4 Reasons the Titans WILL BE Better in 2025 | MCA Titans Podcast

4 Reasons the Titans WILL BE Better in 2025 | MCA Titans Podcast

what are the biggest changes from the 2024 Titans to the 2025 Titans now that the offseason program is wrapped up we can look back and assess everything different and why the Titans should be much better in 2025 this is the Music City Audible let’s get to it uh welcome everyone to another episode of the Music City Audible podcast presented by Sinkers Beverages the premier wine spirits and beer store in East Nashville alongside 440 Sports i’m Justin Graver with me as always Justin Melo and Justin we’re back for another long form traditional Music City Audible podcast it’s nice to be back on the mic with you agreed yeah we took a uh I don’t want to call it a break cuz we put out two videos this week prior to this one one was a theory you had on a Cam Ward interception we’ll get into a little bit later and another was uh the intricate details of the contract situation between Famiola Dejo second round pick and the Tennessee Titans today more traditional long form 30 40 minutes as you said excited to cover what I I I think in the intro I don’t want to say you sold it short but these are going to this is going to be a deep dive into some of the changes you know analytically the Titans are making this isn’t going to be a oh they’ve got a new quarterback no this is some of the uh philosophical changes that make the Titans really different playbook changes per uh in-depth personnel changes some really interesting things said over the last couple of days and we’ve put together I think what’s a really good episode here not just the last couple of days i got a quote that we’re going to play here from May 28th so this is going back you know almost a month here as we talk about the biggest changes and obviously as you mentioned the biggest change is at the quarterback position and while we may have become the unofficial camboard podcast here for a large part of the draft process and afterwards we’re not going to touch too much on camboard because as you said that is a hugely obvious one we all know that bringing in a quarterback can change everything about an organization from you know the way that how hard the players play because they believe they have a real chance to do something from just how good your team can be if you have you know higher level quarterback play so we’re going to avoid that part of the conversation just know that that is obviously one of the biggest changes um but really what we’re going to talk through here is like you said some philosophical changes we are going to quickly run through some roster and staff changes that are I think notable at least to discuss as we get into why that the philosophy has changed and what this can mean for the Titans and why we think they should be a better team in 2025 but let’s start with some news Justin because this was some cool news that came down cam Ward is going to be starring I don’t want to say starring in he’s going to be the focus the subject of a new documentary series called Zeroar the Cam Ward story that will be airing on Tuby of all places in September of this year it’s a six-part miniseries i’m sure everyone watching and listening to this has seen the news about it a pretty cool look for Titans fans at Cam Ward as he went through the process of you know going off to Incarnate Word transferring to Washington State finally to Miami and working his way all the way up to the number one pick after starting as a zero star recruit out of high school i will say I think this story has been really really well covered not just by Titans Media by national media but also by Titans media i did a whole video you know the Air McNair video talking about Cam Ward’s background and comparing it to C mcnair i think this subject has been discussed very very in-depth but it will be really cool to see it produced at a high level with access to Cam’s coaches and family and teammates and himself and talking through what this was like for him so I’m super excited for this series to come out yeah I’m excited to watch it you know his story and journey’s incredibly unique uh not obviously not every day a zero star recruit ends up being the number one overall pick in the NFL draft so I think it’s a worthwhile story it’s one worth telling on the big screen if you will and I’m excited to watch it yeah I’m super excited to watch it it’s Firebrand Media Group is the the production company behind it so Tuby didn’t produce this they went and acquired the rights to it which I think speaks to maybe some higher level like some bidding behind the scenes that may have been going on for the rights to this documentary series and Tuby obviously trying to put themselves more on the map a free service which I think is great my only complaint with this entire series and I think I saw Easton Freeze tweet this as well is that it’s coming out in September and I quickly want to address the buck rising Jared Stillman side of this take which is that Cam Ward has to earn the right to do any type of media before he goes off and and makes a documentary or what they’re they’re talking Buck and Jared Stillman have talked about how Cam Ward needs to earn this right and that Will Levis’s mayo commercials are in some way related to an independent media company seeking out a story and wanting to tell it versus Will Levis and and his representatives seeking out sponsorship because of some goofy viral videos that he made they are in completely different stratospheres the Will Levis thing was you’re selling your brand and your im name and image and likeness to a company to go be a star of a mayonnaise commercial that airs on Sundays is a lot different than a documentary company coming to you and saying we want to tell your story so first off let’s get that out of the way but secondly my my only real issue with this docu series is that it’s coming out in September and if the Titans start the season bad and this thing rolls out I don’t know how they’re going to roll it out maybe they drop all six episodes over 6 days but if they drop it one episode a week starting in September if the Titans start one and five by episode 6 we’re going to be like “Fuck the Cam W story why do the Titans suck again?” I mean I think they’ll manage to avoid that i don’t know how Tubby works but things like this usually drop all at once i think dropping it all at once in early September makes sense you know that’s when Titans fans are back in the the saddle grind excited for the season i think they’ll probably capture a lot of viewership by dropping it in early September i think it would be really cool to have it now though just because we have now what five weeks of nothing before dead of a time for the casual fan though that’s not good enough i think from a marketing perspective I guess that makes sense i do wonder Justin do you think they’ll document him admitting to throwing practice interceptions on purpose guys hear me out so a couple days ago Graver hits me with this theory that maybe Cam Ward threw that practice interception