Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Will Tennessee Titans Fire Mike Vrabel, Will Levis Pressure Stats & Crushing the Carolina Panthers

Starting point is 00:00:00 Titans head coach Mike Vrabel could be out of a job if he loses at home against the Carolina Panthers. And it's fair to question whether he's the right man for the job. We'll talk about that and more in today's edition of the Locked On Titans podcast. Let's get it! 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.

Starting point is 00:00:44 I am your host, Tyler Rowland, Titans fans. Today's edition of the Locked on Titans podcast is brought to you by GameTime. Download the GameTime app, create an account, use the code LOCKEDONNFL for $20 off your first purchase, last-minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. Is Mike Rabel the man for the job? He could be out of a job if he loses to the Carolina Panthers in week 12. Diving into the tape on what will

Starting point is 00:01:09 Levis look like in week 11 against the Jags and I think the Titans crush the Panthers this weekend to save Mike Rabel's job. So we're going to get into all of that. Before we do thank you for making the Locked on Titans podcast your first listen each and every day. Remember Monday through Friday Tennessee Titans content all year round, always for free.

Starting point is 00:01:30 Make sure that you get subscribed, stay subscribed. It's your team every day here on the Locked on Titans podcast. I am your host again, Tyler Rowland, nearly 25 years as a certified Tennessee Titans fanatic, a staff writer for Sports Illustrated over at alltitans.com, and of course, a film junkie ready to dive into the X's and O's with you guys. Tomorrow is What's Next Wednesday. We're going to take a look ahead

Starting point is 00:01:52 at some of the lineup decisions the Titans have to make, talk more about what the Titans need to do on offense and win this game against the Carolina Panthers. But what it comes down to for me when you talk about Mike Rabel, and I hate the discourse because it's so black and white right now. It's so, the roster's bad, so Mike Vrabel's not at fault at all.

Starting point is 00:02:14 Or fire Mike Vrabel, it's all his fault. It's all in between. When I always find myself in the middle, the roster is bad. That's the truth. The roster is bad. That's the truth. The roster is bad. We all know it. We've known it for quite some time now.

Starting point is 00:02:32 But that doesn't completely absolve a coach of all wrongdoing. That doesn't immediately, when a roster is bad, doesn't mean that the Titans coaches are now completely blameless. And let's be honest here. We say that the Titans roster is bad. A lot of you guys in my comment section every week were predicting the Titans to have a winning record. At the end of the day, you look at the Titans on defense.

Starting point is 00:02:55 They've got a ton of money in their defensive line with Key and Autry and Simmons and Landry. They should have been better than what they were. You got a $10 million safety in Imani Hooker. They had Kevin Byard for six weeks. Christian Fulton and Roger McCreary are second-round picks. You brought in Sean Murphy Bunting as a free agent, so clearly you liked him, and that's the new regime.

Starting point is 00:03:17 So to me, the talent on the defensive side of the ball, at least, is not as bad as the defense has been. We can talk about the offensive line and the wide receivers and you're playing a rookie quarterback and all that. All we want on offense, sure. But on defense the Titans roster talent is not as bad on defense as their team is. As the actual team on the field is. So to me there is a middle ground here of we can acknowledge that the field is. So, to me, there is a middle ground here of, we can acknowledge that the roster

Starting point is 00:03:47 is not great. The talent level is not as high as it has been before under Mike Vrabel. But at the same time, point to things that the Titans don't do well under Mike Vrabel. When have the Titans ever been a good special teams team? Right? Like, they blocked a couple of kicks in 2019. I think it was 2021. They were average. But what if the Titans made a game changing play in the return game? What if the Titans blocked a field goal? They partially blocked one that still went in this weekend. What if the Titans blocked a big field goal? What if the Titans

Starting point is 00:04:20 blocked a punt? What if the Titans returned a kickoff? Like the Titans special teams is never a good factor. All right? And I want to bring this up. In Mike Vrabel's press conference on Monday, he said that the Jacksonville Jaguars are the better coach team and that they've got the better team. You picked your coaches.

