PodcastFrom Bootleg Football
America's RedZone Quadbox comfort food | The Tennessee Titans
STACKED extracted the fantasy-relevant player signal from this podcast and kept the full transcript here for context.
1 hr 34 min
Duration
Estimated from transcript
Aug 19, 2026
Published
Wed, August 19, 2026
16
Player insights
9
Players mentioned
Topics
Cam WardCalvin RidleyCarnell TateDaniel BellingerMitchell TrubiskyTony PollardTyjae SpearsWan'Dale RobinsonWill Levis
Player analysis
Player insights
Calvin Ridley
NegativeValue47:27
Restructured at $17 million per year; the source notes Ridley is 32 years old and not the player he was when entering the league, but from the Titans' perspective, he's a functional veteran receiver in an expensive market where really good receivers don't shake loose. The Titans brought him in to avoid creating another hole in an already thin receiving corps, though the source doesn't love the deal and sees it as a placeholder while Tate develops as the future number one.
Insight pageCam Ward
PositiveProjection8:03
Had the second-most off-target incompletions in the NFL last year with 81, only behind Caleb Williams; combined with 35 pass breakups, totaled roughly 116 incomplete pass attempts that could have been placed better. This accuracy issue is a critical benchmark for year-two growth, as he needs to improve from 69.8% adjusted completion percentage to approximately 75% adjusted completion percentage (translating to 65-66% raw completion percentage). The placement issues were particularly concerning because the majority of his 81 off-target incompletions (51 of 81) occurred without pressure, suggesting decision-making and accuracy problems beyond offensive line protection.
Insight pageNegativeRole9:00
Offensive line protection issues were significant in year one; Dan Moore Jr. had a 10% pressure rate allowed despite being paid $20 million (roughly 5x what a really good starting left tackle should cost), and Latham was not much better. The source notes the offensive line might overall be worse in 2026, which will make it difficult for Ward to improve accuracy and decision-making even with better play-calling and coaching.
Insight pagePositiveProjection11:00
Quick release time of approximately 2.55 seconds when not under pressure ranked top 12 in the NFL, indicating good decision-making speed. The source views this as a positive foundation—he makes quick decisions and gets the ball out fast—but the issue is placement accuracy rather than decision speed. With improved receiving targets (including Cardinal Tate, who won't drop the ball) and a more capable play caller, Ward has the tools to amplify his strengths if he can improve accuracy and play within structure.
Insight pageNegativeProjection13:12
Average time to throw was very high last year as he ran around looking for options and trying to make plays downfield to get back ahead of the sticks. The source expects him to play more within structure in year two, taking more throwaways and better managing time to throw while maintaining his playmaking ability. This balance—playing within himself while not completely ditching his dynamic arm talent—is critical for measured growth in year two, especially given the offensive line may not improve substantively.
Insight pageNegativeRole16:00
Was fourth in pressure dropbacks but only 15th in scrambles last year, suggesting he restricted himself from using his legs under Callahan's system. The source notes this mirrors Caleb Williams' first-year approach of trying to prove himself as a pocket passer rather than a running quarterback. With a new offensive staff, there is potential for more balanced usage of his legs to take pressure off him and generate easy first downs, which could improve offensive rhythm and reduce the need for extended plays that led to inaccuracy.
Insight pageNegativeRole20:00
Had protection-setting issues in year one; according to source's conversation with someone in the building at Miami and with the Titans, Ward struggled with pre-snap protection recognition and setup, similar to how he operated at Miami with Carson Beck. There were many free runners against him, and while he could bail out post-snap, he was setting the offensive line up to fail pre-snap because he was still learning how protections work. This is a learnable skill but represents another area where he is 'drinking through a fire hose' trying to master NFL fundamentals.
Insight pageNegativeMatchup55:19
The source expresses concern about the Titans' offensive line, particularly the tackle group, which ranked 29th in pressure rate allowed. The source worries that without tackle upgrades, Cam Ward will continue to get hit frequently (citing Dan Moore at $20 million per year as a problem), and notes the Titans took Carnell Tate at 4 overall without following up with tackle help in the next two picks, which the source views as a failure to prioritize trenches.
Insight pagePositiveProjection70:49
The source believes Cam Ward can 'get it together again' and improve, noting he just needs 'more consistent ball placement' from him. The source cites the improved receiving core and other offensive additions as reasons for optimism about Ward's performance.
Insight pageCarnell Tate
NegativeProjection52:56
Drafted 4th overall by the Titans. The source projects him as a high-end number two or low-end number one receiver talent-wise, but does not see him in the tier of elite separators like Jamar Chase or Jeremiah Smith. His best quality is reliability and not dropping the ball; he gets to the spots needed but lacks the separation ability to beat man coverage consistently against NFL corners. The source's best-case comparison is late-career Keenan Allen—a consistent, reliable threat using size at the catch point rather than elite separation. The source doesn't hate the pick given the draft class talent level and Titans' need, but believes he won't transform Cam Ward as some hope.
Insight pageDaniel Bellinger
NegativeRole51:31
Signed as a tight end with familiarity to the Titans' system (previously with the Giants under Sala).
Insight pageMitchell Trubisky
NegativeRole50:04
Signed as a veteran backup at age 32. The source describes him as a journeyman who has carved out a legacy of coming in to help young quarterbacks at multiple stops, now serving that role for Cam Ward in Tennessee.
Insight pageTony Pollard
NegativeRole70:58
The source notes that Tony Pollard is the Titans' starter at running back, with TyJay Spears and Nick Singleton behind him; the source suggests Pollard has had tremendous production and is likely the primary back in the offense.
Insight pageTyjae Spears
PositiveProjection72:33
The source notes that TyJay Spears has shown flashes of production and has better potential as a runner than Nick Singleton by 'probably not quite a couple of rounds, round and a half at least,' suggesting he has more upside than the later-drafted Singleton.
Insight pageWan'Dale Robinson
PositiveRole48:00
Signed as an outside free agent at $17.5 million per year. The source describes him as a classic high-end slot receiver who will eat catches all season long and is a great YAC threat. The source also notes he did a lot of vertical work in college with the Giants and could get more involved vertically in Tennessee, though the Giants used him more as a YAC threat than a deep threat.
Insight pageWill Levis
NegativeRole21:31
Levis is still learning how to master pre-snap protections and read defensive looks in the NFL; he was unfamiliar with basic defensive concepts like zero blitz with double mugs and sim pressure that he never encountered in college. The source notes he's 'drinking through a fire hose' trying to learn this information, and his accuracy issues may stem from rushing himself post-snap when he lacks confidence in his pre-snap reads. With more experience and help from veteran center Slotman, the source hopes he'll improve at the pre-snap level so post-snap execution becomes less of an adventure.
Insight pageFull transcript
Episode Transcript
0:00Nashville's famous country music scene might be missing out on some of the best inspiration for those classic downer ballads.
0:06Forget the fact that your truck broke down and your dog left you.
0:11The Tennessee Titans are right there. You've got a nearly endless source of palace entry, dysfunction, betrayal, loss, and regret right on your doorstep.
0:18Tennessee is a great football state, but the Titans have been a model of what not to do when trying to build
0:25a successful NFL franchise for a while now. So they blew it all up in 2025.
0:30Again. Now Mike Bergonzi and Robert Sala get to try and rebuild this team out of the ashes.
0:36They've got a playmaking young signal caller with a cannon for an arm, one of the best defensive tackles in all of
0:43football, and a rookie wide receiver who looks like he has the goods.
0:47What could possibly go wrong? It's day 17 of the bootleg summer series, and we're going to spend the next hour answering
0:54that exact question and highlighting the bright spots that we actually do like on Tennessee's roster.
0:59So stick around. Take some notes. Maybe you can write a hit song about it.
1:04Welcome to bootleg. Welcome to football. Welcome to the bootleg football podcast.
1:08I'm Brett Coleman. That's EJ Snyder. And once again, for the, I don't know, billionth year in a row in the NFL,
1:15we have our annual team with a year two quarterback and a brand new head coach with a bad offensive line, an
1:22array of weapons that might work, but we're not 100% sure.
1:25And a defense that features one really, really, really exceptional player and a whole bunch around him that we aren't quite sure about.
1:33This exact archetype exists in the NFL every single year.
1:36Most of the time it doesn't work out. Sometimes it does.
1:39We will see this year if the Titans can be one of the exceptions to the rule.
1:45EJ, how are you? I'm good. And I think Titans fans will take it scarily enough because it's better than last year.
1:52It might not be the rosiest outlook in the NFL, but it is going to be more interesting and more fun to
1:59watch than the product that was on the field in 2025 for the Titans.
2:03That was not fun football for the most part, unless you like chaos.
2:07And there was plenty of that. There should be less chaos.
2:11We'll see how much they can overcome a roster.
2:14That is not yet there, arguably. Especially the offensive line.
2:17But we'll dig into all sides of the ball, what they've done, certainly in the front office and the coaching side, but
2:24also on the rosters to improve through the draft and free agency.
2:28One of the most active teams. Not surprisingly, that happens when you replace your GM and your head coach in the same year.
2:35Lots and lots of transactions to go through, but we'll hit on pretty much all of it today in this episode of
2:42the summer series that previews the Tennessee Titans. I will say this off the rip.
2:47I don't think they're going to be as bad as they were last year.
2:51No, it would be hard to be like really, really, really difficult to be that bad.
2:57And somehow they weren't even the worst team in the league, despite putting Titans fans through last season.
3:02That's what's really depressing is like they went through all that and didn't even get the first overall pick.
3:08It was rough because if they got that pick, they probably could have mortgaged it and gotten a whole bunch of extra assets.
3:16They already have their quarterback. Try to get something for 2027.
3:19You know, the class that everybody's waiting for. So yeah, they went through a lot of bad football for just an okay reward.
3:26I'll say that we're going to go through 2025 first.
3:30We're not going to dig too deep into a lot of the schematic nuances a because I don't want to make you
3:37relive that and be all the people responsible for whatever that was are gone now.
3:41So when we talk about the defense, it's really going to be more about, you know, what is Robert Sala like to do?
3:49What is Gus Bradley like to do? What is the new staff like to do?
3:54The new offensive staff like to do, you know, what worked well for Cam Ward?
3:58What can they build around? I don't want to dig too deep into the Callahan experience because none of us need that.
4:05No, it was not a fun show last year when we had to go through it.
4:10I they were one of the teams I was least excited about heading into 2025.
4:15If anything, I am more excited about the 2026 version for a couple of good reasons.
4:20But again, the quote first half of the show and I put half in air quotes because we're not going to spend half the show talking about 2025.
4:29We do have to relive it for just a second, but we'll get through it pretty quickly and really start talking about 2026.
4:37So in 2025 overall record, three and 14, fourth in the division, one and eight at home, three or two and six
4:44on the road was going to give them an extra win there.
4:47And the last five games, they were two and three.
4:51So not great results. And the reasons for those not great results were pretty obvious when you dig into the effectiveness summary,
4:58which we call the bootleg power score. We take six numbers that we think indicate a team's good at football, passing EPA
5:05per play, rushing EPA per play defense against the run on the pass again, figured by EPA per play points scored and points allowed.