on purpose to Cody Baron because Cody Barton’s on the same offseason team as him and it gained them points in this competition that Brian Callahan invented uh I told him he was batshit crazy and it was one of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard so naturally he said “Well I’m going to go ahead and make a video on it and and put it on the podcast.” And I said “I think you’re going to get absolutely flamed in the comments.” Uh fast forward to today the video’s got about 4,500 views on the YouTube channel here most people most people in the comments like inest thought it was funny and a good theory only a couple people called him nuts like I did i thought there was going to be way more people who thought he was crazy one guy said “You’re I think seek mental help.” I thought that was hilarious one guy said “You’re going to you’ve gained entrance into the psych ward.” I thought that made sense it was hilarious uh you guys tend to uh enjoyed that content i thought it was a a a batshit crazy idea i’m glad he did it 4,500 views for the channel most you found it entertaining and got a good kick out of it i thought there was no chance in hell he threw that interception on purpose but I’m glad people appreciated your batshit crazy detective work you thought that and then you watched the video and you were like you know what he actually laid out a really good case i still believe you and I still think that he there’s no chance that he threw that interception on purpose but I you like that little that little nephew you know who says something and the adult pretends to pay attention yeah pretends to pay attention that’s how I reacted to the video i hope that’s how everyone who left the comment reacted but apparently a lot of people were on board with this uh crazy theory i would like to just clarify I don’t necessarily believe it 100% i’m more in the realm of like I wouldn’t be surprised if it was true but I will also say and I won’t reveal our source but somebody who was at Titans practice told us both of us that there were discussions amongst other members of Titans media about maybe he might have thrown it on purpose not that anyone confirmed or anything but that they also kind of wondered like do you think he actually did that for the offseason competition points anyway I feel like I laid out the case really well well it’s only an 8 and a half minute video so if you have time and you haven’t seen it go back and find it in the feed i think it’s a really fun watch as you said Melo and maybe true probably not true um we also did another as you mentioned short video on the Femi Lejo thing and I feel like you know Fejo hasn’t signed his contract it’s probably not the most enticing story and I can understand why if you’re a regular viewer of this channel you didn’t click on that one but I think the underlying like story there is really fascinating about how only two out of 32 second round picks have actually signed their rookie contracts yet and we discussed why so if you haven’t seen that one either it’s only 10 minutes go back in the feed and watch that one too we’ve been doing these little mini pods this week and I think it’s something we’re going to try out and if you guys like it we’re going to keep doing them as a way to just have more content because we’re not gonna probably get to a point where we’re doing five episodes like this a week justin and I simply are too busy with our full-time jobs but we can do little mini episodes like that if you guys like them let us know in the comments and we’ll keep doing it and while I’ve got you here a reminder to subscribe to the channel justin congratulations to us we passed 4,000 subscribers huge achievement that means absolutely nothing in the long run but huge achievement for us we were shooting for it now we got to get to 5,000 so everyone that helped us get to 4,000 we really appreciate you you actually can’t help us get to 5,000 because you’re already subscribed but everyone else out there tell a friend yeah tell a friend and everyone else out there who hasn’t subscribed go ahead and hit that subscribe button like the video drop a comment below um all right Justin let’s get into the changes here as we discussed uh at the top of the show everything different from the 2025 Titans to the 2024 Titans so we’re going to start with the staff i think we can roll through this part fairly quickly because it’s obvious everyone knows that the Titans have a new general manager in Mike Boronzi that is one of the biggest changes outside of the quarterback position here and Mike Borggoni has made a lot of behind the-scenes changes to his scouting staff and the personnel department there we don’t really know all the specifics of it and if we did it wouldn’t really matter to us because we don’t know who these guys are but we know that there are new philosophies in place when it comes to scouting players we saw some of this take shape during the free agency process during the draft where they targeted guys in free agency who were durable who had played a lot of games who had leadership qualities in the draft we saw them target guys who and we saw this in the Titans of Tennessee video that the Titans team put out on YouTube about how you know Chad Brinker said in that video you guys are going to be able to guess who we’re going to draft going you know in future years because you’re going to have such an understanding of what it of what we mean when we say play like a Titan uh yeah big fast tough football players who love winning more than anything else i mean that’s a Titan i I I really want um you know I think over time as you see how this unfolds you might be able to draft them for us prior ahead of time because you’re going to see like oh that looks like a titan um so tough guys who love football who have those leadership qualities we’re seeing those philosophical changes in the scouting department and that’s where we’re going to start here although we’re not going to spend too much time on it no and and look you know the GM also brought in you know Dave Ziegler Reggie McKenzie a couple former GMs that he surrounded himself with guys he knows uh you know from different stops so that that’s the one thing I think we’ll say about that um and you saw some of the emphasis like wide receiver he talked about big tough you know all the cliches but one of the ones that I you know everyone wants big tough players durable players right but one thing that really struck me this year that really felt different uh was adding speed to the wide receiver room right like Shimmer DK running a 4-34 at the NFL combine alec Imanor running a a very good time for his size as well van Jefferson’s obviously far removed but running in the 43s when he went to the NFL combine james Proche speed and playmaking ability um on special teams so that that was one that really struck out to me was at an element of speed at wide receiver yeah so that I think is a pretty big change in how the Titans will be run going forward it’ll have some effects on the 2025 season but we’ll really see that start to take effect as we get multiple