Starting point is 00:04:44 And I know that Mike Vrabel, it's press conference Mike Vrabel, he's probably just saying what he can. Just laying on the sword. Hey, they have better coaches. They have a better team. My roster sucks. I'm not doing a great job either. Trying to find it in between. But they're better coached. You

Starting point is 00:04:59 picked your coaches. I feel like that's lost in this conversation. Mike Vrabel redid his coaching staff this year. So when Mike Vrabel says that they are better coached, is he saying that he picked the wrong coaching staff this year? That he tried to evolve his coaching staff and he just made it even worse? Is that what he's saying? Because the development of not only your players, but your coaches,

Starting point is 00:05:22 and how you assemble your staff is also important in the evaluation of a coach outside of just how bad or good their roster is. A lot of coaches with a good roster could be good. And let's talk about this. When was Mike Vrabel hired? Mike Vrabel was hired after the Titans went 9-7 and won a playoff game.

Starting point is 00:05:43 He took over a good roster. A roster that needed a coach and a quarterback to elevate it. That's what it needed. Alright? Well, is Mike Vrabel the man to build a good roster? Is he the coach to develop young players into a good roster? Is that the type of coach Mike Vrabel is? Because again, I've said it all week and a lot of you guys get on me. Mike Vrabel is not a good coach. Mike Vrabel is a good roster? Is that the type of coach Mike Vrabel is? Because again, I've said it all week

Starting point is 00:06:05 and a lot of you guys get on me. Mike Vrabel is not a good coach. Mike Vrabel is a good coach. But that doesn't mean he's the right coach for the Titans. Because I've said it all week and I'm going to keep saying it. The Titans don't just need a singer right now.

Starting point is 00:06:18 They need someone who can write the song. The Titans don't just need a driver. They need someone who can build the engine as well. The Titans don't just need a rapper to get on the verse. They need someone who can make the beat, record the hook, master the audio. The Titans need somebody who's going to be able to build this thing up. And Mike Vrabel, to me, seems like a hard-nosed, old-school, conservative coach that will, with a good roster full of veteran players, drive them to the right place. He won't make any mistakes.

Starting point is 00:06:48 He won't let the team beat themselves. He'll just take a good roster and make sure it does what it's supposed to. But is he going to take a bad roster with a bunch of young players that the Titans are getting ready to draft and elevate them and develop them into good players? I have my doubts. And if you want to have your doubts about that, you are fair to do that. It's unbelievable that there are people right now

Starting point is 00:07:10 who are saying, hey, roster's bad, can't criticize Mike Vrabel. Roster's bad, can't judge any of his work. Roster's bad, no evaluation of the coaching staff. Roster's too bad. And I'm sorry, you can admit that the roster is bad and also still expect some development here. Where are the developing players? Burks, worse. Chica Conqua, worse. Nicholas Petit-Ferrer got worse. Aaron Brewer moved to center

Starting point is 00:07:35 and it's still not good enough. You look on defense, Rashad Weaver had five and a half sacks last year getting back-to-back inactives two out of the last three weeks. Christian Fulton, has he gotten better? Molden moved to safety. Has he gotten better?

Starting point is 00:07:51 What about the linebackers? Monte Rice was supposed to be a starter. Barely even played until last week. What about David Long? They develop him into a good starter. Let him go because Mike Frabel doesn't like him. Like, and back to the special teams point. The Titans have let better players go,

Starting point is 00:08:10 like Josh Reynolds or Kalief Raymond. Other players, they have let players go that didn't want to be a part of coverage units or couldn't give them enough value on special teams. But yet the special teams is still not elite ever. So the philosophy is actively hurting the team because it's not resulting in what it's supposed to result in. If you're going to be a team that's old school and hard-nosed,

Starting point is 00:08:35 you got to play special teams. I mean, Traylon Burks was playing special teams in his rookie year while getting out-snapped at wide receiver by other players. Like, if you're going to be that way, you better be right about it. Because you're trying to go the hardest path possible. You're trying to go against the grain. And when you do that,

Starting point is 00:08:56 and when you fall as far as the Titans have fallen, last 17 games, they're 3-14. I don't care if the roster is bad. There are plenty of examples of Mike Vrabel during his tenure where it's examples that tell us he may not be the guy to develop a young roster with a young quarterback. He may not be the guy to do that. And just because the roster is bad doesn't mean that we aren't allowed to question that. And if Mike Vrabel goes out there and gets beat by Frank Reich and Bryce Young at home, they lose on the road.