5:12We assign them their league rank. Brace yourselves, Titan fans there.
5:16There are no great ranks here. And there are a lot in the low 20s and high 30s.
5:22And that is a bad indicator, but you already knew that add all those scores up, divide by six.
5:28You get a raw score. We stack all those raw scores, go through the tiebreaker process, and then we just figure out
5:35where they rank overall in the NFL in terms of power as a football team.
5:39So spoiler alert, it was not high, but it was also, as you mentioned, not the worst.
5:45And I think Titans fans would look around and go, wait, what?
5:49That was not the worst football in the NFL.
5:51It was not. So passing EPA per play last year, they were 31st.
5:56Again, not the worst, almost, but not there. Rushing EPA per play, they were better.
6:0027th. Not the worst, but not great. If your offense is 31st and 27th in two major metrics, you're not going to score a lot of points.
6:09Passing EPA per play allowed. This was rough. Corner play especially, we'll get into that.
6:14They were 29th. EPA against the rush in terms of defense was 18th.
6:18That was their best rank yet. And there's a reason for that.
6:22We'll talk about it. That's something to build on.
6:25Yeah, it's Jeff Simmons. That is the Jeff Simmons stat for sure.
6:28And there's all these stats down in the, you know, low twenties, thirties, and then there's 18 and it's, it's the Jeff Simmons peak.
6:36Points scored again, they were 30th. Their offense was not great points allowed.
6:40They were 28th. Their points differential was negative 194.
6:43So they had almost 200 more points scored against them than they scored.
6:47To put that into perspective, Seattle, Seattle's point differential was plus 191.
6:51Negative 194 for the Titans plus 191 for the Seahawks.
6:54Almost 400 points separating those two teams, which is bananas as a stat.
6:58But if you add up all the Titans stats, divide by six, their raw score is 27.17.
7:04And that put them 31st overall. So, you know, a little golf clap here, Titans fans, not 32nd.
7:10That was the Jets. We've already covered them. So their fan of fans have been through the trauma of 2025 already.
7:16I'm not opening any fresh wounds for them. But again, I think this team is primed to be a better version of
7:23the Titans than what we saw in 2025. Now, how much better?
7:27You know, there are still impediments to improvement. But if they were 31st again next year, I would be surprised.
7:33The weird thing is, you know, if you're looking at point differential, Tennessee was as bad as Seattle is good.
7:40They played each other last year and it was a six point game.
7:44So it tells you the parrot of the NFL, like the best team in the league, earmuff Rams fans, the best team
7:51in the league and arguably the worst team in the league played.
7:55And the difference was six. So. Again, it's it's a game of inches.
7:59Random shit's going to happen. I want to talk about Cam Ward to start this off.
8:04And in particular, I want to move up our patron note from the end of the show to right now because it's about Cam Ward.
8:12I feel like it's a good lead into this.
8:15This one comes from Grexar over on our Patreon.
8:18Again, thank you to all of our patrons that have been contributing to these episodes by giving your thoughts and notes and questions and everything like that.
8:26It's been, you know, helping us to kind of figure out which threads we want to pull on here.
8:32He says, I'm curious about what you see is the important benchmark for Cam Ward's growth in year two.
8:38I was really impressed with his flashes, but obviously the NFL is a constant trial by fire.
8:44As far as the NFC South is concerned, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on where the Panthers can go with their additions on defense.
8:52We will do the Panthers next week. I want to take the Titans half of that question.
8:58That's what we call a tease in the industry.
9:00Is it? Benchmark for Cam's growth in year two.
9:03There's a couple different things. Number one, ball placement.
9:06He had the second most off-target incompletions in the NFL last year.
9:10Only Caleb had more. Again, I am not striving to be on Caleb's level when it comes to passes not going where he wants them to.
9:18Like, that was the biggest criticism of Caleb was the down-to-down placement issues.
9:22There were moments of brilliance, obviously, late in the games that made up for it.
9:27Not as many with Cam. But I don't want to be in Caleb's ballpark when it comes to off-target incompletions.
9:34That has to be fixed. But he also had, I'm getting my exact numbers here, 35 pass breakups.
9:39When you add that together with his 81 off-target incompletions, that is 116 pass attempts that were incomplete, either because he was
9:46so inaccurate that it was just completely off-target, or placement was an issue which then made it easier for the pass to get broken up.
9:54Obviously, some of those are just great plays by the corner, but on a lot of PBUs, it's a placement issue, not
10:01necessarily a DB making a great play. So let's just say 100 pass attempts that could have been placed better.
10:08That's a huge number. It has to be better in 2026.
10:11He has to get more accurate, which he was really accurate in college.
10:15That's what was kind of weird to me about it, because this wasn't like a Michael Penix situation where it's like, okay,
10:22Penix had some accuracy issues in college and then continued having accuracy issues in the NFL.
10:27Cam was accurate in college, especially on tight window throws, and then had placement issues in the NFL.
10:33And it wasn't even just like a pressure versus unpressured thing.
10:37The vast majority of his off-target incompletions were without pressure.
10:40He was 51 out of 81. So not vast majority, but majority of them were without pressure.
10:45So I don't know what happened. I don't know why he was rushing himself.
10:50You know, it wasn't all his offensive line's fault, even though the offensive line was a problem.
10:55Dan Moore had like a 10% pressure rate allowed.
10:58Despite paying him $20 million, which is, that's like 5x what a really good starting left tackle was supposed to be.
11:05He was awful. Latham wasn't exactly much better. This year's offensive line might overall be worse.
11:10I guess we'll see. What I'm saying here is when he wasn't pressured, he was decisive, but he wasn't accurate.
11:16And so for me, the benchmark is still be decisive when you have a good pocket.
11:21I actually really liked how quickly he got the ball out.
11:25It was about 2.55 seconds when he wasn't under pressure.
11:28That was top 12 in the NFL, top of my head.
11:31So that's good. We like that you're making quick decisions.
11:35I just need the ball to go where you want it to be.
11:39So I'm looking for, give me, see he was 69.8% adjusted completion percentage last year.
11:44That means you're taking out, you know, throwaways and everything like that.
11:47Give me like 75% adjusted completion percentage, which translates to probably like 65, 66 raw completion percentage.
11:53That's a benchmark I'm shooting for. Just hit a couple more singles and doubles throughout the game and stop making third down
12:00harder than it needs to be by missing makeable throws on first and second down.
12:05Yeah, pressure is a funny thing with young quarterbacks.
12:07And you brought up Caleb, so I'll do the same.
12:11In his first year, he was sacked as much as any quarterback in the NFL.
12:15And when you don't have good protection on the regular, you can't tell when you're going to have it and when you aren't.
12:23So there are even downs where you're sort of, to quote Sam Darnold, seeing ghosts, right?
12:28You don't know if you're getting good protection and then you actually get it, but you're still jumpy and you make, you
12:35know, an off target or what looks like a pressured throw when there's no actual pressure.
12:40Because you don't know down to down what you're going to get.
12:44Are they going to be in your face immediately or are you going to get a good three and a half seconds
12:51to go through your progressions and do what you're supposed to do?
12:55And so it bleeds over. And while we can sit here and parse pressure from non-pressured, when it's down to down and
13:02it's happening, as you said, at a much higher rate than it should be, you're getting pressure as a quarterback.
13:08You can't count on it. And a lot of things break down.
13:12Cam tried to do a lot with that. To his credit, he was trying to fix things.
13:17He was trying to make plays. His average time to throw was really high.
13:22He was running around, running for his life, looking for options, trying to throw down the field and make things happen so
13:29that they could get back ahead of the sticks.
13:32And sometimes that worked out beautifully. Those were the high flashes.
13:35Sometimes it did not. More times I would say it did not.
13:39So if I'm looking at a benchmark for 2026, I hope he plays more within himself.
13:44And the ways to look at are maybe even more throwaways, right?
13:48Better average time to throw playing within himself, playing within structure.
13:51And when it's going sideways, not completely ditching that playmaking aspect, because it's one of the best parts of Cam Ward's game.
13:58He's got an absolute cannon for an arm and he has done it at every level.
14:03This isn't a new thing for him. He did it at his first stop in college.
14:09He did it at Washington State. He did it at Miami.
14:12Like he has always done this. He has always looked for the big play and a big way out.
14:18And a lot of times it's paid off for him in the NFL.
14:22Players are faster. Windows are smaller. If you get four and a half seconds into an NFL play, the chances that something
14:29good is going to happen go way, way down compared to any level you've ever played at.
14:35So sometimes it is better to just throw it out of bounds and say, lift, play another day.
14:40Get the next down. Don't end up with a big sack here.
14:44Don't end up with a big interception. Just play within yourself.
14:48So I'd like to see a little bit more of that.
14:51And that will come from things that you mentioned.
14:54Consistency down to down, taking the check down, you know, throwing it away sometimes, not getting behind the sticks so that you have to be a hero.
15:03And, you know, he is very capable of being a hero, but I want to see him try and do it a little bit less.
15:11Not none, because that would take away some of his most impressive highlights.
15:15It is going to be difficult. The offensive line does not look to be improved substantively and, to your point, might have actually been degraded.
15:23That is not something great to go into the year with.
15:26But I want there to be some growth. He is going to have a more capable play caller.
15:32We'll talk about that as we get, you know, you're out there.
15:36And, you know, is possibly I'm so hesitant to say this is possibly going to use his legs more because we saw what David did with Dart.
15:44And I don't want that to happen to Cam, but he is a dynamic runner and an athlete.
15:50So that'll, you know, allow him some seem like he was holding some of that back under Callahan.
15:56Or maybe you never really know what that balance was.
15:59He was told not there's a number for that, by the way.
16:03But he was fourth in pressure dropbacks and 15th in scrambles.
16:06So it's like he he kind of restricted himself from using his legs.
16:11It seemed like there was definitely a cap on that.
16:14And it's tough to say whether he was told not to or whether he was just trying to.
16:20And Caleb tried to do this in his first year as well.
16:23Again, the parallels there of like, no, I'm not a running quarterback.
16:27I can make this happen with my arm. I can I can get my offense back on track using my arm from the pocket.
16:35And then you get those very long time to throws.
16:38And again, sort of degrading results as you go deeper and deeper into play.
16:42But I'm hoping there's a little bit more balance there.
16:46I'm hoping that, again, take some pressure off him.
16:49Some easy first downs where he just scrambles for five or six yards, gets down, gets a fresh set, feels relaxed and
16:56and feels like he can have that momentum from the offense.
16:59And if that happens, I think we'll see a very different version of Cam Ward.
17:04Yes, it needs to be more accurate, but we'll also see those strengths get amplified because, look, the receiving core wasn't great last year.
17:11It's improved. I'm not going to say wildly improved, but he is going to have some better targets there.
17:18And, you know, Cardinal Tate ain't going to drop the ball.
17:21I'll tell you that much. A hundred percent. A hundred percent.
17:25It's one of the reasons they got him. So I I'm looking for Cam Ward to do many things, but in some
17:32total play more within the offense and keep it on schedule.
17:35If he can do both of those things, that's measured growth.