free agency classes and multiple draft classes in this uh organization obviously there was a huge change at one of the coordinator positions and I think I don’t want to say it went under the radar cuz Titans fans definitely reacted to it but I don’t know if it’s if it’s really being acknowledged as the differencemaker that it could be titans hire John Fel as the new special teams coordinator and I don’t think that there could be a starker contrast between like the experience and competency of the special teams coordinator last year and what they’re getting with Bones Fossil because Fossil is highly regarded as one of the best special teams coaches out there one of the best special teams coordinators that a team could have is Bones Fossil and last year the Titans had a historically bad special teams unit they were you know constantly giving up punt returns kick returns i think of the Detroit game you know specifically where they’re just like the defensive yardage allowed looked great but it was because the Lions started almost every drive basically in the red zone because of how many return yards they were able to get and also the four turnovers the Titans had on the day or maybe it was more than four but the point is the special teams I think is going to go from being a disaster in 2024 to if they can this we’ve said this about many position groups if they can just get to league average it’s a huge win but with Bones Fossil I feel confident that they can get to an above league average point to where special teams is actually a strength that is finding the team hidden yards and doing the stuff that Mike Greybel always used to talk about i don’t think we can overstate enough how big of a change having a I want to call him a real special teams coordinator is going to be for this team it it’s a massive addition you’re right i mean Colt Anderson last year just totally in over his head uh didn’t do a good job i think there were other mistakes made i don’t think he’s fully culpable i think there was roster errors made by Ran Carthon and Brian Callahan inexperienced duo kind of setting a 53man roster for the first time we’ve talked about that not keeping guys like Hassan Haskins and other good special teams players Matthew Jackson another guy they cut keeping guys who didn’t help them at all like you know a fourth tight end and David Martin Robinson yada yada but uh ultimately as a coordinator you are held responsible and I don’t think Colt Anderson did a good job multiple times where he got up there and said some really terribly stupid things in his press conferences that didn’t help his public image or perception yes this is a massive change you know again one of the best if not the best special coh special teams coordinator in football in John Bones Fossil and while we’re talking staff changes there’s been a handful of position coach changes here but I think I want to highlight two big ones um Tony Odin was brought in as the quarterback’s coach/defensive passgame coordinator that role was previously held by Chris Harris there’s not a whole lot to talk about with him but the big one to me is they have hired a coach on the staff whose sole title is not there’s no hyphen in his name he’s not handling anything else they brought in somebody to be the defensive run game coordinator in Travis Smith and you know full disclosure I don’t know anything about Travis Smith but I do think it’s very telling that they brought in a defensive run game coordinator when they didn’t have that position on staff last season they had a defensive pass game coordinator obviously Dinard Wilson was a defensive back he was a defensive back’s coach he had been a defensive pass game coordinator and last season with the Titans was his first year as a defensive coordinator overseeing the entire defense and the Titans run defense last year was pretty bad it was pretty porous they had a lot of problems with it and so they bring in a defensive run game coordinator i’m sure Dinard Wilson understands what went wrong from a run stopping standpoint personnel obviously plays a factor in that as well but hiring somebody whose sole job it is to focus on how the team can be better at stopping the run I think speaks to some of the self- scouting that this team did in the offseason and realizing we need more help at this position i I’ll say this it can’t hurt but I do think the majority of the blame does fall on personnel um I I thought the run defense started okay during the year especially when they had Ernest Jones in the lineup now when they traded him and you you’re you know first of all Kenneth Murray’s not a good run defender has never been a good run defender so he was always a liability in the lineup then when you trade Ernest Jones who’s a really good run defender and you replace him with down the stretch you had you know Jerome Baker came in for him was a huge downgrade uh you bring in you know you’re playing Cedric Gray and James Williams late in the year rookies who were totally green and inexperienced like I think personnel was the biggest reason they struggled as a run defense this year i don’t think or last year i don’t think a run game coordinator is going to solely solve that right they need to get good linebacker play this year and and and that’s a big TBD you know based on the makeup of that room right now but as a Dline as well you know when you’ve got Devandre Sweat and Jeffrey Simmons up the middle and guys like you know Keandre Coburn and Sebastian Joseph Day who could chip in you hope that the Dline will carry a lot of the weight as a run stopping group but ultimately you know the linebackers are going to have to take a ton of responsibility uh for what that unit looks like this year yeah so we don’t know 100% if it will be better but let’s take a pin in that run defense conversation because we’re going to come back to it when we talk about more philosophical changes that’s what I really want to talk about we’re taking a lot of time to get to the changes I’m most excited to talk about uh and that’s something Nicole said i’m not going to spoil something Nicole said about the offensive playbook and also some of the changes at Edge those are the ones that really strike me as interesting oh yeah and I’m glad you teased it because we’re going to get into personnel here and we’re going to quickly get through this because we mentioned how we’re not really going to talk much about the new quarterback position but I do think it’s worth pointing out last year the Washington Commanders led the NFL in roster turnover with 63% new players on their 2024 team who weren’t on their 2023 team and we’ve talked a lot about you know can Cam Ward have a Jaden Daniels effect here in Tennessee and obviously Jaden Daniels was a huge piece of the commander turnaround but so was 63% roster turnover well the Titans right now as it stands they have 91 players on the roster they have a a exemption for Thomas Odoya still so they’re at 91 instead of 90 that 51% of those guys were not on the roster last season and we’re still at 91 right that means 38 players have to be cut to get down