Starting point is 00:09:29 They're terrible on the road. We know that. But if they come home and they lose to that Carolina Panthers team, I am not willing to say with certainty that Amy Adams Strunk will not fire Mike Vrabel in the middle of the season through sheer embarrassment. I don't think it's the most likely outcome, but people tell you that you can't criticize the coaching staff because the roster is bad,

Starting point is 00:09:52 or that Vrabel is above being fired because the roster is bad. To me, that's letting them off the hook way, way too easy. But with that being said, we're going to talk about Will Levis and what I saw on tape against the Jacksonville Jaguars. Before we get into it though, I do want to let you guys know that today's episode is brought to you by GameTime. GameTime is the best place for last-minute tickets.

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Starting point is 00:11:38 Look, it's the end of the year. You guys know how that goes. For some people, it's great. They look forward to the holidays, but it's not like that for everyone. A lot of people struggle with seasonal blues, and the holiday season can bring up some tough memories, quite honestly. And if you're somebody like that, or if you're not, and you're just looking to be the best version of yourself, I would tell you that you have to check out BetterHelp Online Therapy. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try.

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Starting point is 00:13:08 We talked about Mike Vrabel at length and how I think there's a fine line between evaluating the coaching staff and letting them off the hook for a bad roster. Kind of everything that we know now. I think Mike Vrabel is really under the gun right now. Whether some people want to admit it or not, but I want to move forward and do our weekly checkup on Will Levis and what the tape showed against the Jacksonville Jaguars. It was a weird game quite honestly, but I think it was another week where you could be excited about Will Levis.

Starting point is 00:13:32 Before we get into it though, do want to thank you guys for making the Locked on Titans podcast, your first listen each and every day. Do want to let you guys know though, Locked on has launched the first ever national Sports 24-7 streaming channel on YouTube. Locked On Sports Today is here for you 24-7, covering the top stories in sports with local experts from Locked On plus national shows. Go to Locked On Sports Today on YouTube and subscribe to the first ever

Starting point is 00:13:59 National Sports 24-7 streaming channel. Okay, so the Jaguars were bringing the heat all game long. And it was kind of crazy because the Jaguars, we talked about this on Friday, the Jaguars are a heavy, heavy zone coverage team. They had ran the fourth most zone coverage of any team in the NFL coming into the week. They were a team that did blitz. They did blitz. They were in the top 12, top half of the league in terms of blitz percentage. So not one of the most blitzing teams

Starting point is 00:14:31 in the NFL, but they definitely aren't a team that sits back all the time. In this game, Jacksonville early on played tight man coverage. Like they came out and pressed coverage early on on a couple early third downs. And then what they did was in the second half, they showed press coverage until literally right before the snap of the ball and then they bailed out into a zone coverage

Starting point is 00:14:54 usually like cover two. Okay? So, they showed the Titans real press man coverage early in the game and then they faked the press man coverage later and dropped back into zones. Levis made the right decisions though and that's really where this gets me. Will Levis made the right decisions? And that's what I was encouraged about. And Mike Rabel even talked about

Starting point is 00:15:15 that on Monday at his press conference. He said he was pretty pleased with the decision-making. And he said it himself, and I agree. There are a couple turnover-worthy plays in there. Turnover-worthy play is throwing a ball into harm's way where it might be intercepted, fumbling the ball, something like that, blah, blah, blah. There were a couple of turnover-worthy throws, I would say like two plays where I think Levis could have caused a turnover with the throw. But overall, he made the right decisions every time.

Starting point is 00:15:46 And one that I'm thinking of, a throw to DeAndre Hopkins over the middle on a dig route was a little high, but I thought he got it to Hopkins' hands. They're in a tight spot. They're losing. You got to throw the ball. You got to make a play. The one that I didn't like, though, and I posted this on Twitter, at TicTacTitans, when Will Levis gets out of the sack in the first half

Starting point is 00:16:05 and then he starts backpedaling to his left and throws it to Josh Wiley and it's almost intercepted because he doesn't see the outside cornerback, those are plays you can't have. You can't have those. But outside of those two things, he made all the right decisions about where to throw the football when he had time.

