The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - What The Texans Should Expect When Hosting An Ailing Titans On Sunday

Episode Date: November 21, 2024

Jonathan Hutton of “Hot Mic w/ Hutton & Withrow” in Nashville joins "The Matt Thoma Show with Ross" to preview the AFC South matchup between the Tennessee Titans and the Houston Texans this Sunday at NRG Stadium.

and we appreciate bringing in a guy that is widely regarded by the 790 family here. Jonathan Hutton hosts the hot mic with Hutton and Withrow, 4 to 6, which will be 3 to 5, our time on the Outkick Network. And Jonathan joins us from Nashville, Tennessee. Jonathan, it's Matt. Thank you for joining me. Depression level 1 to 10 this year on overall Tennessee Titans football watching on a week-to-week basis. Go and give us the honest results.

I'm so depressed here because there's too much optimism about Will, Levis. Let me put it that way. It's hit the 10 with the path that they're on. Titan spent a lot of money in free agency. They had plenty of promise, at least they thought so, with their quarterback, and they're scoring about 17 points a game. It's been miserable and pathetic. All right. Here's the reality, John, then we're not close friends. I actually liked Will Levis coming out of college. I know I'm thinking I'm in the minority, and I thought there was a potential. steel taking him early second round. Okay? See, you know, the extra year of the

guarantee. I just thought putting some professional linemen around him, not making some of the silly mistakes. And there are times, if you could watch a highlight film of, well, of us, you know this better than anybody else, there are some throws that he makes that are incredibly accurate. And then he does one of the two dumbass things per game.

Why does he continue to make those kind of all shucks? Oh, my God, what the hell is he doing moments per game? He's pressing. I mean, and, you know, he's good for a turnover game. And the interesting part about the turnovers is the new head coach Brian Callahan. He doesn't get upset with the interceptions.

But you're right. The dumb-ass plays is where he's asking, you know, WTF, what are you thinking whenever he's coming off to the sideline? Now, he has reduced those greatly over the last few weeks. He's been hurt. He was hurt for a handful of games. He's back. And he's not making the just the. idiotic turnover, but they have reduced his role. They have really lessened the deep shots,

the risks, and they tried to lean more on a run game, but the problem is they ended up having to throw the football quite a bit because they trail in these games. And look, you're right about the moments. You know, he had a 98-yard touchdown pass to Nick Westbrookic Kenei last week from his own two-yard line, and he let it loose. I mean, you can see the NFL arm. But the problem is he goes six for six in that third quarter and does nothing else to help this offense move the football in the first half or the fourth. So, you know, there's a lot of give and take, but there's a lot more take. And the problem with all of that is there's time running out on the evaluation of Will Levis, which ultimately could include him coming back on the roster next year. Brian Callahan, first year there, obviously did wonderful things in Cincinnati.

He doesn't have enough parts right now to run what that offense was in the Natty, correct, at this juncture of the franchise? Well, I mean, first and foremost, he doesn't have Burrow. You know, he's got a long list of quarterback that he's worked with. I mean, it's impressive. He didn't call plays in Cincinnati. Zach Taylor regards him as one of the top coaches that he's, he's worked with, that he's friends with.

He brings his dad, Bill Callahan here to run the offensive line. And the offense has been closer to what we, and what Texans fans will know and notice from the Mike Rable era for Tennessee. It's been bad, man. And Matt, the thing about what this offense can and can't do, everything, and I've never seen anything like this, the one position that controls how bad they are is at right tackle. The walls cave in around Levis more times than not,

and that one position that they overlooked this past off season has come back to really just crater and derail any momentum that they can try to muster. They're really good in starting games, you know, the scripted plays. They're really good. And beyond that, they're among the NFL's worst. And I haven't seen improvement in that area for an offensive-minded head coach with an owner who, when she hired him, said, she wanted more of the new age NFL offense.

It has been, I mean, it's taking football back a few years if you want to watch the Titans. Jonathan Hutton with us from Outkick, what is from Nashville here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. So Jonathan, how much regret is there that Derek Henry's having this renaissance in Baltimore and he's not doing it wearing Titan gear? The most bizarre thing about that is Titans fans are pulling for Derek Henry when he's a Raven. And the reason is they want to see him win. Henry, so I think the perception is had the Titans given him the money, he would have stayed.