to 53 players when the roster deadline cut day comes whatever that roster turnover number could increase if some of those 38 players that get cut were on the team last year so right now 51% roster turnover that’s a massive number and we will be tracking that you know after the final roster comes out what the what the final roster turnover number was i think that’s a huge thing for this team to sort of restart and reboot and forget last year ever existed of those new players six starters are new on offense i am counting JC Laam as new because they have a new starting right tackle technically so five new players them as new five new players six new positions starting starters at six positions on offense are changing and on defense four positions starters at four positions are changing so that’s a pretty big turnaround 10 out of 22 guys really nine sure out of 22 guys are new on both sides of the ball they have a new kicker and a new punter so a huge amount of roster turnover yeah I’ll say this i I mean I don’t know that the number will increase after cut down day because a lot of UDFAs make up that number and most of them will be cut so but either way it is going to be fairly notable as you said nine out of 22 starters are new about half of the offense I mean the offense obviously needed the most change based on how terrible it was new quarterback pretty much all new wide receivers right minus Cal of course Calvin Ridley’s back the tight end room looks fairly similar as it should that wasn’t really a liability last year two new starters on the offensive line that’s really important with you know bringing in Kevin Zitler and Dan Moore you expect that unit to be a lot better you expect the receivers to you know potentially be better uh based on what it was last year a lot of a lot of turnover a lot of questions but um 50 52 odd percent ch turnover rate right now on the I counted that myself so fairly accurate i don’t know if it’s 100% accurate but fairly accurate I imagine uh I went through all the free agents you I just went down the whole roster list and said new new new and then I divided the number and came up with about 52% so fairly different curious to see where that final number ends up i don’t know i’m going to guess it’s going to be anywhere from 45 to 55% once they finalize the initial 53 yeah I agree and before we get to the philosophy stuff here which I think as you said is the most interesting stuff we’re going to talk about is there a position group on the Titans roster where they are right now that you expect to be worse than the 2024 December 2024 version of that group i mean when you when you bring up December I mean I I don’t know that’s fair because you got a lot of guys on IR a lot of guys well I don’t want to account for like Ernest Jones being traded mid-season and like stuff like that you know or the quarterbacks what you expected the quarterbacks to be um maybe corner Yeah I mean I don’t think corner should be worse because even if you factor December it’s Roger McCreary Jarvis Brownley and Daryl Baker it might literally be the same trio but I will say it doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence if that’s the trio it’s it’s not going to be good so I do want to say that i don’t want to sound like a too much of a Homerism fan kind of thing here because that room would not be good if that’s what it is um I I guess the big question the most important one is at wide receiver because last December you know you had Nick Westbrook A going crazy scoring touchdowns and you still had Calvin Ridley it really depends on what the rookies give you because it’s such a big unknown and it depends on what Tyler Lockett gives you so I think wide receiver is exciting but has a chance to be worse because we’re really projecting that room outside of Calvin Ridley but everything else no I I would say is uh is probably a shorefire that that it’s better than it was edge is an interesting one because Harold Landry is obviously gone but if Fejo and Draymond Jones and Lorenzo Carter can like rotate to give you something that replaces Landre’s production it could be better and again we’re going to get to that almost right now on why they have this new look Edge room but before that we’re going to talk about the offensive philosophy but before that Justin we’re going to do I’ll drink to that brought to you by Sinkers Beverages the premier wine spirits and beer store in East Nashville and what I’m drinking to today Justin is actually Sinker’s 40th birthday jamboree on Saturday August 9th now hear me out you are going to want to attend this it is at the Basement East there’s going to be three bands playing with music starting at 6:00 p.m tons of free stuff tickets are only $10 and that $10 is really a donation because all proceeds go to benefiting the Martha K o’brien Center in East Nashville you can purchase tickets at the link in the web in the podcast description below and your entry also gets you your $10 ticket to get in gets you two free drinks at the event and it also gets you a raffle ticket to potentially the winner will join the sinker beverages team on a trip to Buffalo Trace to pick a very special single barrel of bourbon you got to be at this event get your tickets podcast description there is a link only $10 and again all proceeds go to benefit the Martha K o’brien Center you do not want to miss this event yeah that sounds outstanding always love events like that that get you out get a good drink in your hands some good live music sounds like a must attend must attend and very perfect for the city of Nashville so that’s what I’m drinking to today sinkers Beverages check them out again link in the podcast description they’re also on Uber Eats justin been really mentioning this hard because I feel like nobody wants to go anywhere anymore you just it’s easier like Jessica and I we’ve been doing grocery shopping we’ve just been ordering them and having them delivered to our door so we don’t have to find time in our busy week to actually go to the grocery store sinker Beverages is doing the same thing on Uber Eats just delivering whatever drinks you need you got a party coming up but you don’t have time to get to the store uber Eats baby makes things super easy okay we can finally get to the part of the episode that we both were most looking forward to hopefully everyone stuck with us here 20some minutes into the podcast let’s talk about some offensive philosophy changes here because the Titans obviously again self-couted a lot of what went wrong in 2024 to make those things not go wrong in 2025 and we are expecting this team to be a better team but we’re also expecting them to be a better coached team and I think you know there’s been a handful of coaching changes that we already mentioned but even for the guys that are not new I think we expect them to be better this year because we think they will have learned something from what they did last year in Brian Callahan even said that it’s important not to just acknowledge things that went wrong but to change those things and I’m going to play a clip that’s going to