we will talk about all of that in our first segment. In our second segment, everybody's favorite segment,

tighten up and tighten down. And then in our third segment, we'll do Song of the AFC South in our playoff picture preview and take a look at what happened on Sunday around the NFL and how it impacted the Titans' playoff chances. Let's get it. Your Tennessee Titans lead story, a 31-17 victory over the Indianapolis Colts on the road, giving the Titans a 7-5 record and a chance to be tied for the AFC South division lead by Monday morning. What else to say other than the Titans played complimentary football throughout to give

themselves a chance to win this game. All three phases of the football team made a major impact and contribution on this game. Let's start with the special teams unit. No mistakes were made in terms of giveaways or fumbles or anything like that for the special teams unit. They did give up one good return to Naheem Hines on a punt return, but other than that, great special teams coverage. The Titans had a couple of decent returns, and then of course the field goal blocks. What a master play by Dane Cruikshank to get in between the space and block that field goal so that Ty Smith could pick it up and run it in and give the Titans a 24-17 lead. Not to mention the block kick that happened in the first half by Austin Johnson.

So the Titans special teams just played incredible throughout the day, made a bunch of different contributions, and even scored a touchdown for this ball club when they needed it the most. So shout out to the special teams unit, and shout out to special teams coach Craig Aukerman and Matt Edwards, the assistant special teams coach. Obviously those are coaches that don't really get a lot of publicity, so I want to make sure that we shout out them. The Titans special teams has been fantastic for most of the year, making big, huge plays, blocking kicks, scoring touchdowns here, and not making a lot of mistakes since the beginning of the season, so that's somebody who doesn't really get a lot of attention

or acclaim. Shout out Craig Aukerman, special teams coach for the Titans. On defense, the Titans did give up a lot of yards to Jacoby Brissett in the passing game, over 300 yards, but a lot of that was just bending and not breaking. The Titans held the Colts' vaunted rushing attack to only 82 yards on the ground. That is the lifeblood of the Colts team, and the Titans were able to completely eliminate that as a viable option. Get Jacoby Brissett throwing the football numerous times, which is what you want the Colts to do. Late in the game, the Titans' pressures and blitzes finally started getting there. As I said on Friday, I expected the Titans to go man and try to blitz Jacoby Brissett, get him on the move, and make him make mistakes. In the first half, it was tough. The Colts were really blocking things

up. They were figuring out where the pressure was coming from, and they weren't letting a lot get to Jacoby Brissett. But in the second half, we saw that start to flip. Kenny Vaccaro got home on a few pressures. Harold Landry got there and was able to force Jacoby Brissett into an interception and a couple of really bad throws. The Titans turned over the Colts three times to their only two turnovers. The Titans were turning over the ball in the first half. So it was very important that the defense was able to flip that and get some turnovers on their own. Huge play by the defense, getting home on blitzes,

putting pressure on Brissette, and holding the run down. They did what they had to do despite giving up a lot of yards. And then on offense, it was ugly at times. Derrick Henry got going, of course, pretty early, but it didn't seem like the passing game could get going. And the passing game really didn't get going throughout the day until that late touchdown with Kalief Raymond. They just did enough of what they had to do,

and luckily got put in a lot of good positions by the special teams unit and by the defense. So the offense was able to run the ball on this Colts defense, which was doing a very good job of stopping the run. So putting all those factors together, very impressive win for the Tennessee Titans. The special teams did what they needed to do. The offense was able to run the ball against this team. And like I said on Friday, watch for that bootleg and them throwing the backside.

Now we didn't see it be Anthony Ferkser or Jonu Smith or a tight end as you normally see in the NFL, but we did see Khalif Raymond on the opposite side of the field on a bootleg going right, throw back to the left, be the final touchdown to really cap off the game. So exciting to see three of our key game point plans on Friday when we did our game review kind of showing up here and talking about how they actually played out on the field. So all three phases of the team contributed offense, defense, and especially special teams. So I have to give a big shout out to Mike Vrabel. This is the kind of football, this is the kind of football team that he is trying to build and put in place. And

we are seeing it play out week after week. The Titans are now 5-1 in their last six games, and as we mentioned at the beginning, have a chance to be leading the AFC South on Monday morning. But we will cover all of that in our third segment when we do our song of the AFC South and our playoff picture preview and talk about everything that happened on Sunday as it pertains to the Titans' playoff chances. Before we get to our third segment, though, we're going to stop in with everyone's favorite segment, Tighten Up, Tighten Down. So we will get to that next.