17:39And again, his rookie year, it's tough to really count that as a full blown experience because of lots of things we
17:46said we weren't going to talk about with Cal hand.
17:49But it doesn't feel like a fair assessment necessarily.
17:52So it really feels like year two might be also like Caleb is for a sort of true assessment in the league.
17:59OK, what are we really working with here? Just one note on Callahan, because I can't resist.
18:04We talked about him a little earlier in the series.
18:07My bad. Because he got the blame EJ for this.
18:10Yeah, a hundred percent. Callahan took the passing game coordinator job in one of the first 16 teams we talked about.
18:17I can't remember which one. Honestly, it's all blur at this point.
18:21I'll Google it after the show. But I remember we were talking about the easy buttons that he had tried to build in here for Cam.
18:29And one that they kept going to both early in the year and even after Callahan was fired, they kept trying to do it.
18:37But is they would they were a team. Oh, it was the Giants episode.
18:41That's where we talked about it, because I remember he paired together with Nagy and they both do this shit.
18:48I hate it where they go four strong to the field.
18:51Oh, yeah. Have these RPOs where you get a zone run one way and then you get three receivers with a bubble the other way.
18:59And you're trying to put the linebackers in conflict and they just did it over and over and over again.
19:06And they didn't get an explosive on that until I think week 13, maybe week 11.
19:11Like staff had already been shaken up at that point and they still kept trying to do it.
19:16I don't know why they thought the most college of college plays would work against NFL secondaries.
19:22They can tackle and against linebackers that can outrun, quite frankly, their offensive line.
19:26And they couldn't ever win front side on these on their blocks in the run game.
19:31So they didn't pop an explosive to like the last third of the season.
19:36The screens. I think they got one explosive on the backside screen.
19:40So I just. That to me was a great indicator of the kind of staff he was working with last year, where even their easy buttons were hard.
19:49And therefore, how could he have possibly been successful?
19:51Like, yes, he had his individual issues with ball placement.
19:55I don't know who was calling protections last year, but there were a lot of free runners.
20:00And I did get a look. I don't know if I told you about this.
20:05I got a little bit of extra context. Ooh, do tell on on cam specifically.
20:10So I was talking to somebody this offseason who.
20:12Was in the building with cam at Miami and at cars and with Carson Beck in Miami.
20:18And they were trying to compliment back. It wasn't a shot at cam.
20:22It's just the way it was phrased was kind of awkward.
20:26So I'm not going to say who said it because I don't think they meant it maliciously.
20:31But the phrasing was going from cam to Carson was like going from an undergrad and pass protection to a PhD.
20:38And there were a lot of free runners against cam this year.
20:41And I don't know if he was the one that was setting protections or if his centers.
20:47I don't know what their procedure was. But I do know.
20:50I do know there was a lot of free runners.
20:54And I do know that even in a system where a young quarterback isn't calling protections, it's still on him to make
21:01sure that they're right based on what he's seeing.
21:03And there was a lot of times when the offensive line was set up to fail where they didn't have the numbers
21:10where they needed the numbers to be. And that was something that this person at Miami said happened to them a lot.
21:17Like he would bail them out post snap. But he would set them up to fail pre snap because he was still learning how protections work.
21:26It just wasn't something that he was taught how to do even early on in his college career.
21:31And he's still learning how to do that in the NFL.
21:35Not to say that he can't do it. Most quarterbacks don't really know how to do it.
21:40But he is drinking through a fire hose here trying to learn that information and become the guy that can master protections.
21:47There was a clip from the quarterback show on Netflix that was going around where he was talking about that.
21:54He was looking at a look that a defense had put on tape against the Jets.
21:59And he's like, this is the only time that they've only one clip in this cut up.
22:04And it was they were showing zero at a double mug.
22:08And they dropped out into just a straight up sim pressure with two off each edge.
22:13And it was just cover three was the coverage, very basic coverage.
22:17But they got into it a weird way and they brought a sim.
22:21And he's like, I've never seen this shit before in my life.
22:25I was like, oh, buddy, you're going to see that every week.
22:29But he's learning. He never saw that in college.
22:31He never knew how to deal with that in college because this is an entirely different sport.
22:37And you saw that show up a lot on tape where he would look at stuff and he's like, what is this?
22:44Right. So I'm hoping that with more experience, he's going to get better at the pre snap part of this.
22:50So the post snap isn't such an adventure because it's possible that was the source of the accuracy issues is if he
22:57was looking at stuff that he wasn't quite confident in post snap based on what he saw pre snap.
23:03And he was rushing himself. And when you rush yourself as a quarterback that, you know, everything goes wrong.
23:09So, again, the person at Miami didn't mean is a slight on cam.
23:13He was trying to praise Carson, but it was interesting context on cam of like he didn't know how to do that shit before he got there.
23:22And two years later, he's still trying to figure it out.
23:26You know what the solution to that is? Playing, honestly.
23:29True for quarterbacks, but you can also import a very experienced veteran center who can handle that stuff and help him out with it.
23:36Well, they do. I mean, Slotman's a veteran. He has 18 starts in seven years.
23:41But he's a veteran. Let's hope. He knows the system.
23:44Let's hope that he knows the system and can help out with that because it is a very difficult thing to learn.
23:51You even have you're talking about the quarterback show.
23:54You even have quarterbacks who are very veteran, you know, Josh at this point.
23:59Like I remember somebody was talking to him at the Super Bowl and he was talking about a pre-snap look.
24:05And he was like, well, the safeties are lined up this way, but you really can't look at the safeties anymore.
24:12Like and that was what the interviewer took away is he said you can't look at the safeties anymore because.
24:18Which that used to be rule number one. Yeah, they knew you have to look at the safety.
24:24They knew we're looking at the safety. So now what's the big thing, you know, post-snap rotation as close to the snap
24:31as possible, like waiting until the last possible second to start moving so that you change the picture.
24:37Right. So don't trust the picture because most defenses are going to change it on you on purpose.
24:42That's the whole point. They're going to show you something.
24:46So even Josh, who has been around and again, I the thing I really liked about Greg's question is it says the
24:53NFL is a constant trial by fire. And that all of that indicates that really, really clearly.
24:58Josh, who's been around, seen it, done it, is now saying, well, it used to be this way, but you can't do that anymore.
25:06You can't trust that. So now you have to look for other keys and, you know, Cam's learning what the first level of keys are.
25:14And hopefully three or four years from now, we're hearing him say the same thing.
25:18Oh, well, when I started to learn how to do it, I had to key on this.
25:24But of course, that's changed. So you can't do that anymore because it is a it's a constant evolution.
25:30It's a constant arms race between offense and defense to shift.
25:33And not every game is like the Texans where they just shout at you before the play what they're running and dare
25:40you to beat it because they know you can't.
25:43Sometimes you do play against the sickos out there that call random shit.
25:47In fact, his first game last year, I think, was Denver, which I'm like, oh, my God, Jesus, NFL, throw him a bone.
25:55You can make him go against Vance Joseph and Jim Leonard.
25:58His first NFL game. Are you serious? Yeah, they were licking their survive.
26:02They were licking their chops at that to be able to go after a rookie who has not seen it all, who
26:09has not been there and done that. We say that about so many coaches and so many quarterbacks.
26:15This is the opposite. You get a rookie in there, especially a rookie who, you know, maybe doesn't have his Ph.D.
26:22in pass protection and you get to unleash the absolute hell, the full playbook of defensive evilness upon him.
26:28Yeah. Sorry, man. It's a meritocracy out there. It's competitive league.
26:31We get paid, too. We want to look good and pad our stats and we're going to do it against you.
26:38Summer Series is an incredibly busy time for us.
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27:51Well, the Titans defense does get paid too, to your point.
27:55They paid a lot of them this offseason, both homegrown guys and free agents.
27:59I want to talk a little bit about what translates into the new sheriff in town, Robert Sala, and what maybe doesn't.
28:06I mean, Jeff Simmons translates into any defense. He is unquestionably one of the 10 best defensive players in football, and he's not 10.
28:14You could argue he's the best interior defensive lineman in football, especially based off last season.
28:19I mean, he was one of the main reasons why their run defense was averaged by EPA per play.
28:25And as far as pass rush goes, I mean, maybe two other guys in the league can really touch him at this point.
28:3254 pressures on true dropbacks, which was second among all interior defensive linemen.
28:37He would basically be better all by himself on these true dropbacks, which again is no play action, no screen, no RPO, like actual dropback passes.
28:45He was better by himself than five complete interior defensive line rotations.
28:49The Chargers, the Jags, the Lions, the Bengals, and the 49ers.
28:52And he beat the 49ers by like 15 pressures.
28:55That'd be crazy, crazy production. 25.9% pass rush win rate.
28:58First among all DTs. 19.1% pressure rate. First. 11 sacks.
29:01First. I mean, basically any pass rush stat. He was better than every DT in the NFL.
29:07And he's an elite run defender. You know, he got paid $35 million a year this offseason.
29:12And that might be an underpay the moment he signed the contract.
29:16He is unbelievable. And he's a big reason why, even if I have questions about some of the other players around him,
29:23as long as he's on the field, this team can put up a fight defensively.
29:28Absolutely. And one of my favorite players in all of the NFL to watch on defense.
29:33He's an absolute game wrecker. And versatile. Not just a pass rush specialist.
29:37Not just an absolute block of granite against the run.
29:40He can win from different alignments. He wins versus rookies and versus veterans.
29:44He wins occasionally versus double teams. He is a defensive player that you have to account for on the offensive side of the ball.
29:52And a lot of defensive players want to be thought of that way, but they're actually not.
29:58When you watch film, and again, film will tell you, you can see whether or not an offense is keying on a
30:05defensive player to try and stop them. Or if they're just like, yeah, we're going to give you one-on-ones and see if you change our mind.
30:13And there's a lot more of the latter category, even among big names that fans recognize as defensive stars because they have
30:20flashy stats or they have in the past. They're living on name recognition.
30:24There's a lot of that that goes around in the NFL.
30:27Jeff Simmons is none of that. Jeff Simmons is out there earning it.
30:32And again, when he has been paired throughout his now lengthy career with other very capable players, the results have been devastating.
30:39Like that is a defensive line that basically controls the piece of real estate the offense would most like to control, which
30:46is about a seven-yard wide box right in the middle of the play.
30:50And when it's been Simmons and another elite or very, very good interior defender, they've said, nah, you have to go somewhere else.
30:57And that's a tough day on offense where if that area is denied to you, you're going to have to come up
31:04with a bunch of other solutions and it puts a lot more pressure on your offense.
31:09Simmons can do that almost single-handedly and very few defensive tackles in the league can.
31:14One of the reasons that he's one of my favorite players in the league to watch.
31:19The issue is everything behind him, right? This team had a very, very egregiously bad corner problem last year.
31:25They did take on some injuries. LeJarius Snead got injured, but again, he's still not.
31:30LeJarius Snead did a few years ago. And, you know, in the back half of the season, like week eight on after
31:37those injuries to what they thought was going to be their starting corners, they were left with Daryl Baker Jr., Jalen Armour
31:44Davis, and Marcus Harris as their three main corners.