launch uh our conversation here of Nick Holtz discussing some of the philosophical changes on the offensive side of the ball last year you know we’re all new we’re all working together a lot of us hadn’t worked together before in our current roles so now you look at how we install the offense how we script practice how we even game plan certain plays we all know what we’re looking for the same things and then in each position room we can all explain it the same so I think the communication has just been better and it helps everybody just kind of there’s no gray area i think we’ve taken a lot of stuff out of the offense we took you know there plays from Cincinnati and plays that I brought and everybody else brought like okay that didn’t fit or we we repped him a bunch last year and now we’ve taken them out and that’s helped I think streamline everybody feel comfortable we know how Brian calls a game now all those kind of things have helped really the communication and then the information flow down to the players you guys so there was a lot of words in there and a lot of it is very interesting but I think the most interesting is sort of a little throwaway comment of we took a lot of stuff out of the playbook that tells me that they’ve really evaluated what worked what didn’t and does it all fit together as one cohesive system yeah that was the most interesting comment to me i mean look we talked about it a little last off season but Brian Callahan first time head coach Nick Holtz first time offensive coordinator you know I’m focusing on the offense but Dard Wilson obviously first time Dcoordinator but a lot of inexperience on the offense and then you talk about the playbook look every NFL team goes through changes to their playbook every offseason but when you talk about Brian Callahan bringing plays over from Cincinnati Nick Holtz bringing plays over probably from Jacksonville where he was the passing game coordinator and had Calvin Ridley there but it’s a bit of a mismatch almost right of opinions and and plays things of that nature you get to really reflect on the year obviously was a really bad year three and 14 worst record in the NFL that’s one of the things you’re going to analyze and look over with a fine tooth comb and make changes to on top of that we knew bringing in Cam Ward would bring changes to the playbook we’ve talked about how much he loves switch verts four verticals ycross the RPO game you know certain concepts the Titans are probably going to implement more heavily into their playbook this year so when you combine that with some self scouting and say “Hey we were very inexperienced last year maybe we had too much in the playbook or we had some things that worked for us well in previous stops but didn’t work well for us here I think you get as Nicole said a better more condensed version of a playbook that a coaching staff will feel um is better streamlined yeah it’s in instead of being just a collection of all their favorite plays that they’ve run at various stops it’s a cohesive playbook that is all tailored to a specific philosophy and scheme with goals with run game that marries to the pass game and things that are more cohesive I think is sort of a theme that we’re going to talk about as we get onto the defensive side of the ball too but sticking with offense I think that this is a bigger deal than like you said a typical offseason let’s install some new plays and let’s eliminate some old plays like this is a real overhaul of how to be successful on offense understanding Brian Callahan having the experience of calling a game every week for 16 for 17 weeks in a season like now they understand the installation process what’s actually going to filter its way onto game day versus just being a play that they install in the spring of 2024 and then never come back to so I think there’s a lot of good that can come out of this and just being more experienced i mean every human can attest to when you’ve been on the job whatever job you’re doing right now after one year of being on that job wasn’t it so much easier and more natural and and just everything makes so much more sense than day one of being on that job and it applies to these guys in the coaching staff as well and obviously Cam Ward is a huge change on offense you mentioned that but the offensive line I really think this offensive line has a chance to be better than league average which we haven’t seen in Tennessee in a long time and that’s going to open up the playbook more too because I really do think at some point last year Brian Callahan realized okay I have a quarterback that I cannot trust to air it out the for an entire game without making one or two crucial mistakes and I don’t have an offensive line that I can trust to allow my quarterback to sit in a pocket and picks apart so the Titans leaned into this really runheavy approach trying to hide their quarterbacks especially when Mason Rudolph was in the game just like don’t let the quarterback be in a position where he can make a crucial mistake let’s just ground and pound our way to pos you know possess the ball and see if we can get three points on the board on every drive here and every once in a while maybe we’ll make it to the end zone i really think that they like halfway through the season last year had to make a shift like that so I’m excited to see now that Brian Callahan has a quarterback that he handpicked and an offensive line hopefully we don’t know for sure but hopefully that will be at least around league average if his philosophy changes and if the Titans do become what we expected when Callahan was hired which is a more pass heavy team remember his Bengals teams were passing over over 60% of their plays were passing i think the Titans last year were like 50 something percent run so they were more runheavy and that’s like way above league average so I am interested to see is that what Brian Callahan really wants to do what happened last year or was he forced to do that because of the personnel yeah I mean I I there’s no doubt that personnel had a huge impact on how the Titans had to call plays down the stretch last year like I talked about it when Mike Vrabel was here and people thought I wasn’t popular but the same thing happened to Brian Callahan when a you don’t have an offensive line that can pass protect and b Callahan’s issue was even worse because you don’t have a quarterback you can trust in the drop back passing game you’ve got to run the football more and you’ve got to you got to put essentially uh training wheels on the entire offense because you can’t protect the ball and you can’t protect the quarterback so of course that grossly limits what you can do from an offensive playbook perspective and yeah certainly bringing in Cam Ward and what appears to be an improved offensive line should have a drastic drastic impact on the way the Titans call games okay let’s flip over to the defensive side of the ball now justin I said we’re going to stick a pin in the run defense conversation there has been a philosophical shift obviously we talked a lot at the top of the show about you