Starting point is 00:16:23 When he actually had time to make plays, he delivered perfect strikes. Chris Moore, DeAndre Hopkins, like when they gave Levis time to throw, to even set himself and make a decent throw, he was able to make some great throws, and he made the right decisions. And we've been talking about decision-making the last three weeks. I thought his decisions in this game were great. He had a 148 passer rating, 13 for 17. I mean, it's just so obvious that Levis is promising. Levis is encouraging. You should be optimistic about Will Levis. If this guy was on any kind of team whatsoever on offense, he could be cutting it up right now. Now he's going to make the turnover worthy plays. And in the tweet that I posted of the play that I talked about where he escapes the sack and makes the bad throw and it's almost picked, it has some Carson Wentz to it. But on the good side of that, you get some Josh Allen, you get some Matthew Stafford. And if the Titans give Levis a

Starting point is 00:17:20 comfortable surrounding at some point, because he's on a rookie quarterback contract, and that's what they should be able to do. It's not asking a lot to create that environment for a quarterback when he's on a rookie contract for a second rounder. That's the entire advantage of doing that. So if they can do that, he'll make big plays. He'll make game winning plays. And he's shown the flashes that we want to see. Like if you're somebody who wants the Titans to have as high of a draft pick as possible, then Saturday might have been perfect. Because it was obvious how bad everything around

Starting point is 00:17:56 Will Levis was, but he was making great decisions, still made some really awesome plays, but the Titans still lost. And the draft pick gets better. So I can see it from that, but just based on what I saw, the right decisions, the arm talent under immense pressure with nobody open, man. There are like three or four third downs that I have noted already where it's like, who is open here? No one's open. Because the Titans have seven people back blocking,

Starting point is 00:18:28 three people into routes, and two of them are Chris Moore and Chiggy Conquo or whatever. You know what I mean? It's just tough. It's just tough. And outside of that one game and the film from that one game, let me throw these stats at you to defend Levis a little bit more. Here is the pressure percentage for Will Levis the last four weeks. This is how many of his dropbacks he was under pressure. 41 against Atlanta.

Starting point is 00:18:59 41% of his dropbacks under pressure. 52% of his dropbacks against the Steelers. 44% of his dropbacks against the Bucs. 40% of his dropbacks against the Jags. Right now, out of every quarterback in the NFL that has as many dropbacks as Will Levis, he's second in the NFL. 45% of his dropbacks are pressured. Only person higher is Justin Fields. I mean. And you look at some of the advanced stats,

Starting point is 00:19:30 and shout out to my guy FWordsPod on Twitter, Zach Lyons, does a great job with the numbers. Completion percentage over expected, Levis is third. Air yards, Levis is 13th. This is going into this week against the Jags.

Starting point is 00:19:44 Expected, or expected points added plus completion percentage over expected. He's 10th. Success rate, he's 10th. Like, when you give him a chance, he's been good. So, the Jags had a great plan. They swallowed the Titans offense. They only ran like 37 plays or something. The film was 40 minutes.

Starting point is 00:20:06 Shortest film I've ever seen for a Titans offensive file. Crazy. So the Jacks kept the Titans off the field. They smothered them when they were on the field by out-coaching them, having a great plan, and then the Titans just don't have the talent to match. So I guess Mike Vrabel's saying that they are a better coach team and a better team.

Starting point is 00:20:23 Guess he's right. But it's not Will Levis' fault. With that being said, though, I think the Titans are going to win big this weekend against the Carolina Panthers. I think it's going to save Mike Vrabel's job. And I don't think that we can all be that mad about it. So we're going to talk about that in a moment.

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Starting point is 00:21:33 The app is super easy to use. There's a wide range of options. You can bet spreads, player props, over-unders, and more. Make sure that you visit FanDuel.com slash locked on and get in on the action this NFL season. Fandle, official partner of the NFL. Titans fans, let's cap off today's edition of the Locked on Titans podcast. We talked about Mike Vrabel in the first segment because let's be honest here,

Starting point is 00:22:18 the biggest talking point around this team right now is the job status of Mike Vrabel for better or for worse. Laid out how I felt about the situation, not saying that Vrabel should be fired right now or anything like that, but I just don't think that it's insane to have the conversations at the end of the day. Talked about that, Will Levis on tape, and the pressure that he's been under so far. It's insane.

Starting point is 00:22:37 Now I want to talk about this week, though. I want to spin it forward, get a head start on what's next Wednesday. Before I do, of course, thanks for making the Locked on Titans podcast your first listen each and every day. The Titans are a better team than the Panthers. The Titans are at home. Mike Vrabel has historically been great against Frank Reich. The Titans should have the coaching advantage.

Starting point is 00:23:07 I believe the Titans have the talent advantage. I also know the Titans are at home. Alright. Some updates. Chris Hubbard, probably going to be out. He got another concussion. He's in his mid-30s. Mike Vrabel is going to take it easy on him.