31:47Baker was okay at times, but I would say it was a roller coaster at best, and there was a lot more
31:54drops than there were ascensions, to put it kindly.
31:57Jalen Armour Davis wasn't good. Marcus Harris, boy, he tried, but he's a liability against the run.
32:02So this team played a lot of three safety nickels so they wouldn't have to play a corner at nickel because they
32:09didn't have a nickel corner that was reliable as a run defender.
32:13So you saw like a lot of like Winston down there because he's actually a really exceptional run defender.
32:19Structure wise, this team does play a coverage structure that Robert Sala tends to like, which is he's very much a quarters guy, quarter, quarter, half guy.
32:28You know, he loves to deny the intermediate middle of the field.
32:31Like he knows that's the bread and butter for elite NFL offenses.
32:35So he does whatever he can to not give that to you.
32:39And when he does play quarter, quarter, half, again, it's very Fangio adjacent where it's we're going to park our half field safety.
32:46If you have like a really good number one receiver, we're going to park our half field safety over there, play quarters away from it.
32:54It's very formation dependent in terms of which coverage they're in.
32:58And he was very effective with that in San Francisco, despite taking on a ton of injuries.
33:03They were down like eight defensive linemen. They were down to like their sixth linebacker.
33:08And to still have a defense that made it to the division round shows you how powerful that structure can be, even
33:15if lesser talents are playing in that structure. Because, you know, as long as that structure is played without any major mistakes,
33:22it's really, really hard to get a big play against it.
33:26So he's a big believer in that. The Titans were a big believer in that last year.
33:31The one issue was their corners, especially their outside corners, were so bad that teams would basically line up in ways that would guarantee a one-on-one.
33:39Because quarters oftentimes is basically just man coverage of the extra steps.
33:43Like, you know, safety's got two vert. Corner takes his guy outside.
33:47Backside corner essentially is going to be impressed man, even though it's a quarters call.
33:52Like your corners are going to be isolated a lot.
33:55And so if teams know going into the game, like, hey, this is a quarters team, we're not going to be able to work the intermediate middle.
34:04We will be able to work the boundaries because we're going to have these one-on-ones out there.
34:09If we're going up against Daryl Baker and it's one-on-one, we're probably going to win that.
34:14So like that was their failing last year was they really didn't do a good job when they realized their corners couldn't do the task.
34:22They didn't have a way to protect them. And that punished them over and over and over again, no matter what Jeff Simmons was doing up front.
34:31This year, you bring in Elante Taylor, you bring in Cordell Flott, you're adding to the defensive line, even after trading to Vondre.
34:38I think they might have the tools to run that style of system better this year than they did last year, just
34:45because they actually have real corners now. Hi, Alternate Timeline Brett here.
34:49Before we get to all the 2026 stuff, If you've liked a lot of the data that we brought up so far,
34:56we have companion infographics for every single team, including the one we're talking about today.
35:01With over 15,000 total data points that we have collected throughout this summer, each team gets its own companion infographic, which is roughly about 20 pages long.
35:09It has all the data on this team you can think of, whether it's alignment data, personnel data, cap allocation, coverage data
35:16broken out by down and distance, blitz data. I mean, basically anything you can think of, we've got it.
35:22So if you want access to that, you can find that down at the link in the description below or at the QR code on the screen.
35:31Reminder, we also have bonus episodes that go live every single Friday over on Patreon, recapping every single division.
35:37We're going to pick division winners, MVPs, rookies of the year, all that stuff.
35:41So if you want bonus episodes, plus more data that you could probably handle, that is over on the Patreon.
35:48Thank you once again to all of our patrons that have made, honestly, this series possible to make in the first place.
35:55We could not have paid the people who help us make it without your guys' financial support.
36:00So thank you to our patrons. Thank you to all of our executive producers on Patreon.
36:05Their names are on screen right now. They have been OG supporters of us and made so much in our lives possible
36:12while we try to chase this dream. So thank you.
36:15Thank you. Thank you. And with that, let's get back to the show.
36:20All right. 2026 part of the show starts now.
36:22We left 2025 talking about roster turnover. Might as well talk about the guy who's in charge of that roster turnover.
36:29GM Mike Borgonzi. Mike Borgonzi, new, arrives from Kansas City.
36:3216 years of experience with the Chiefs. He was the assistant GM there for the last four.
36:38We talk about cradles of coaching a lot in football.
36:41Maybe we should start talking about cradles of GMs because a bunch of GMs have come from the Kansas City organization.
36:48Borgonzi is the most recent of those hires. And he pairs with head coach Robert Sala, who we've talked about quite a bit now.
36:55It is the handshake between those two, any GM and any head coach, that makes an organization successful.
37:01If they are not able to agree on what the team needs to move forward, and I'm not talking about absolutely lockstep on every decision.
37:09There will be disagreements. But in general, if they don't have the same theory about how to build a team or what
37:16the team can afford or where they need to spend draft picks or dollars, the team is not going to be successful.
37:23If those two positions fight, you're not going to advance in the NFL.
37:27Titans fans are hoping Borgonzi and Sala have a very strong handshake, that they see it very much in a similar way,
37:34and that they are pursuing a sort of joint purpose, you know, pulling the sled together, as the saying goes.
37:41If that happens, Tennessee will be in a better place because we have not seen that from the Titans over the previous
37:48three to five years, depending on how long you're counting.
37:51But this is the new power structure that is going to be remaking the roster.
37:55When we talk about all those 60 roster moves, these are the two that were in charge of that.
38:02Offensive coordinator Brian Dable, obviously most recently the head coach of the Giants, but a long tenure in the NFL calling offensive plays.
38:09I feel like he's a known known at this point that we don't really need to dive into the Brian Dable isms.
38:16Like what's Brian Dable going to be? Because again, he hasn't morphed tremendously.
38:20There have been adjustments over his career, but not like hard left turns.
38:24He's going to throw shallow crosses to Wanda Robinson.
38:27Like we can just say it. That's what he's going to do.
38:31Fair enough. It works. And he's it works. I'll give it to him.
38:35And he's going to run his quarterback into brick walls.
38:38I hope he doesn't do that with camp, but I don't feel like we need to dive too deeply into Brian Dable.
38:45We've talked about it many times on the show.
38:48Here's a long history in the NFL. DC Gus Bradley was the one that gave me pause because Gus, you know, during
38:55his most recent stops, we had not praised. We had instead chided for being too rigid in his ways to set in
39:02his ways as a coach or a coordinator. And, you know, time comes for everybody in the NFL because it changes so fast.
39:09Going back to that Patreon question, it is a constant trial by fire.
39:14You are going to be pushed. And just because something worked for you at one point or one stop or with one
39:21set of personnel or a while ago doesn't mean that it's going to work tomorrow in the NFL.
39:26You need to continue to adapt and adjust. And that hasn't been Gus's strong suit.
39:31So, again, that's why I hope Robert Sala probably has the strongest hand on the defense.
39:36I think that would be best for the Titans at this point.
39:40But we'll see. We don't know how it's going to work out.
39:44The season will tell us. And the special teams coach is John Fossil, who is also an NFL vet in that position.
39:51It kind of feels like going down Sala, Dable, Bradley, Fossil.
39:54All of them are knowns. And there is an expectation about that.
39:58But are any of them, I'll ask you this question.
40:01Do you feel like any of them are aspirational reaches, right?
40:05Occasionally, either in the GM chair, which we're not talking about, Borgansi at this point.
40:10Well, I think Dable at OC is far better.
40:13No, no, no, no. I'm not talking about an improvement.
40:16I think many of these guys are an improvement from where the Titans are.
40:20But in terms of that next step, yes, they're an improvement.
40:24That higher bar of like, are they needle movers, right?
40:27Are they, you know, state of the art, right?
40:30And to me, they all feel like very solid hires.
40:33But in that word, it feels safe. It feels like down the middle.
40:37It feels like proven. Yes, track record. Are they state of the art?
40:41Are they going to push the envelope? That's where I fall off a little bit.
40:46And maybe Titans fans at this point will just take the stability, the improvement and the stability.
40:51I wouldn't blame them for that. But to me, none of the four that we just talked about when reading their, you
40:58know, news of their hiring was like, oh, man, Tennessee reached for it.
41:03They got a good one. I'll push back on that.
41:06Okay. And we didn't know that he was as big of a needle mover as he was until after Salah got fired from the Jets.
41:14Right. Because we saw what happened to the defense.
41:17Correct. So I will say he's a needle mover from that standpoint.
41:20The Niners don't come close to making the division round last year without the magic he worked on that team.
41:27So I think he legitimately is a needle mover as a coach, especially on the defense.
41:32I was going to say on defense. But that's assuming that it's his show.
41:36Correct. On defense. And he's the head coach. It's always going to be his show.
41:41But I'm saying like I want him to be actively involved in the defense because I know he's way better at it than Gus is.
41:49And he's a good leader. Guys like him. You know, after he got fired from the Jets, all the players were like, we had no problems with Rob.
41:58Yeah. Like he was great. It wasn't him. So I, and again, they fell apart immediately after.
42:03They were what, two and two? And then he got fired and then they like barely won the rest of the year.
42:10So I do think that he is a needle mover.
42:14The issue is they have a bad offensive line and a young quarterback.
42:18And we have seen what that does to defensive coaches in the past.
42:22Typically defensive coaches thrive when quarterback and offensive line are already taken care of.
42:26And they're maybe not. Well, at least half of it is a maybe.
42:30Half of it's a no. So it's really going to be incumbent on Brian Dable to whip this shit into shape.
42:37Or else Salah, unfortunately, is going to be set up for a similar situation.
42:42But on defense, I do think he does move the needle.
42:45Yeah, I don't disagree with you as a defensive coordinator that he is a needle mover for the two reasons, two examples that you highlighted specifically.
42:53What happened to the Jets after he left and what happened after San Francisco after he got there?
42:59Both of those are recent examples. There are other examples throughout his coaching career where he has been the kind of leader.
43:06The reason he got a head coaching job in the first place was because he was that kind of leader on defense.
43:13Now as a head coach, sort of up and down.
43:16And again, the question is how much control did he have over that?
43:21And were there other larger organizational issues? I guess we'll find out because this is a second bite at the apple for him.
43:28The rest of the coaches feel like, yeah, they have their jobs cut out for him.
43:33That's for sure. And they are improvements. I think that's also for sure.
43:37Is it enough to move this franchise as far as it needs to go?
43:42We'll find out. In terms of assistant coaches on the staff, it is loaded with former players.
43:47Running back coach is Randy Jordan. Wide receiver coach, Greg Lewis.
43:50Nichols coach is Dalton Hilliard. Safety is Mark Ann Manuel.
43:54And assistant defensive line coach is Tanzel Smart. The one other coach I will mention is Dave Borgonzi.
43:59And yes, if that last name sounds familiar, it's because his brother is the now GM.
44:04So people would automatically assume, oh, it's nepotism. He just hired his brother.
44:09Not so fast. Dave Borgonzi has been coaching the league since 2011.
44:12Doing it stops in Dallas, Tampa, Indianapolis, and Chicago.