know scouting and what type of players they’re looking for but more specific than that at defensive end at that edge rusher spot they have a new philosophy in what they want and before we talk about it again let’s listen to Brian Callahan sort of describe what they’ve been looking for at the edge position i feel good about the players we added um I think the the dimensions of of the outside linebacker position i think we’re bigger and stouter and stronger um at the spot just body typewise um I think that’s by design as well uh we’ll see if we’re better than we were a year ago um but but I do like the players we’ve added i’m excited about what they could bring for us um we’re definitely at the edges a a more physical looking group from top to bottom I think is really what the key part of that is is depthwise too um they all fit the profile we’re looking for so two keys there this wasn’t just about Harold Landry’s contract was this amount of money and he’s not worth it and Draymond Jones is a player that’s on the market that’s been in a similar system to what Dinard Wilson runs because they’re from the M McDonald tree who’s now the head coach in Seattle this was a he said that was by design and he said players that fit the profile we’re looking for so this was a conscious effort and I think this also has gone slightly under the radar paul Kaharski was on top of this um but he’s the only one I’ve really seen talk in depth about this change is that they Glennon did too i think Glennon might have written an article i know Paul did but I just wanted to point that out quickly okay good shout out there but as far as like a broader discussion in in Titans media about changes we’re going to see this season this is a pretty massive one because Harold Landry was one of the longest tenure Titans he’s been their sack leader how many years in a row you know number of years in a row he’s been their sack leader he was one of the guys that was sort of like a face of the defense alongside Jeffrey Simmons and the Titans said he doesn’t fit what this version of the Titans wants to be at the edge position they wanted to get bigger at that spot and they did so and I think that part of this has to do with run defense and ability to set the edge but it also has to do with what’s kind of a shift a larger shift in the NFL defensive landscape about what really works when pressuring a quarterback and it seems that this staff believes the best and most effective way to to rush the quarterback isn’t necessarily to for a defensive end to beat his tackle one-on-one off the edge with speed it’s to have all everybody involved in the pass rush collapsing the pocket and condensing the pocket and some of the best quarterbacks in league history in terms of their pocket presence and ability to maneuver in tight spaces like Tom Brady for example his number one kryptonite was always that interior pocket collapsing pressure where there are no escape lanes and there isn’t anywhere to move subtly in the pocket when it gets collapsed like that and in order to have a team that can do that you need big strong guys at the edge position and everyone they brought in at that spot from Lorenzo Carter to Draymond Jones to Femi Oljo fit this biggerbodied profile i mean you’ve seen the pictures of Femi this guy just looks like a tank he just huge intimidating looking presence and I think that again Brian Callahan said that was by design yeah i’m gonna give you a positive and a negative on here and I don’t know if I’m too early but uh I I will say on the positive side I think NFL fans generally have a misconception that the league doesn’t agree with uh we all love speed at the edge position i get it it’s it’s sexy to be honest right like we love seeing a guy burst off the line of scrimmage beat a tackle the way Harold Landry would and there’s obviously pathways to a lot of success doing it that way um there’s also a lot of fast edge rushers who are terrible right like it’s just sometimes you’re a onetrick pony or you lack the technical aspects of playing the position i do think generally speaking NFL teams prefer power at that spot and uh it’s really tough to compensate for power as an NFL offensive lineman whereas there are different ways and things you could do to compensate for speed I think when you’re when you’re facing speed off the edge versus power uh I I I do think that’s true and I think the Titans have made a coordinated effort to get bigger and stronger um I’ll I’ll I’ll cut myself a little short because I’ve got more to say i know you’re going to play a clip or two where I I do think I’ll be a little negative is um I don’t know if the Titans are better at that position and I don’t know if it’s going to lead to results like Brian Callahan said in that clip himself we’ll see if we’re going to be better like he knows that’s a TBD um it’s great to get you know bigger stronger tougher i don’t know if the Titans got better right like Draymond Jones you know cut from his contract from Seattle disappointing lorenzo Carter zero sacks last year femiola Dejo second round guy who’s a bit raw at playing the position so yes it’s fine and dandy that they’ve gone over this philosophical change i don’t know that they got better and that’s the big TBD and we’ll see yeah I mean the the new group of guys Femio is 6’3 259 he’s the closest one to Harold Landry but Draymond Jones is 63 sorry sorry but I I wanted to point out that that was also his combine weight that there’s a good chance he weighs a bit more than that right guys typically slim down for the combine to move around better but if I had to guess 263 264 kind of thing which Draymond Jones you’re going to play a clip where Draymond Jones says something about his weight and Lorenzo Carter’s weight uh yeah you’re might you’re about to read a listed weight i never know how accurate that thing is i’m going to put more stock in what Draymond Jones actually said at that mini camp clip well the listed weights for Draymond Jones 6’3 281 huge dude lorenzo Carter 65 265 harold Landry was 6’2 252 so definitely was the smallest guy ardan Key obviously still in the mix he’s going to be their change up speed rusher guy but even he’s 6’5 he’s only 240 but 6’5 is the tall you know matches Lorenzo Carter 240 though right like he’s got to be 248 249 i imagine he doesn’t look 240 yeah I agree but let’s listen to Draymond Jones because Paharski again the guy who was on on top of this I guess alongside John Glennon but mostly Palaharski from what I saw um he asked Draymond Jones specifically after practice one day last week about the new look group and about getting bigger at this spot anywhere between 260 and 270 so you know we’re bigger body guys out there what’s that say about this team’s defensive intentions we come we coming out here to to f some people up that’s what we doing put hands on people get nasty not be out stop the run first and then all that all that’s included stop the run obviously but you know I’m coming here to to f stuff up that’s also the the mindset it’s not just the physical appearance it’s the tenacity that they’re going to play