Like if all things are equal money, I think he wanted to go win. And the Ravens were the team that tried to trade for him in the middle of last season. And he knew that. He wanted to go play in an RPO offense. And if you watched Henry last year, he's getting hit in the backfield. He was starting to look like he was 30 years old. Yep. And when you see him run the football, he didn't look like the same dare.

Eric Henry that was in the Arthur Smith offense, that was paired with Tannahill. It was bad. And the difference is the O line. The Titans have really messed up in drafts of recent years, and it starts up front, and they lost their run game. But now they're trying to rely on it because their quarterback, as previously mentioned, is turning football over. So, Henry didn't – he went out the right way. very few contracts end up playing out in total. And he did it here.

He had a farewell speech in the stadium on the microphone after his final game. And, yeah, I think Titans fans are pulling for him to do the best that he can to win the title, because that's the one thing that he says that he wants to go do before he's done. And I believe him. He's a standout dude, very quiet, goes about his business. He's a true pro. And that's why he's so respected here. and it still has a spot here.

I know he lives in Texas as well. Right. And he'll be living in the minds of Titans fans because that was their offense. You know, he was the identity, and the Titans don't have that anymore. You help the defense feels like it's getting a pretty good reputation around the league. Now, obviously, the Lions game is the exclusion because of what they did a few weeks ago. But how the hell does this defense even wake up knowing that if they don't give up, if they give up more than, say, 13 or 16 points, they're going to lose the game because this Titans' offense just has not moved the football down the field at all.

Yeah, and it's a sudden change moments too during the season. You mentioned the Lions game. There's a lot of turnovers in that game. It's 14-14, and you see some big plays happen with turnover. The Lions lead the league, I believe, are tied for the league in 19 takeaways. You know, in Houston, I know has been able to turn the football over in recent weeks. the sudden change moments, Matt, are the reason why the defense gives up the points.

They're put in some really bad spots. But beyond that, the numbers are a bit misleading. When they need a stop, when the Titans offense actually scores, the defense will give up a long drive. When they need a stop just to get the football back, they haven't been able to get that drive and get that stop. Now, the defense is the least of their worries. They don't have a pass rush.

Their secondary is beaten up and banged up. Ligerius Sneed has been out for a month. Shobie Ouzier is maybe coming back sooner rather than later, but he's been out for the majority of the season. They're playing with backups in the secondary. And they're still doing this through an aggressive style where they're putting pressure on quarterbacks, not getting sacks, but they're getting off the field.

and, you know, their offense isn't helping them. I'm surprised that we haven't seen more finger pointing to this point because the defense has carried away and they'd have a few more wins if not for the quarterback. All right. So if you're overhauling this team next year, what are the first two positions you're going for in the draft? Where am I selecting?

Well, I would say top four. Would that be fair to say? Top. Okay. I don't think Dion will let Shador playing Nashville. I think he wants to play it. I think he wants to be in Vegas. Look, they need right tackle on edge rusher. I never pass on a quarterback, though. They don't have one. They've got a 500 quarterback when to read out his best and will love us. And I think that's probably being more optimistic than I should be given the evidence that we have. They got a quarterback

coach as a head coach. They need to pair him with a quarterback. That starts That starts the whole process of where they're selecting. Matt, that right tackle is atrocious. It is a turnstile. You'll see it on Sunday. And edge rush, they don't have a rush. They don't have a pass rush. They've got Jeffrey Simmons in the middle of the defensive line, and that's it.

They have to get more pressure on the quarterback to help out a secondary that is sometimes torched throughout games. And, I mean, they draw a penalty. Opponents draw a penalty on the Titans, 7% of all snaps, which is pretty high. in the NFL for this season. So, yeah, they've got to get, it starts with the quarterback, and on the other side they have to affect the quarterback. The Titans do neither. All right, two last question, none about the Titans,

or at least one off the field and one non-Titans. Is the goalpost still in the river after the Vanderbilt victory, or they pull that bad boy out yet? They pulled it out, and they, Vanderbilt and the city, they, like, cut it up into pieces and then sold off pieces of it for charity for a fundraiser that the university did. So I thought that was cool. You know, the police helped march it down.

They led the escort down Broadway. And there was nobody that got hurt. Nothing dangerous about that. That feels to be like, that was several miles, correct? It's two miles. Yeah. And also a steep, there's a steep riverbank as well that's not well lit. I mean, not much lighting over there in pitch darkness.

because there's no events over there at that time of night. So I'm surprised as well about that. But yeah, no injuries. And look, maybe there's a little luck going. Morgan Wallen threw a bar stool of a six-four balcony at Eric Church's bar on Broadway. Didn't hit anybody. He's extremely lucky. In this case, in this case, you know, the goalpost is pretty easy compared to other things that will happen down on the Farrell Broadway, as I call it.