44:15He's linebackers coach at many of those stops. So I would say not completely.
44:20Like he didn't get his job because of Mike's role.
44:23In fact, he was never at Kansas City while Mike was there.
44:27So he's been out carving out his own fortunes in the league.
44:31And they happen to come together. You know, I don't think the GM and the linebackers coach, you know, interface that much.
44:38But it is interesting. They're both in the same building.
44:41And don't assume it's just because of nepotism. Because Dave built his own rep at the league.
44:46Yeah, it's not like it's a Senate seat, right?
44:49It's not just because it's his sibling. Yeah. Anyway, before I get canceled.
44:53Free agency. Let's talk about everything that happened. A lot of names on the move.
44:58Like a lot, a lot of names on the move.
45:01Most of them necessary. So I'll just kind of rattle off everything here.
45:05We're going to go speed round here for departures.
45:08Kevin Zeitler, gone. Xavier Woods, gone. Jihad Ward, gone.
45:11Jalen Armour Davis, gone. Still unsigned. Lloyd Cushenberry, now with the Bills.
45:15LeJarius Sneed, back with the Chiefs. Because the Chiefs-Titans pipeline goes both ways, apparently.
45:19Kair Elam, also with the Chiefs. Arden Key with Indy.
45:23Van Jefferson and Chika Conquo are now with the Commanders.
45:26Daryl Baker is with the Dolphins. Is he their number one corner?
45:30Oh, I hope not. Oh, shit. Oh, man. That's an issue.
45:33Actually, no. They drafted a, shit, San Diego kid we both love, Chris Johnson.
45:38He'll be the number one. Yeah. No, no, no.
45:40I was like, crisis averted. I was like, wait, we did that episode like a month ago.
45:46No. It sounds like we've recorded it already and I can't remember.
45:50I don't think so. Oh, man. Tavondre Sweat is with the Jets.
45:53Remember, he was traded for Jermaine Johnson. And then Sebastian Joseph Day is with the Steelers.
45:59Still going at the age of 31. Feels like he's on a new team every single year at this point.
46:05That's a lot of names each. And that's only, what, I don't know, 60% of them?
46:10Yeah, I was going to say it's barely half of them.
46:14Again, whenever an organization has wholesale change at the top, that's GM and head coach.
46:18Think of ripping it down to the studs if you're talking about the home rental analogy.
46:23Yeah. Up to, I think it's 60%. No, it's 80% of the roster in the first 16 months will move.
46:30So in the first year and a half, like four-fifths of the roster will change because it does.
46:36It needs to. That's the reason new regimes get brought in is because the team is not being successful.
46:42It's very rare that a very successful GM and head coach ride off into the sunset after multiple Super Bowls and somebody inherits a greatly run organization.
46:50It's the other way around. So in terms of re-sign, Titans spent their money on Jeffrey Simmons.
46:56Again, we think it's, you know, it is a rich contract, but it might even be an underpay.
47:01I like that assessment because Jeffrey Simmons is that kind of player, that kind of difference maker.
47:07He walks away with $35 million per year. Calvin Ridley at $17 million, a restructure.
47:12You know, the wide receiver room was bare enough last year because again, the Titans have tried several times to address wide receiver in the draft.
47:20It has not been successful for them for the most part.
47:23They brought in Calvin Ridley and he was all right, but he was getting paid more than he was worth.
47:30You pay him to stick around because you don't want to make another hole.
47:34You already have a lot of things to patch.
47:37So I kind of, I don't love it at this point.
47:41Calvin Ridley, 32 years old, not the player he was certainly when he entered the league, but at the same time, from
47:48the Titans perspective, it's a functional veteran receiver. What else are we going to get?
47:52It's a really expensive market. $17 million is kind of reasonable in the current landscape.
47:57I can see both sides. I don't love it.
48:00I don't hate it. The hope is that Tate is your future one.
48:04You know, Ridley can get you through this year, maybe next year at most.
48:09And Wandale is your classic high-end three. That's just going to eat catches all season long.
48:14You know, he's a great yak threat. I do think that he can get more involved vertically.
48:19You know, talking about Wandale, he did that a lot in college when he was with the Giants.
48:25For whatever reason, they will try to use him more as a yak threat than a deep threat.
48:31You know, Chim Dike, more so on special teams.
48:33But like, I've seen him make plays as a receiver.
48:37Elekia Manor, like, we'll see what he can become.
48:39He had a lot of pre-draft fans. So like, there's five interesting guys here.
48:44KJ Osborne they brought in. So six interesting guys.
48:47I don't necessarily have expectations for Xavier Restrepo, I'll be honest here.
48:51Yeah, there's worse receiving cores, right? This can't be number 32 out of 32.
48:55I don't think it is the worst, but it is thin along the top.
49:00And especially if you have the, what have you done for me lately glasses on that the NFL sort of requires.
49:06Calvin Ridley not moving the needle. But if you look at, again, the depth behind him.
49:11And if you were trying to get a free agent wide receiver this year in the free agency class, there weren't a lot of sterling options.
49:20Like, no matter what you were going to spend, they just weren't available.
49:24Really good receivers don't shake loose. They get franchised.
49:27They get, you know, re-upped. And teams don't let them go because they are hard to get.
49:32And that's why they pay so much money for them.
49:35So the selection is low. Your room is not particularly full.
49:39And again, Calvin Ridley sort of fits the bill.
49:42Is he, you know, is he your top choice?
49:44No. Is he tops for what was available? Maybe.
49:47Wandale makes about the same as him now, by the way.
49:51But he was brought in as an outside free agent.
49:54So look into the third-party free agent acquisitions here.
49:57Wandale at $17.5 million. Jordan Elliott they brought in to add to the interior rotation on the defensive line at $4 million.
50:04Mitch Trubisky, you know, carving out quite the legacy.
50:07He's 32 already. Yeah. Believe it or not. So he's, you know, the vet journeyman come in, help a young guy out.
50:14He's been that several stops at this point. John Franklin Myers got $21 million.
50:18You know, he's been an effective pass rusher throughout his career as both an inside slash outside guy, you know, movable chess piece type.
50:26Jacob Barton for $9 million from the commanders, really more of a pure flamethrower off the edge.
50:31Solomon Thomas, speaking of guys in their early 30s that are still going.
50:35Dude, find you somebody that loves you like Robert Sala loves Solomon Thomas.
50:40Oh, he adores him. Like he keeps him employed.
50:42That is, that is the reason. We don't highlight Solomon Thomas because he's, you know, he's 31 or making $3 million.
50:49That relationship has kept him in the league and Sala loves something about him.
50:54I don't know whether it's his approach, you know, his consistency, whatever it is like that relationship between coach and player is one of those strong ones.
51:02And it's why he keeps popping up. Austin Schlottman is their projected starter at center.
51:07Again, only 18 starts in seven seasons, but he knows table system.
51:11I assume, you know, he can call protections because he's played in this system so that Cam doesn't have to, or at
51:18least not have to take like the entire load there.
51:21Cordell Flott, I've actually thought was the Giants best corner last year.
51:25They got him for 15 million, which is less than half of the top of the corner market.
51:31Great signing there. Daniel Bellinger. Again, it's just Giants, Giants, Giants, Giants.
51:34Again, knows the system. Uh, Jermaine Johnson, who has familiarity with Sala traded to Vandre Sweat to get him in there to
51:41give themselves ideally like competent edge play him, JFM, Jefferson.
51:45Like it could be a pretty fun pass rush.
51:47Uh, Tony Adams, again, familiarity, um, brought him in to add to the safety group.
51:52I don't think he's going to be a starter for them, but remember they do use a lot of three safety nickel there.
52:00And I still think they're going to use a lot of three safety nickel because Sala believes that his nickel should be able to handle the run game.
52:09And right now they're, they're DBs that can do that are all safeties.
52:13Uh, Alante Taylor, he's going to be the other corner across from Flott.
52:17Got just shy of 20 million. Again, quality corner, not a top of market deal.
52:22Love both of those signings. And then you got Tommy Townsend, of course, because punters are people too, uh, brought him in to be the new starting punter.
52:31Yeah. Yeah. Placing both your outside corners in free agency should be more expensive than it was again there.
52:37You know, they didn't pay top of market for either him or Alante Taylor.
52:41I feel like they're both clear upgrades and they got away with it for what I would consider is pretty good money.
52:48Brings us to the draft moving from March to April.
52:51Now I want to preface this by saying I am not a Carnell Tate hater.
52:56Yeah. You're going to lead with that early. It was early for me.
53:00I'm sorry. I understand they really needed receiver and maybe they couldn't get a trade down value that they wanted.
53:07Even in this draft class, I did not see Carnell Tate as the fourth best player in this draft class.
53:13And when that pick happened, I was stunned. It wasn't me saying that he's going to fail in the NFL.
53:19It wasn't me saying that he is a bad football player.
53:23I projected him talent wise as like a high end number two, maybe low end number one in the league.
53:29You know, he's not built like Zay Flower. He doesn't have the Zay Flower skill set.
53:34But like that, that type of receiver, right? Where it's like if you're going into the year with him as your number
53:41one, like you're not hating it, but like you don't see him as like the true go out there, get me a catch on Pat Sertan.
53:50Right. I do not see his separation ability to be in that tier.
53:54Like that Jamar Chase tier that, I mean, Jeremiah Smith next year, like the guys that typically go in the top five, right?
54:01Those type of receivers. You know, even like the Jalen Waddle, CeeDee Lamb class a few years ago, like I, or what
54:08was the 2024 receiver class where he had like six receivers go in the first round, you know, bunch of super talented Malik neighbors.
54:16Right. I didn't see him in that group. He got drafted in the same range as that group, but I didn't see him in that group.
54:24It does not mean that I think he won't be successful in the league, but I don't think he is going to
54:31transform Cam Ward like people hope that he will.
54:34I think his best quality is he doesn't drop the ball.
54:37He's reliable. He'll get to the spots you need him to get to.
54:41But against man coverage, which your number one receiver, you are paying him to beat man coverage in the 25% of the
54:48game that you're going to see man coverage. That's what the average is.
54:53You're only going to see about 25% of the time.
54:56You make your money on those snaps. You don't make your money, you know, being the mid-level threat on flood and settling
55:03between the safety in the corner and getting an uncontested catch for 15 yards.
55:07That's not what you get paid to do. You get paid that on third and seven, it's press man.
55:13Go get me a bucket. I don't think he can do that against really good NFL corners.
55:19So, you know, I like him. Didn't love him.
55:22Four was high for me. I think that's more a statement on this year's draft than it is on Carnal Tate because
55:29we knew this year's draft was going to get weird right about there.
55:33If it didn't happen at four, it was going to happen at five.
55:37If it didn't happen at five, and I think most people would say it was going to happen at five, it would have happened at six.
55:45So at some point right within that two or three pick range, everybody was like, well, the talent level's really even and
55:52it's just going to come down to how much you like a guy.
55:56So I don't think that I'm going to hold it against Carnal.
56:00I know I'm not going to hold it against Carnal Tate that he got drafted at four overall because he was the
56:07player in need that they felt most certain about.