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Tighten up, tighten down. So let's jump into the tighten ups. There's a bunch of them. So I just want to get through them as quick as I can and celebrate and highlight all the people who made some excellent individual efforts. Anytime that you have a game like that, where things just aren't really going your way very often, and you need all three phases of the team to contribute, there's going to be tons of love and adulation to pass around. So we will start with the king, the groundwork, the foundation of this entire football team. Derrick Henry was able to rush for 149 yards and a touchdown. He's the first running back with 90 plus yards on the Colts on the season. Excellent. Three straight games with 100 yards.

That's his longest streak of his career. He's just been incredible. And while some of his deficiencies in the past game, at least in terms of running routes, being agile out of the backfield, did show up, some of his improvements in the past game in terms of his blitz pickup, his pass protection, showed up as well. So Derek Henry, fantastic game. The King continues to reign.

Also, Harold Landry, again, another sack. That is nine on the season. He only had three tackles and one tackle for loss and one sack, but the pressure that he put on Jacoby Brissett caused numerous mistakes from Brissett and it caused the interception to Kevin Byard as well. That will lead us into our three studs in the secondary. The Titans are banged up. Adoree went down and was out of this ballgame. Clearly without Malcolm Butler, without LaShawn Sims, seeing Kareem Orr, seeing Joshua Kalou, seeing Ty Smith out there contributing, we need our playmakers to step up. Kevin Byard, another interception. Logan, Ryan, another interception. Kenny Vaccaro, another fantastic performance, blitzing, acting as a linebacker in pass coverage situations.

Those three were all over the field at all times for the Titans, making things possible for this team and this defense to stay in it. Taylor LeJuan and Roger Saffold, the broadcast team, even mentioned how much success the Titans were having running to the outside, primarily to the left. Taylor LeJuan and Roger Saffold really turning up their level of play here in this stretch that the Titans have been on. Want to give a big shout out as well to Ty Smith. Had that forced fumble there at the end. Had the recovery for the TD on the blocked field goal, played a lot of snaps out there on defense. Excellent play there.

Also, want to give a shout out to J-Rob. Kareem Orr had eight tackles. Like I just said, Ty Smith played well. We've seen contributions from Joshua Kalou blocking that field goal. We see the back of this roster making plays week to week. The Titans are really banged up right now in the secondary and on the edge, and consistently we see these back end of the roster, some of the practice squad guys being elevated, some of the lower end guys in terms of the active roster. It just keeps popping up week after week that the depth of

this roster, and it was especially challenged in this game based on the Colts had some injuries as well. So we're seeing the back half and the roster depth of the Colts being challenged against the Titans and the Titans players were able to make plays when it counted the most. J-Rob building this roster that consistently, consistently competes in games. It's incredible what this roster has become from what it was just a few short seasons ago. One more thing, I do want to make sure I point this out. Ryan Suckup, six for six last week on his extra points. This week, five for five on his extra points, one field goal, or I'm sorry, five for five on his kicks, four extra points, one field goal. He's making his kicks, folks folks and like we've said kicking his

confidence so maybe these extra points that he's had the opportunity to practice on will get him back to where he was before the injury so that is going to do it for our tighten ups let's go to the tighten downs and of course if i missed anybody that you guys think i should have put there oh i do want to say one more tighten up here. Just the coaches and their second half adjustments. The Titans came out and won the second half 24-7. Shout out Dean Pease. Shout out Craig Aukerman like we did before the special teams coach. And shout out Arthur Smith for their ability to adjust at halftime and change this football game. So we will go to our Titan downs. And of course, in this scenario, because of the way the game went, there's not a lot of them, but just a few short ones I do want to make sure that I hit on a Dory Jackson got hurt during the

game hurt his knee wasn't able to return with how banged up the cornerbacks are right now we really cannot afford to lose a Dory who's been pretty consistent and pretty excellent for most of the season Derrick Henry another fumble it's something that I worry about watching him run the ball all the time. He really, really has to focus on keeping that arm in, especially when he's holding the ball in his left arm. It's something that other teams are clearly noticing, and if he doesn't make note of that, it's going to bite the Titans in a bad situation. He was able to respond.