with yeah and that’s that is why I hate listed weights like he said 260 27 there’s no way he’s 281 if I had to guess he was around that when he was with more of an interior guy remember Seattle made him switch positions to outside edge he has confirmed that’s where he’s playing in Tennessee by the way so I don’t think he’s 280 but he probably is like 265 270 and as he said Lorenzo Carter sort of in that same frame and Famola Dejjo in that same they’re all three of them are 260 270 which is all three bigger than Herold Landry was last year and probably bigger than Jaylen Herrell is I imagine as well and bigger than Ardan Ki is yes the three biggest players at the position the three heaviest the three stoutest are all offseason acquisition so no doubt the Titans uh sort of you know living by what they say here because yes they went out and got three guys that fit the profile they’re bigger stronger tougher stouter on the edge are they better tbd tbd but they definitely want to be better when it comes to rushing the passer as well like I think a big part of this was about stopping the run but they again they want they need to be better rushing the passer and there’s a philosophical shift there as well and this may be a little bit obvious and it may may leave us wondering why this wasn’t more of an emphasis last season but this season they have said it multiple times dinard Wilson has mentioned it Brian Callahan has mentioned it some players have mentioned it and it became mentioned so much that media members started asking about it to get more quotes on it but this philosophical shift that they want to have a coordinated rush plan they’re not just going to have four guys if it’s a you know a standard four-man rush they’re not just going to have all four guys like “Go do a move go try to beat your guy if you’re double teamed then try to beat both guys if you’re got a one-on-one just try to win and get to the quarterback.” No they need to know that they all have a a rush lane to cover and by rush lane I mean a lane that the quarterback could step up in the pocket and escape and scramble for yards because the Titans were horrible at giving up scramble yards last year they allowed way too many quarterbacks to escape sacks and get yards with their legs and this year they want to be much more coordinated on it and Brian Callahan spoke about this at length and talked a little bit about the philosophy with having four guys be coordinated so here’s Callahan on the missed sacks that really hurt the defense last season it’s more about just the finishing of the sacks you know we we had we had him wrapped up uh he slips out we we we don’t come to balance we don’t do a good enough job technically to get themselves in position to bring a quarterback down and just you we missed you know probably I think somewhere in the range of 20 plus you know when you’re just looking at chances we had to get the quarterback on the ground that we didn’t get um and obviously you you you convert those miss sacks into sacks you’re in a much better place than we ended up at the end of the year so that’s been a big point of emphasis for us and a lot of that has to do with uh the balancing of the rush too and making sure that we don’t give quarterbacks lanes so if we do miss one by somebody the next part there is is to clean up that next part of it so So there you go balanced lanes clean up and and all be coordinated and Jeffrey Simmons spoke about this also and I want to play that clip as well we have to do a better job and we talked about it and we’ve been talking about it since last year and everything even the individual we doing we’re going through things and working with through things together as a group you know the whole up front and you talking about all right if this guy get a slide then we got to have the balance of rusher we got a that guy on the other side getting the one on one the ed guys on the edge they got one on one so you know we talk about the four points of the quarterback you know back foot front foot upfield and then um I said when you when you rushing quarterbacks you know most time it’s fourman rushing so we all got a um um back arm you know we all got a um a point we have to get to and you know if we not at them points eventually the quarterback escape pretty much everybody in our division that play quarterback can run and when you not on the same page up front you create them rush lanes and you create explosive downfield so quarterbacks able to step up so at the end of the day it’s four guys rushing we have to be on the same page make sure that there’s no um escape escape lanes and you know matter if we got a game or not we all got to be on the same page yeah I’m going to chime in real quick if you don’t mind i think all of that obviously makes sense um where I’m going to be I don’t want to say negative but it’s like you’re talking about missed sacks like I probably comb through the tape of all 32 teams last year and calculate 15 to 20 missed sacks right everyone misses sacks now when you’re the Titans and you finish third lowest in sacks in the NFL last year they only had 32 sacks that was third lowest in the entire league then yeah you’re going to put even more emphasis on it right because it was a real problem for you and you’ve got to improve those numbers and yes you got to do that through coordinated rush plans having all four guys on the same page collaps remember collapsing the pocket was part of the strategy last year it’s why they drafted Tuvandre Sweat you got the same two guys up the middle this year obviously it didn’t fully work last year because the results weren’t good enough you bring in some new guys on the edge you get stouter bigger yada yada everything we talked about did you get better we don’t know the miss sacks thing I’m just I’m bullish on it because everyone misses sacks all you can go again go through the tape of all 32 and probably count 10 15 20 miss sacks every single year um they’ve got to be better at it and they’ve got to win it’s not just yet yes the coordinated’s going to help but you’ve got to win some matchups as well you got to win one-on- ones in the NFL so can they do that we’ll see well I think that that’s why the coordinated part is so important for this team specifically because this team is going to have to be a sacks by committee type of team they don’t have a 15 sack guy a Miles Garrett a TJ Watt they don’t even maybe don’t even have a 10 sack guy you know they don’t have Harold Landry anymore um they might have four guys who get six sacks each right or they might have two or three guys that get eight or nine sacks each like they did the one year when he’s capable and they needs to have seven eight sacks type of year absolutely and Tandre Schwez you know talked a lot about how the emphasis for him you know from the coaching staff when they had their end of season meeting go off into the offseason the big emphasis for him was we need you more in the pass rush you’ve been a good run stopper we need you more in the pass rush so they need that from him they need Draymond Jones to come in and have one