56:10Is he a needle mover like many of the other draft players in the other drafts that you talked about?
56:16Not necessarily. I think he's a very good player.
56:19I think he's incredibly solid. I think he's very physical at the catch point.
56:24Not only will he not drop it, he's got a big frame and he knows how to use it.
56:30And I think his best life in the NFL, if he develops at the sort of top rate, would be a Keenan Allen type.
56:37And he doesn't have the kind of moves. Oh boy.
56:41He doesn't have the kind of moves that Keenan has, but late career Keenan was still getting it done with savvy at
56:48the catch point, using his size to block out defenders.
56:51And if Carnal Tate can carve out that piece of it, is he going to be as productive?
56:57Doubtful. Keenan Allen, one of the most productive receivers recently in the NFL.
57:01But if he can be that kind of threat, that's not necessarily the flashy separator, but is a consistent and reliable threat
57:08that the quarterback understands where he's going to be and has confidence throwing to because he knows he's going to come down with it.
57:15He can be a very successful NFL receiver. Will he ever live up to pick four overall?
57:21Probably not to a lot of people. It's just more pressure than, you know, many people can live up to.
57:27You're a top five pick in the NFL. People just have designs on what that should look like.
57:33They don't take into account the year. They don't take into account the need, anything else.
57:38So not going to hold it against Carnal Tate for where he's drafted.
57:42He definitely improves their room. Like, it's not a bad pick or a confounding pick from the Titans standpoint there.
57:49They needed wide receiver help. He was one of the best wide receivers available in this year's draft.
57:54You know, again, to your point, I think the most prescient thing you said is maybe they couldn't find the trade down value they wanted.
58:02And that was what a lot of people said going into this draft was.
58:07The talent level is so similar through after really the first four or five picks that you're going to have trouble getting value to trade down.
58:15And they might've just said, take him while he's here.
58:18And if that's the case, I think he's a good fit.
58:22I think Cam Ward will build rapport with him and will build a certainty that on certain routes, he can just throw
58:29it to Carnal Tate, covered or not, and he'll come down with it.
58:33Is that all routes yet? Absolutely not. Is that all situations?
58:36No. Is it going to be harder for Carnal Tate to do that against NFL corners than college corners?
58:42Yes. Do I think he can't because of that?
58:45No, I actually really like Carnal Tate as a player.
58:48And I think he makes sense for the Titans.
58:51The four thing to me is more or less extraneous because that's where he got picked.
58:56He's a good fit. I think he's an upgrade and moving on.
59:00I think part of the reason why it bugged me is just because the year before that, a team made a similar decision, right?
59:08The Raiders really need tackle. We're going to eat our dessert before our vegetables and we're going to take a running back.
59:15Yep. Not that running back and receiver are saying are seen the same way.
59:19But to me, if you have a tackle group, hold on, I have the number here.
59:24So overall pressure rate allowed by this offensive line, they were 19th in pressure rate allowed.
59:30Like not like horrible, horrible. If you're looking at just the tackle group, they were 29th.
59:35Yeah. Right. They were desperate, truly desperate for a tackle upgrade.
59:38There were guys on the board that I thought would be immediate upgrade at tackle for them.
59:44And they chose to have dessert before veggies. And I am really worried that we're going to look back on, on the
59:51teams that took tackle right after them that I think are going to be pretty happy.
59:56Yep. And, and we're going through another year of fucking Dan Moore making $20 million a year for Cam to get hurt and not hurt, but hit.
60:04And I just, I really don't like when teams go, not, you know, resent the term skill position, but skill position over
60:11trenches, because if you don't have the trenches sorted out, you don't have anything sorted out.
60:16And there were receivers on day two that we liked, receivers on day three that we liked.
60:22And it was either, it was either edge or it was tackle.
60:26And I mean, hell, they took edge later in the first round.
60:29Cause like, yeah, whatever. We're going to, we're going to get our guy later.
60:34But it's like, where's the tackle? There's no tackle here in this class anywhere because they couldn't get one.
60:40Yeah. That's to me, that's the bigger indictment is if you decide that Carnell Tate is the guy you're taking it for,
60:47it's almost like a fantasy football handcuff. Okay. Then we have an agreement, wink, wink, nudge, nudge that you're going tackle next.
60:54Right. For you with that tackle rotation. And to me, it's implicit.
60:58If you take Carnell Tate, you're on the hook for a tackle in the next two picks.
61:03You got to do it. Right. You maybe even, you need to trade up for one.
61:08Regardless. If I see two more picks after Carnell Tate with your tackle group and you didn't pick tackle, I'm not as happy about it.
61:16So from the Titans standpoint, what they did after that disappointed me because they came away with no tackle help to upgrade.
61:23What I see is one of the league's worst tackle tandems.
61:27That's not okay because yes, then it becomes dessert before veggies very clearly.
61:31So talking about the rest of the picks again in the first round at the end of the first round pick 31,
61:38they get Keldrick Falk, the edge from Auburn only 20 years old.
61:42We've talked about this several times over the past couple of weeks, players that came into the league very, very young again,
61:49not yet 21 when he was drafted physical Marvel, great size, great frame, great burst, really strong.
61:54All of those things. Problem being it didn't account to sack production.
61:58It didn't even really account to pressure production. He got some pressures.
62:02He didn't get sacks with all that talent, with all that physical manifestation that he has.
62:07He has everything you need on paper from an edge, but it didn't translate into production, even though he had help on his defensive line.
62:15That worried a lot of people, including me. Super low production scores tend to bother me.
62:20I'm not saying it's the end all be all, but he's really close.
62:24I'm going to say this. It is going to be dependent upon the defensive line coaching staff for the Titans to get him that half step closer.
62:33And it is a half step. If you look at many of his rushes, he's a half step off turning, you know,
62:40a rush into a pressure or a pressure into a sack.
62:43If they can, if they believe, and I think they probably do because they drafted him in the first round.
62:50If they believe they can shave off those little extra steps and seconds and turn him into a more productive player with
62:57his physical gifts, which to be honest, most coaching staffs think they can.
63:01I can fix him. That's the approach of every coach everywhere at every level.
63:05If they can do that, this pick could be worthwhile regardless of the tackle discussion, right?
63:10He's a good player. He has all the things you look for except production.
63:15And is that reason for pause? It is for me, but I also understand the pick because you need help along that defensive line.
63:22Simmons can't do it all by himself and Kelter Falk could be a real strong step in the right direction to getting there.
63:30Sala oversaw a defense that last year drafted Mikel Williams, also in the first round.
63:35Same thing. Great run defender, great energy, great effort.
63:37You know, it's going to give you a lot of value on first and second down immediately.
63:43Third down is the issue. We believe that we're good enough coaches that we can teach that.
63:48And like all coaches, they believe I'm the guy that can unlock it.
63:52Yeah. Georgia. Georgia doesn't know what they're doing. You're talking about using the SEC?
63:57Ah, they don't know shit about defensive linemen. I can do it.
64:01Sometimes it works, right? Sometimes like Trayvon Walker. It worked eventually.
64:04But, you know, you got to be you got to be along for the ride on it because and it's not a short ride either.
64:12It's a multi-season project. And you just hope that you can get them there in a few years.
64:18Yeah, that's what they're betting on. And if let's be clear, if they get him there, it's worth it.
64:24And then some getting a getting a decent pass rusher at 31.
64:28Great pick. If he doesn't get there, it's a miss.
64:31There's there just isn't anything in between. You know, you don't draft a guy at 31 to be a solid edge run defender.
64:38That's just not how that works. You get those guys in the back half of the second or the third or the fourth.
64:46So can they pay it off? I hope so, because Jeffrey Simmons could really use it.
64:51In the second round at pick 60, they get Anthony Hill Jr., the linebacker out of Texas.
64:56Again, very young player, just freshly 21 at the time of the draft.
65:00They need help at the linebacker position. I like said Gray.
65:04I think he's a good player. They need more firepower there.
65:07They choose Anthony Hill Jr. I'll say he was not my favorite in this interior linebacker class.
65:13I had a more whelmed opinion of him than many folks.
65:16He didn't move a lot of needles for me.
65:19And that if you think you've heard that from me before about a Texas defender, I said the same thing about the Bears corner choice.
65:27Malik Muhammad, like very talented physically. But when you put on the tape, there weren't that many plays where I thought, oh,
65:34he really made the difference on that play. He was the guy that made that play.
65:39He made a lot of plays he was supposed to.
65:42And he had some flash plays. But in terms of production and overall impact on the game, I thought he was more solid.
65:50Again, solid interior linebackers don't usually go in the second.
65:53They usually go in the third or the fourth.
65:56So a little bit early for me. Didn't dislike the player, but it felt like a bit of a reach for me.
66:03In terms of immediate contributions, he's a great blitzer.
66:06Right. So at minimum on third down, we think that he can be our guy that affects the quarterback.
66:12You know, he can he can win that one on one with the running back.
66:16And if if his main value on third down is they don't feel comfortable putting a running back on him.
66:23And so they have to put a guard on him or a center on him.
66:28It will make Jeffrey Simmons job easier. So in the aggregate, he can help our pass rush in that way by being
66:35good enough that he can draw attention. The first and second down stuff.
66:39I'm with you. The flashes are really good. Like he's got sideline to sideline speed.
66:44He is a physical player. The cannon can sometimes be pointed a few degrees left and right from from on target.
66:50But again, it's Robert Sala. He's really good at coaching linebackers.
66:54He believes that he can get the best out of these guys.
66:58I think from an upside perspective, I would accept 60th overall.
67:01I need to double check which linebackers went after him, though, because if like Golday went after him, that would piss me off.
67:08No, I believe Golday was, I think, 54. So Golday was off.
67:12I'm going to I'm going to double check as we go to see.
67:16But I agree with you in terms of the final line of my scouting report when I'm trying to, you know, tie
67:23things together so that I can use it pretty quickly when we're going through the draft.
67:28I said good news is he's nowhere near his ceiling.
67:32Right. Because he's a plus athlete, aggressive nature, makes plays based on burst and size, not the most technically proficient.
67:38So when you talk about the reads, you talk about his targeting being a couple of degrees off.
67:44It isn't where it needs to be. Doesn't mean it can't be adjusted.
67:48But he was making plays when he could out athlete people and he could do that because, again, he's 6'3", 238.
67:55He's quick. He has burst and he'll need to work on his techniques if he wants to win in the NFL, because,
68:02look, NFL linemen, blockers in general have seen the best athletes you have to offer.
68:06You need to have something else to win. And I'm not saying he can't get there, but I am saying he needs
68:13to continue developing if he's going to. So first linebacker off the board was Arville Reese, obviously.
68:19Sure. Who went to the Giants. And then it was Sonny at 7.
68:23And then there wasn't another linebacker till 43 with Rodriguez.
68:26And then it was Trotter, interestingly enough, to the Bucs.
68:29And then it was Golday at 51. Then CJ Allen, who we'll talk about later this week with the Colts at 53.
68:36And then Hill seven picks later. Right. So, OK, there's a little bit of a run.
68:41So they probably felt like the pressure was on.