Starting point is 00:23:28 I wouldn't expect to see Chris Hubbard for a while. And if we're honest here, it gives the Titans a reason to play Jalen Duncan and take a look at him and get him reps too. So you want to prioritize youth. Chris Hubbard is not a guy who's going to be a part of the future for the Titans long term.

Starting point is 00:23:47 He's an older player. They got off the scrap heap right before the season. Maybe bring him back on the swing tackle or something like that, but the Titans shouldn't plan on having Chris Hubbard as their installed right tackle next year. Jalen Duncan, though, if he proves worthy, that's a possibility, okay? I watched Duncan on tape.

Starting point is 00:24:07 I'm going to be honest with you. There isn't a ton of like one-on-one stuff. A lot of blocking and play action. A lot of rollout stuff. Some run game stuff. I thought he was good. I thought Duncan was good in this game. And he was better than I expected.

Starting point is 00:24:23 But I don't think it was like some crazy, awesome standout performance where you start dancing. But I want to see more. I want to see more. I don't think it was dramatically worse than anything else that we saw, and that's promising. So we're going to see Jalen Duncan at right tackle, I would expect, going forward.

Starting point is 00:24:39 Dillard and Burks, still not out of concussion protocol, still not ready to roll. I wouldn't expect them to play this week either. Again, concussion guys. Burks had multiple concussions now in multiple years. I wouldn't expect Burks to play for a little while. So we're probably going to get Raidens at left tackle again. And look, Raidens struggled.

Starting point is 00:24:59 I said this last week. We have our answer. Now he has to keep playing now because Dillard's out, Hubbard's out, NPF is out. He has to keep playing now. He can't even say play Duncan because someone's got to play right tackle. But probably going to see Radins and Duncan at offensive tackle for the next few games.

Starting point is 00:25:18 So good luck, Will. We just talked about the pressure stats. Sean Murphy bunting could be back. That would be helpful for the Titans. I mean, Christian Fulton got benched again for Trey Avery. They're playing Roger McCreary out of position as a boundary cornerback when he's a slot cornerback. Getting Sean Murphy bunting,

Starting point is 00:25:37 who's been their best outside corner this year, back would be very helpful. Definitely. Honestly, though, Carolina, not a lot of big physical receivers that scare you Jonathan Mingo is good I like Mingo coming out of the draft but he's not somebody who I think is going to make like plays like Mike Evans would you know what I mean like they're not in the same category there so still would like to have Sean Murphy bunting back though just so Roger McCreary

Starting point is 00:26:03 can go back into the slot. That would be great. Titans started putting Elijah Molden back into the slot last week. It's kind of crazy, but that's what they had to do when they put Trey Avery and Roger McCreary. I mean, think about that. Elijah Molden, Trey Avery, Roger McCreary are your three cornerbacks. With Terrell Edmonds and Imani Hooker and Kayvon Wallace. I mean, you know, it's tough.

Starting point is 00:26:28 It's tough. So they need Sean Murphy bunting back. But at the end of the day, despite all of this, again, I think the Titans are going to roll Carolina. I think it would be like the Falcons game, but with less scoring for Carolina. I think we're looking at like 28-10, 28-13, something like that. And it'll save Mike Vrabel's job.

Starting point is 00:26:48 It'll get spirits high. Then they have another home game against the Colts after that, which they absolutely could win. And, I mean, I think there's a pretty good chance the Titans get a couple of wins here at the end of the year. Two, two now. I thought three. I'll go with two.

Starting point is 00:27:04 They're definitely not beating Houston in that game in week 15. So, well, watch that. Now they will because they're a weird team. But the point is, I don't think Mike Vrabel is going to get fired. I think that he's going to hold on to his job. I think they're going to beat Carolina pretty handily next week. I think there's a good chance they beat Indianapolis the week after that. Will they get any more wins after that? I don't know. But that will be enough for Mike Vrabel to retain his job. And if he gets to the offseason, I think there's a good chance that he just keeps the job in general.

Starting point is 00:27:31 I know a lot of you guys don't want to hear that, but I think a lot of it has to do with how this team looks at home against a terrible Carolina Panthers team, which, again, I think the Titans win. So with that being said, though, I've been struggling. Stop fighting the sickness, man. It's crazy.

Starting point is 00:27:46 Crazy, but anyway, I'll be back with you guys tomorrow. That is going to do it for me today, folks. As always, I am your host, Tyler Rowland, and this was Locked on Titans.

Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Will Tennessee Titans Fire Mike Vrabel, Will Levis Pressure Stats & Crushing the Carolina Panthers

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