of his best seasons as a guy uh rushing the passer they need Lorenzo Carter to rotate in and give them a handful of sacks you know and and a and some pressures that lead to other guys like Brian Callahan said coming in and cleaning up and getting a sack like they can’t have a zero sack season from Lorenzo Carter like he had last year and most of all we talked about this we talked about this on the mini pod we did yesterday we talked about this last week they need FEO to be a dude pretty quickly so this is going to be a pass rush by committee and I think as you know we’re not going to talk about m this very much until January but next year the Titans are going to have two needs that I think we can almost identify already edge and receiver they need premier talent at those two spots and we’ll see if any as well well yeah well I mean yes cornerback as well unless comes back to life and if they resign Roger McCreary and if Jarvis Brownley Jr can prove to be a guy but I think where they really need premier talent is wide receiver and edge and you know maybe maybe there’s a chance that Alec Ayamor is Puka Nua and maybe there’s a chance that Shimmer DK is Amanra St brown you know two day three guys that were instant contributors and are now top 10 receivers in the NFL that’s a pretty big long shot so I’m not banking on that at all hopefully you get something out of those guys and they don’t prove to be total busts i mean these are day three picks we’re talking about as as excited as we are for them they’re still day three picks right so we can’t put our expectations too high for what those guys can give you they’re going to need a premier receiver and a premier edge rusher and I think those are going to be the biggest needs heading into the 2026 season so for now let’s see what they can get out of this edge group without a premier edge rusher because that’ll be the next step to taking them towards you know from maybe they can compete for the division to okay this team could compete for a Super Bowl that’s like that’s a big difference in where they are now and where they want to get to and this team I think they believe they can compete for a wild card spot or for that division it is a weak division i think fans have more tempered expectations and understand that this might be a two-year rebuild before they’re really in playoff talks but if they want to achieve their goals this year they’re going to need the pass rush to be like you said way better than it was last year and having them do it by committee where they are where they are coordinated and they understand where they’re where everyone else is and how to eliminate those QB rush lanes is going to be a massive factor in making it all work so there you have it Justin those are the biggest changes from the 2024 Titans to the 2025 Titans we didn’t talk too much about personnel we hit it a little bit but I mean two out of three starting receivers are different both inside linebackers starting are going to be different you got a new safety you got a new left tackle you got a new right guard there’s a ton of changes but I think the philosophical changes and the lessons that this coaching staff learned from a failure of a season are bigger than anything that when it comes to players actually on the field aside from one the one guy we didn’t spend a lot of time talking about if Cam Ward is as good as we all hope he can be then this team can be a lot better than we expect if Cam Ward needs a year of seasoning to really you know just take his lumps as a rookie if he has a Caleb Williams style year this team will show improvement but they won’t make the playoffs if he has a Jaden Daniels style year then this team is going to compete for a playoff spot he’s the biggest factor and the biggest change but I think we covered the rest of them pretty well um any final thoughts on changes to this team before we sign it off no this has been a really long you know superersized episode i I thought the philosophical changes on offense what Nicole said about the playbook and then the defensive line specifically you know the coordinated stuff and then getting bigger stronger at Edge those two philosophical changes are are really really intriguing to me like you said stick a pin in it we’ll assess the results when we have them yeah so thanks again to everyone for tuning in remember to hit subscribe like this video drop a comment below what do you think are the biggest changes do you like the mini sod pods that Justin and I have put out this week and also check out Justin’s new article over on titansize.com projecting the 53man roster we’re going to do that at some point on this podcast personally Justin you tell me how you feel cuz I know you just put an article out about it i want to wait till we see some preseason reps and see how you know which guys are playing when who’s playing the whole fourth quarter of these games that we know probably means they won’t make the team who’s being sat after one series like before I start projecting the 53man roster I want to see that stuff but I appreciate that you attempted to do it now with the limited information that we actually have yeah I had a lot of fun doing it i think I’m going 53 for 53 personally even though it’s way too early projection and I went on radio to talk about it so check that out i was on 3HL this afternoon on 1045 the zone i had a lot of fun doing that with the crew over at 3HL one of the best uh shows in the Nashville market was really glad that they brought me on to talk about that 53man roster projection head over to titansize.com and check it out yeah all right that’ll do it for this one thanks again to Sinker Beverages remember to get your tickets to Sinker’s 40th birthday party with the link to do so is in the podcast description only $10 there so check that out as well and until next time until next week we won’t have another pod out this week so until next week y’all stay safe out there and tighten up a Broadway Sports Media production

⁠Justin Melo⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Justin Graver⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ are back to discuss all the ways the Titans will be different in 2025 and why those changes could lead to more wins. But first, we react to the news that Tubi will be airing a docu-series on Cam Ward’s journey from zero-star recruit to number one overall draft pick (2:29). Then, we get to the changes, starting with the front office (10:01) and coaching staff (12:36). Then we get to roster turnover (18:19) and take a break for I’ll Drink To That presented by Sinkers Beverages (23:04). Finally, we get to the most important part: philosophical changes on both offense (24:55) and defense (31:47).

0:00 Intro
2:29 Cam Ward Documentary Series
6:11 Melo’s Response to Graver’s Theory
10:01 Biggest changes starting with Titans front office
12:36 Changes on the coaching staff
18:19 Biggest non-QB changes to the roster
23:04 I’ll Drink To That
24:55 Changes to offensive philosophy
31:47 Changes to defensive philosophy
47:15 Wrap Up

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