68:44We got to get somebody. I would agree. Here's the issue.
68:48Two rounds later, the next two linebackers or two of the next three linebackers that went were Jimmy Rolder and Caleb Alarmsor.
68:55Two rounds later. Hot picks. Yeah. I think of what I think I believe I should say that Robert Sala could do with Caleb Alarmsor.
69:03Oh, my God. Like, just please give me that.
69:06But the problem is two rounds later. So when did Caleb Alarmsor go?
69:10126. OK. Perfect segue into the rest of the Titans draft because we go from round two pick 60 to round five.
69:17A few moments later. 142 is the next pick.
69:20So they wouldn't have even got Caleb Alarmsor because.
69:23And that probably is the reason they were like, look, we've got a golf here.
69:27We're not getting a pick through the rest of round two, any of round three, any of round four and not well into round five.
69:35So if we want a difference maker at linebacker, we got to go now.
69:40So I understand it from that point. But if you stack up Hill Jr., in fact, I'll look at my wide receiver
69:47or my linebacker rankings as we go. And I will figure out whether or not I had Alarmsor ranked higher than Hill Jr.
69:54And I'm betting I did. I think I did.
69:57I think I did, too. So, you know, now if you'd picked Alarmsor at 60 overall, you would have raised some eyebrows.
70:04I understand it. Again, they picked the linebacker they picked, but they do not have another pick until 142 from 60 all the way down to 142.
70:13That is a huge chasm in the NFL draft.
70:15And they get Fernando Carmona Jr., the guard from Arkansas.
70:19Absolute beast. People mover, like aggressive brawler, hand strength.
70:21Not necessarily the most mobile, but very, very physical in the run game.
70:26And, you know, I could see him getting snaps here.
70:29Not early because lots to work on. And I didn't say anything about the pass protection.
70:34But in terms of just his physical nature against the run game, I understand why they picked him.
70:40And it felt like a value at 142. You know, earlier, not so much because of the development.
70:45But from a physical standpoint, if you think you can get him up to a passable level, no pun intended, in pass
70:52pro, you know, I think it's a solid pick.
70:55The Nick Singleton pick in that same round fascinated me.
70:58Because right now their starter is Tony Pollard and then you've got TyJ Spears, right?
71:03And you've got Nick Singleton. So you've got three home run hitters in the backfield if they can get a crease.
71:10The hard part is getting a crease with that offensive line.
71:13But, again, neither here nor there. As far as the role that he's going to play for them.
71:19Because I saw him as really more of a threat.
71:22It's like a third down receiving back because he's so inconsistent down to down.
71:27Like in the actual run game, I was like, ah, he's going to be so inconsistent.
71:32It's going to be hard to like really count on him to get us the five yards we need to get.
71:39But he's got great speed. And so if he's like the change-up guy, if we can like give him a couple like
71:46GT counters or like a crack toss or throw him the ball.
71:49Get him involved in the screen game and just see if he can leg it out.
71:55I was like, okay, yeah, he can carve out that kind of role in the NFL.
72:00But there's two guys ahead of him in Tony Pollard and TyJay Spears that also do that.
72:05So to me, I'm like, do they believe in him as a pass protector?
72:10Do they think that they can make him be a better down to down runner on early downs because he has size?
72:17Like it was an interesting fit because his skill set as it stands right now.
72:21Again, we've seen running backs develop. James Cook in college and James Cook in the NFL.
72:26Two totally different running backs. But as it stands right now, the stuff that he does well, they got two other guys
72:33in the roster that also do it well and maybe do it better.
72:38Yeah, I think definitely do it better than Nick Singleton.
72:41If we're talking about Tony Pollard, who's had some tremendous production and TyJay Spears, who has had flashes of production.
72:47But his potential as a runner, I like better than Nick Singleton quite a bit by probably not quite a couple of
72:54rounds, round and a half at least. My only thought when they grabbed him was they just thought it was a value
73:01from an athlete perspective that they think he's got a role on special teams.
73:06And maybe we've talked about this a lot over the last couple of years with the kickoff rule changing.
73:12Kickoffs are now more like run plays. If you can make a crease and he can hit it big, possibly, right?
73:18Who knows? But from an athletic perspective, he's a great athlete.
73:22And yeah, he is more linear and I would say limited as a runner because the vision isn't necessarily tremendous.
73:28It's OK. And the sort of nuance around the line of scrimmage to sort of manufacture space or I would say manipulate
73:35defenders on the other side of the line. You didn't see a lot of that.
73:40You saw a lot of waiting for a crease and then I'm going to turn on the gas and you try and catch me.
73:48So, again, in the fifth round, I don't really have an issue with it.
73:52In the sixth round, pick 184, they get Jackie Marshall, defensive tackle out of Baylor.
73:57Didn't have any strong thoughts on Jackie, but I like the other pick they got a lot in the sixth round at 194, 10 picks later.
74:05Pat Coogan, the center out of Indiana. When I was asking around about Pat Coogan early in the draft process, I had
74:12multiple people tell me probably the smartest. And they said player in college, you know, offensive lineman in college football or center in college football.
74:20Definitely the smartest offensive lineman on Indiana, which ended up being the national champion.
74:25Of course, Coogan is not necessarily a physical specimen.
74:27He gets off. He gets off the bus. He looks kind of like a 1950s steelworker going getting on lunch like he's not impressive physically as an athlete.
74:36He's decent like his RIS score was OK, but that's not where his real value is.
74:42His real value is in understanding all the things we talked about, strangely enough, that this team needs pre-snap looks, protections, anticipating
74:49what the defense is going to do. And he's a brawler.
74:52He'll get it done. Is he technically the prettiest offensive lineman?
74:56Absolutely not. Is he effective? Does he hold up his guy long enough to make the play happen?
75:01He did. He did all year long for Indiana.
75:04I think he's a tremendous value in the sixth round and given their center situation and what we talked about in previous
75:11episodes in terms of numbers of offensive linemen, backup offensive linemen that get snaps in the NFL.
75:17I'm betting Pat Coogan to get snaps for this team one way or another within the first year of him being all the roster.
75:24Could even see it at guard, quite frankly. I really could.
75:28And that stat, for those of you that didn't see that episode, OL6 through whatever, right?
75:33So any backup offensive lineman, you combine all those together.
75:36Backup offensive linemen for each NFL team average 1,000 snaps per year.
75:40The average wide receiver two is 700 snaps. So all these guys are going to play, right?
75:45Carmona's going to play. Coogan's going to play. At some point, they're going to be on the field.
75:51Again, we'll see what position. Coogan obviously has center guard flexibility.
75:54I will say, when I talk to him, I can back up the whole crazy smart thing.
76:00He's really, really smart, really experienced. He's going to be 24 as a rookie.
76:04I asked him to walk me through a typical week at Indiana because I wanted to get a sense of what their preparation process was.
76:12And it just sounded like an NFL schedule. And everybody talks about how, oh, Indiana only practices like two hours or whatever.
76:19And they do most of the work in the film room.
76:23It's not just, okay, lack of on-field prioritizing meeting rooms and tape study.
76:27It's about how they do it. The meticulousness of their note-taking.
76:30The meticulousness of their charting. Really drilling into guys, you know, pre-snap looks and identifying what you're seeing and the recall aspect of football.
76:38Right? Of like, okay, if I see, like if we're on the left hash and we're in this area of the field, right?
76:45We're between 50 and plus 40. And we're on the left hash and I see a safety directly in line with me at 15 yards versus 12 yards.
76:54My eyes are going to go to the other safety.
76:58That's going to tell me what coverage they're in.
77:00These are the percentages that we know. They're going to bring it from the field this percent of the time.
77:07They're going to bring it from the boundary this percent of the time, but only if our receiver to the boundary side is in a certain split.
77:15Then that corner gets like the go signal automatically if our receiver is in a cut split versus if he's out wide.
77:22Like all of this information, they just know going into the game.
77:26And so he uses that to call protections. Right?
77:29And we talk about how they go in the NFL, you can't trust looking at safeties.
77:34Well, in college you can. Like you can still look at safeties and know exactly what they're in.
77:40And so he starts there. He works through it's like a like fucking PEMDAS.
77:44Like he just works through the motions of it to know what you're in, calls the protections accordingly.
77:50If shit gets real weird, you got Fernando Mendoza back there who's really hard to sack in the first place because he's like 6'5", 240.
77:58And then you go win a natty. And so people talk about like, oh, you know, yeah, they were 23 year olds,
78:0524 year olds beating up on a bunch of teenagers.
78:08Miami was older than them in the natty and they still beat him up.
78:13Like that was just a bunch of grown adults playing college football.
78:17But Indiana's grown adults were better prepared than Miami's.
78:19And part of that was because of Pat Coogan and how seriously he takes that part of the process.
78:26Like he is, he's awesome. I love him. Yeah.
78:28I think he's tremendous value at 194, especially for this team.
78:32They're going to need him. And then their seventh round pick, I love.
78:36I don't know how to properly classify Jaron Kanick.
78:39You know, it says tight end. Sure, maybe. Like he played some tight end.
78:43He played some big slot. He played some H back.
78:47He played some true fullback. I think they might have even lined him up at halfback.
78:52Like they had him kind of all over the place.
78:55And in the seventh round of 225, you're just getting the athlete.
78:59You're just getting a guy as a football player that is super versatile, really tough, pretty fast.
79:04He's not the biggest. He definitely doesn't fit typical, you know, prototypical tight end measurements.
79:09And I think that was the knock is nobody really knew what to do with him because he can do a lot
79:16of things and he can do them pretty well.
79:19But he just doesn't really look like a fullback and he doesn't really look like a tight end.
79:24I don't care. Watching his tape was really fun.
79:27I got to it late and I was like, why is nobody?
79:31Oh, that's why. All right. He's just sort of in between, but he's a really good football player.
79:37And I think they'll figure it out. I think he's going to enjoy playing for solid.
79:42I think they will find a use for him because he can take up to two and a half positions on a
79:4953 man roster on game day because he's probably going to be a four phase special teamer.
79:54He's going to be, you know, you could use him as a gunner because he's aggressive enough.
80:00If you have a package of weird ass plays where you're running like essentially kind of almost like a four tight end
80:07set, but one of them is officially a fullback.
80:10Like can it's your guy because he can play two of those roles.
80:14So fascinating player doesn't can't pigeonhole him. But I just liked what he did on the football field and I thought he had impact.
80:22So he lasted at the seventh round because nobody really knew where to put him.
80:26Taylor made for core special teamer. Right. Like the miles kill a brew of the quote unquote alleged tight end position.
80:33Right. It's like you're a special teamer for the next 10 years.
80:37You're going to be really good at it. Yeah.
80:40Which again, there's worse ways to spend a seventh round pick.
80:43I'll tell you that much. As far as UDFAs, three really stood out to me.
80:48Bishop Fitzgerald. Safety out of USC. Only went undrafted because of an injury situation.
80:52Had a knee injury, but really, really rangy. He's undersized, but he's rangy.
80:57And this team lacked range in their safety core last year.
81:00You know, when they did want to go into middle field closed structures, it was it was kind of tough for them.