He had a funny answer to a question after the game in his press conference. They asked him you know how difficult is it to respond after you fumble early he said did you see the game and I agree but it's going to bite the titans in a situation where they can't come back from it eventually if he doesn't clean that up the same thing Ryan Tannehill another fumble in the pocket whether he loses them gets them back whatever it's such an issue he's definitely got to work it, but I do want to say that he came back and wasn't scared of the rush going forward. Continued to take chances and sling the ball down the field and keep his eyes up. So, just a couple tightened downs there for the turnovers and some injuries. And then,

Rashawn Evans, no solo tackles, two assists, had that bad personal foul penalty. A couple of games back to back now where Rashawn just hasn't been his best. So hopefully that's just a part of the game flow and the way things went and hopefully he can get back on track next week. So that's going to do it for tighten up, tighten down. A lot of good tighten ups, a lot of people to point to. I thought that as I said on Friday, the role players in the run game, Austin Johnson, Matt Dickerson, played pretty well and kind of helped the Titans corral that run game. They didn't have Marlon Mack, but still this offensive line typically

is going to be able to push people around. And the Titans were really up to the challenge on defense there. So shout out to the Titans role players in run defense, including Daquan Jones as well. We will go to Song of the AFC South next, and we will talk about the Titans division rivals and their results on Sunday, how they play into the Titans chances of making the playoffs. And then of course, we'll take a look at all the other playoff contenders in the AFC and see how they did on Sunday as well. Song of the AFC South and our playoff picture preview. Guys, I stayed up until around midnight Eastern Standard Time

just so I could make sure to give you the results of the Texans-Patriots game because I thought the Patriots would be able to handle business, but Tom Brady looked absolutely terrible. The Texans offense did not. They have playmakers and the Patriots looked bad. They put on a little bit of a rush there at the end to try to get close. But boy, that offense really looked anemic. It's the Patriots, so I'm sure they'll win the Super Bowl by 10 points.

But man, definitely unfortunate. The Texans were able to beat the Patriots 28-22, meaning that the Titans do sit a game back from the AFC South division title. The Texans go to 8-4, the Titans at 7-5. That's disappointing. You definitely want the Titans to be in the mix, and we're hoping that the Patriots can help us out there. But ultimately, the Titans do get two games against the Texans remaining,

so they will be able to control their own destiny, as we've been saying so far. could help us out there but ultimately the Titans do get two games against the Texans remaining so they will be able to control their own destiny as we've been saying so far so win the football games and you will make it into the playoffs looking at the Titans other division rival just to get this out of the way the Jaguars are just falling off the rails I can't say that I don't enjoy this it's fantastic watching them kind of fall apart. They're supposed to have this dominant defense for so long, and their fans acted like cap space didn't exist. They lost 28-11 to the Buccaneers today.

Just a really despicable showing. Nick Foles got benched. Gardner Minshew came back. I don't really see either of them being a long-term answer for that ball club. Just to remind you, the Bills did beat the Cowboys on Thanksgiving 26-15. The Bills are at 9-3 now with the Patriots going to 10-2 and then having a game remaining. Things could get very, very interesting in the AFC East. Either way, it looks like they will have two teams represented in the playoffs, so that eliminates the first wild card spot as an option.

The Steelers were able to beat the Browns. That pretty much kind of eliminates the Browns from playoff contention. They dropped to 5-7. The Steelers improved to 7-5 with the 20-13 victory. The Chiefs demolished the Raiders. I had a feeling about the Raiders before the Jets game that they were kind of pretenders, to use a cliche. I feel validated in that concern. The Chiefs won 40-9.

The Chiefs improved to 8-4. The Raiders down to 6-6. And that takes us into a conversation about next week. The Titans will travel to Oakland and play the Raiders in what is another playoff game for the Titans. Hopefully they can get healthy here, especially in the defensive backfield. Hopefully Adoree can play next week. That's really the most important thing right now is getting everybody back healthy so that the Titans stand a chance of stopping anyone from scoring at this moment in time.

I know they only gave up 17, but it feels like without the turnovers, if the Colts played a little more solid, it could have got ugly because the Titans just don't have the horses out there right now. So, need to get healthy, need to put a good plan together to take advantage of this porous Raiders defense, and need to get a plan together to make Derek Carr beat the Titans next week. So those are the things that we'll focus on going forward. That was your game review, tighten up, tighten down, song of the AFC South in the playoff picture preview. We will be back tomorrow for Tic Tac Tuesday. Can't wait to break it all down with you guys. Excellent win. Glad to kind of get that monkey off our backs, get a win against the Colts.

It's a whole new feel with this team, and hopefully they carry that into Oakland next week. Either way, I am your host, Tyler Rowland, and this was Locked on Titans.