Lastly, my audience knows this. I grew up as an older fan, and when the orders left, Dakota, Nashville, I was without a football team. I observed the Texans. I have a lot of Texans fans that listen, but I'm just not a per se fan. If they win, it's great, but if they lose, I have a lot of, I'm a cougar fan, so I have a lot of turmoil on my life. I've had the Astros lose World Series and cheating.

So I just can't. You're like me. You're like me. I root for the storyline more than the movie nowadays. Yeah, I can't take any more to spare. So I'm just, I temper everything. But with that being said, I was never a fan of Bud Adams as a kid because I just think he ruined my franchise with poor decisions and general managers and bad coaching fires. Tell me about Amy Strunk.

I know she's looking for a new stadium there. I thought it was a huge, insulting that she'd wore the older gear against the Texans because it was a thumb you nose at Houston. And they got her ass kicked by that last year. She wanted to sue the University of Houston for wearing the Houston blue, which they're, wearing this Saturday. So I'm not, I'm really not a fan of hers. Give me the perception of ownership with its Nashville fans, and

I know at some point you guys want to get a replacement for Nissan Stadium. What's going on with those two situations? Well, I'll start with the stadium. The stadium's currently under construction. They've got it. That's a $2.1 billion stadium. Ownership is contributing 700 million. It's amazing what the owners will get

across the league from city and state governments. It's going to be amazing. So, Yeah, that'd be the state of the art. And it'll be perfect. It's literally right beside the current stadium. And it should be opened in 2027, Super Bowl by 2030, 2031, if I had to guess. Amy Adams-strunk took over after what was just pure misery during the Ken Wisenhunt era.

But Adams passed away. Tommy Smith, the son-in-law, the husband of Susan. who was involved in a lot here in town, yeah, absolutely, yeah. It was not good, yeah, and it was just not good. You know, they took over a team that they had not been a part of. And from an ownership standpoint, I'm saying. So, you know, Amy Adams Strunk came in and took over, and they had them on the path.

They went to the NFC championship game, made a hire of a guy who was from Tennessee and John Robinson, who was really the face of the franchise, quite frankly, because he's a Tennessean. And it was a dream job. She fired him after giving him a raise nine months earlier, fired him in the middle of the season in December when the team was seven and five and leading the AFC South.

Since then, they had been awful. And that's due to the quick trigger of some hiring environment. Same thing with Mike Vrabel. And I think that's also a lot of what Bud would have done, quite frankly. And look, I think the whole Oilers Blue, Columbia Blue, is more about the family in the city than it is the team, right? And you would know better than me on that. Yeah. But always had a chip on his shoulder when it came to Houston.

You don't – the one game you don't want to lose as a head coach is that game there this week. It's always been one of those games. Yep. And that's the one that they circle. It's the one that Houston circles. I love the rivalry of it, but there's definitely more than just a rivalry there. There's a chip on the shoulder.

There's some bad blood, and I think both sides lean into it. I'm not pretty the full details of, you know, the Oilers history when Bud and had the team there. I know how the team left, and that left a bad taste in everyone's mouth that still felt today. So, I mean, you're a great example. You're not the first to bring it up and ask me, and on this end, it's really not talked about.

Unless you walk through the facility, there's a lot of Oilers history in their facility. But as soon as they became the Tennessee Titans, they treated almost like two franchises. Titans history, Oilers history, franchise history. That's how they reference it. But their facility is full of Houston memorabilia. It's like they're in Texas, which is a great thing. And an ode to, I think a tip of the cap to her dad who would love it. I got to let you go throw up in my mouth right now.

Yeah. Jonathan, it was great visiting with you. You're now our official Tennessee insider, so we're calling you at least twice here. You know these things, right? Yeah, well, feel free. And get to Nashville. We'll go down Broadway and we'll do the tour of all of the debauchery that goes down. And all I want to do, we'll get you an NBA franchise and I'll be there in a heartbeat.

Jonathan, it was great to visit with you. Thanks again for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. Thank you. All right, Jonathan Hutton from Outkick. I mean, really good insight. And he knows my pain. Like a lot of you know my pain.

A lot of you are experiencing my pain.