81:07You know, they had some older safeties back there that just couldn't hoof it like they used to.
81:13And even then, like Hooker, even though when he was coming out of college, he was really rangy.
81:19Like he's he's been injured so much that he doesn't move like he used to either, even though he's like twenty seven, twenty eight.
81:26So getting some ranginess on the back end is going to be good for them.
81:31Gives them just another tool in their tool belt.
81:34Emil Wagner tackle at a Notre Dame. He's got almost thirty five inch arms, like super long.
81:39I mean, I guess they brought in a tackle at some point, so I'll take it.
81:44He's got some tools. And then Tyra Montgomery, wide receiver to John Carroll, new ish to football.
81:50Older prospect did really well at the all star circuit.
81:53You know, had a lot of fans again, developmental pick, probably going to be on the practice squad.
81:59But, you know, if I'm an undrafted receiver and I'm picking a destination, Tennessee is probably one of the ones I'm looking at.
82:06It's going to give you opportunity. That's for sure.
82:09And I like Tyra Montgomery. We talked about his story on blue chip committee episodes this year.
82:14One of the coolest stories in college football, his path from how he ended up not playing football.
82:20COVID years. One of the reasons he's an overaged, quote unquote, overaged prospect is because he bounced around and sort of had a nontraditional path.
82:28Ended up, you know, out of a small school.
82:31You see it every year at Senior Bowl going against the top guys and held his own as a physical profile.
82:38He's not a small guy that worked really well and, you know, opened a lot of eyes.
82:43I thought he would probably get drafted. Turns out, not so much.
82:47He's a UDFA, but in terms of opportunity in Tennessee, it looks really good.
82:51Bishop Fitzgerald is a player that I was really high on in this draft cycle.
82:56Higher than almost anybody I knew. I was really surprised he didn't get drafted.
83:01And when I found out it was medical, I, again, didn't know that before the draft and it went, aha.
83:07Because talent wise, I couldn't see him lasting through the fourth round.
83:11Like beginning of day three, he should have been off the board talent and size wise.
83:16Tape, talent, size. No way. Okay. Medical, I get it.
83:19But if he comes through healthy, he's going to be playing for this team.
83:23We talked about how much they like three safety looks.
83:27He could be one of the two base safeties.
83:30He's that good. Um, and Emil Wagner, it's funny.
83:32I was talking to a former Notre Dame offensive lineman about, uh, their guard prospect this year, actually.
83:38And I said, anybody else? He said, don't forget about a bill.
83:42And I was like, Oh, I haven't gotten his tape yet.
83:45I watched his tape and I was like, okay, that's just because you went to Notre Dame.
83:51Like it is a developmental prospect. He's, he's a decent football player, but he's got a ways to go again.
83:57This team has opportunity. Same story as Tyron Montgomery.
84:00If you're looking for an opportunity in the NFL and you're a tackle, you can do a lot worse than Tennessee as a UDFA prospect.
84:08All right. Sealing and floor last segment of the day.
84:11What's the upper echelon result we can hope for here?
84:14And what's the floor? I think the floor is the same as last year.
84:19Three, right? This was the second worst team in football last year.
84:23I know Titans fans feel like they were worst.
84:26Uh, you didn't watch enough Jets games to tell you that much.
84:29They were bad. Um, but I do think that they can add four wins to their total.
84:35I think their absolute ceiling is seven. If their offensive line wasn't arguably the worst in the sport, I could have gone
84:42higher because of all the additions they've made to the defense.
84:45I do think that we have upgrades everywhere on the coaching staff.
84:49I do think that Cam Ward can get it together again, just need more consistent ball placement from him.
84:55Weapons are at least receiving core is better on paper here.
84:59Like there's so many things to be excited about.
85:02I think Titans fans are going to have a good time watching their team this year because there is stuff to look
85:09forward to, especially compared to last year. But if the offensive line was below average instead of again, maybe the worst in
85:16the sport, this could probably be an eight or nine win team.
85:19But because of that, I am capping them at seven more realistic outcome is probably five or six, but I'm capping them at seven.
85:27They can get to like that solid middle, like respectable, you know, like they're going to give some teams a scare in
85:34the fourth quarter and then it'll all fall apart in the last eight minutes.
85:39Like that'll happen, right? Like everybody goes in the opposing team sub right after the game.
85:44It's like, good golly, gosh, you guys almost got us.
85:47Right. And then Titans fans sit there and say, fuck you guys.
85:51We'll see you next week. Like that's what's going to happen as a Texans fan.
85:55I've lived through that so many times of the opposing fan base being like almost had us guys.
86:01Like it fucking sucks. I know that part really, really annoys me.
86:05But I will say this. There will be moments when you beat a team you shouldn't beat because Cam Ward's exciting, because
86:12the defense will be better, because special teams should be good.
86:16You're going to rip off some wins against teams that don't make sense on paper.
86:20And that's going to be worth it. That's going to be the best moments of the year.
86:26It's going to make you feel like you're progressing.
86:29It's going to make you feel like you're, you're like truly on a stepping stone season.
86:34And it'll give you a North star to point to in a very, very good 2027 class.
86:39Don't know what pick they're going to end up with, but they're probably going to end up with a pretty good player.
86:46And I think from that standpoint, Titans fans can be excited about the season.
86:51They know they're not going to the playoffs. They know that.
86:54They just want to be watchable. And they just want to still have a direction that they're moving towards in what could
87:01be a very pivotal season next year. Yeah, you can be exciting or boring.
87:06You can be good or bad, but you can't be bad and boring.
87:10And last year they were both. I think they will still be bad this year, but they are not going to be boring.
87:17They are going to be more exciting. They are going to be more watchable.
87:21There is going to be more enthusiasm and you are going to feel like you're closer.
87:27If you're a Titans fan there yet, no closer for sure.
87:30So my ceiling or why it could all work is Cam Ward has proved that he's got ability in the clutch to thrive under pressure.
87:38Not all the time, but he'll need to do it again because that offensive line is bad.
87:43The skill position group is pretty good. I actually like their top level skill position group and think they could make some noise.
87:51We didn't talk at all about Gunner Helm, and I actually think he's going to be a big part of their offense.
87:58So when you look at the wide receiver additions, you look at Gunner Helm, you look at the running back core that
88:05we talked about, and Cam Ward, that's all pretty good.
88:08Then you look at the offensive line and you go, even if I squint, I don't think they're going to be that good.
88:15And that is the core of offensive football in the NFL.
88:19You have to protect. You have to make holes in the run game.
88:23And that's it. So I cap my ceiling, even if everything works, at six because I'm trying to be realistic.
88:29To your point, some of those six are going to be unexpected, and that is going to be fun.
88:35But I just can't see that offensive line, not even including injury, being a whole lot better than it was last year.
88:42The floor. How it could all fall apart? Offensive line is not great.
88:47We just talked about it. It could sink the offense really quickly, especially if they get injuries to their best player or players.
88:54If Cardinal Tate struggles to adapt to the NFL, those bigger, faster corners stymie him, and he's not open and Cam can't
89:01throw it to him, the receiving core wouldn't be that tough to cover.
89:05If that target is eliminated or isn't effective, it's not going to go well.
89:10If the pass rush can't get going with the help of guys like Keldrick Fult and Jermaine Johnson, that secondary is going to earn its money.
89:18The secondary is absolutely improved. I can say that with absolutely no hesitation, but they're going to be doing their work.
89:24They're going to be covering for four and a half or five seconds if it's just Simmons versus the world again and nobody else steps up.
89:33Now, they brought in a lot of guys, and I think they could play some very complimentary football here where the defense
89:40is a much tougher out than they were, and they put a little pressure on opposing offenses.
89:45The offense is a little bit more consistent, sustains some more drives, and they start to sort of play off each other as a team.
89:53That's when they could really surge to those six or seven wins.
89:57So my ceiling six, my floor three, same as you.
90:00And again, improvement? Yes. More fun to watch? Yes.
90:03Win some games you probably shouldn't? Also, yes. And you feel better about it going into 2027.
90:08You feel that we've got a good direction in the coaching staff.
90:12We're not just wandering in the wilderness anymore. And, hey, if we just add a couple pieces, if we go get a
90:19top tackle or whatever else, we could be closer even still in 2027.
90:23I want to put the comment section on the spot here.
90:27So this year, they play against the Eagles, the Ravens.
90:30I'm talking about like non-division games. Because division games, like, yeah, they're going to win a couple of those that don't make sense because it's the AFC South.
90:39Non-division games. They play against the Eagles, the Ravens, the Bengals, and the Cowboys.
90:44Which of those two do they beat? Ooh, I like that question.
90:47Do you have an answer? I would say I think they have a chance to beat the Bengals, depending on what version of the Bengals they run into.
90:56And maybe the Cowboys, because the Cowboys, I think, are a better team, ostensibly, than the Titans.
91:02But when we say they rip off wins they shouldn't have, you know, Cowboys sometimes show up and sometimes don't.
91:08Those would probably be my two guesses out of the ones you listed.
91:12I'm going to go the Eagles because it's week two.
91:15Okay. Right. Week one is the solid revenge game against the Jets.
91:19And then it's week. So they actually get two home games to start the year.
91:24Okay. Which is not common. And I feel like they're still going to be fresh and new and plucky that time of year.
91:31And then I agree, the Bengals, they always tend to lose games against teams that they shouldn't lose to.
91:37And they'll beat teams that they shouldn't beat. So I'll agree with you on that one.
91:42But that Eagles game in week two, man, it just smells like a trap.
91:47I think even Eagles fans would agree with that, by the way.
91:51They're like, oh yeah, no, that's, that's danger. Week two in the NFL is not a settled time.
91:56Week one is the week that we always caution everybody.
92:00Don't pay attention to the results. Weirdness is afoot.
92:03There's just lots of things that are not going to be representative of the entire season that you're going to see in week one.
92:10So don't set your opinion of a team off of week one.
92:14Some of that, like a selected amount of that carries into week two.
92:18Some teams stabilize by the second week. Some teams continue to sort of live on the weird wagon and it could happen.
92:25But man, Philadelphia's roster is so much better than Tennessee's roster.
92:29They might just will it on the Jimmies and Joes.
92:32All right, EJ, what do you say we get out of here?
92:36I want to thank again, all of our patrons for making this possible, especially our executive producers on Patreon.
92:42Appreciate all of you once again for investing in the show and contributing to the show and giving us, you know, different
92:49things to point to and threads to pull on as we're doing our research for these.
92:54Couldn't make these without you guys. Thank you to all of our sponsors.
92:58Thank you to Homage. Thank you to Woodinville. Thank you to Buzzer for co-producing this series.
93:03Again, if you want to look at tomorrow's episode early, it's live 24 hours early over on Buzzer.
93:09That's the Colts episode. So if you're a Colts fan, you've been waiting for us to talk about you.
93:15We're really waiting for us to talk about like the first 10 weeks of last season and then completely ignoring everything that happened after that.
93:23We will do that tomorrow slash today. Today over on Buzzer, tomorrow back here on YouTube.
93:28Thank you once again, wherever you happen to be watching and listening, and we will see you sometime soon.
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