This is the OTP presented by Farm Bureau Health Plans. Farm Bureau Health Plans is for those who make plans for everything except themselves. We make it easy and affordable for Tennessee and who don't have a group or employer plan. Visit FBHP dot com to learn more. With Amy Wells, I'm Mike Keith coach. Dave McGinnis is in the Snickers hot seat.
Welnakers hot seat. Welcome, Thanks, Thanks, I like being here.
Did you have a marvelous Christmas?
Great Christmas, marvelous Christmas. Hope everybody listening to OTP had a great Christmas? I know you two? Did I know Amy had a did not have Santa Claus in her house because outdoors one of her daughters doesn't want Santa in the house.
Is that right?
That is true.
We didn't leave cookie for Santa. We didn't want to create the illusion that he was welcome inside that house.
The presence outside.
Please leave all gifts outside, they really do, Yes, Santa Santa was not We didn't want Santa to enter the home, so.
He left his gifts out. What do you we well, my daughter, Okay.
Livy, Livy didn't love doesn't love the idea, I know, so, yeah, she she is nervous about the whole concept of Santa. She doesn't love it. She doesn't think that having him in her house is something that she likes. And so we left the presence outside.
Can I stop a minute.
We didn't let them enter.
Can't stop a minute. It's not anything she doesn't like. She doesn't yike it.
She doesn't yike it. Yeah, she doesn't. And so but it was fine. She likes the gifts.
She's very appreciative to Santa and really glad that he is back at home for three hundred and sixty four days.
But don't come in my house.
She has asked me nine hundred times in the last twenty four hours. Is Santa back at the North Pole with missus Claus? Yes, yes he is. She needs to know where he is at all times.
So everybody had a different kind of Christmas.
Ours is a little more suspicious at my house, but magical nonetheless.
So great, all right.
So that branks us.
To topic number one on the OTP pre game. Should the NFL keep playing Christmas games when Christmas falls on a Tuesday or Wednesday?
Coach deph for me, Yes, absolutely, yes, absolutely, yes, the whole Netflix thing I thought was okay, but no matter when they play, people are going to watch. But I watched both of them with a huge house full of people, both of them back to back within So my aunts is yes.
Okay, So you think even on a Wednesday, and you like how they did it where they had the teams who were going to play on Christmas play on Saturday, so they had an extra day, And.
I absolutely did. I mean I wouldn't you know, if I were coaching a team, I would not be against playing on Christmas. We've done it.
Before here right, Oh yeah, but not on Wednesday. No, No, But I'm saying that's my question is just the league is it worth playing on Christmas Day if the game if Christmas falls on what will be a Tuesday in a few years and a Wednesday again in six years.
Yes? Absolutely, Yes. Lebron James didn't like it, but I having no problem.
Lebron James is fifty five years old. That's different.
So now those teams that played the Ravens, Chiefs, whoever, they now have an extended that's kind of nice.
They have sit worth it well.
But they and they played early as well. They played on Saturday, So it's not even as bad as going Sunday to third.
So they played Saturday to and then to Wednesday WEDESDA.
Now they get all that time off.
Yeah, that kind of it's it's tough on the front end, but the recovery on the back end, especially in December, that's not bad.
It means Houston's going to come in here with a lot of rest.
Yeah, that's not great for us.
But but nothing to play for That is kind of hoon. Houston is the four Seeds.
Yeah, there's Seeds decided.
Yeah, that is kind of nice.
That will be fascinating to see how Demiko Ryans chooses to play this with a football team that is not playing well against the game that your owners want to win more than any other, especially because the Titans beat you on November twenty fourth, and the Titans are going to dress as the Oilers for that game. Yeah, so what is used to do? And they have this extra time to stew in their own juices about.
Oh, that's a great analogy. It's a perfect analogy.
Mike, I'm with you asking the question.
But they're stewing in their own juices because they've lost three in a row.
They've lost three in a row, and I mean, listen, and.
That's some juice you don't want to be in.
Well, here's the other thing too, This is the one you want more than any other, and now you're playing it and it doesn't matter.
Yeah, and you have to have your players healthy because you've lost three, right, you've got a secured spot. But now the only thing that makes the season successful is you got to win that first playoff game.
That's exactly right. I mean in reality. I mean when Bill O'Brien was the coach and Cal McNair was the owner, Yep, he sat people and Bill O'Brien I think just said, listen, we want to do well in the playoffs. So the the thing we can't have happen is we can't have our quarterback get hurt. We can't have you know, DeAndre Hopkins get hurt, or Andre Johnson get hurt or any of those players.
No, because it's the NFL tournament's wan and done. Oh yeah, so you've got to be as ready as you can be.
I am interested in this conversation because it takes the football motivation part of it almost out of it. And there's the ego motivation. There's the bragging rights most who.
Who can go and say, listen, this is what because now you got to win this game well, but or or say listen, we've got to be smart here because if we and I mean Jeff Fisher got this business in two thousand and eight, I'll never forget it. We go to play Indianapolis, we've won the division, yep, we don't need the game, and he sets everybody, including Chris Johnson, and then we lose the first playoff game to Baltimore.
So people can back to that and said, there is no way that you should, in any way, shape or form have not played your starters in that last game because you had the week off. Now Houston doesn't have the week off. But everybody got on Jeff Fisher about it, and Jeff's point was and it was so spot on. He goes, okay, fine, whatever, let's let's say you're right. If we play Indianapolis in a meaningless game and I
get Chris Johnson hurt, Yeah, how dumb am I? Especially because we saw how that game with Baltimore in the playoffs turned. When Chris Johnson did get hurt.
Was on CJ two k's high ankle spring right, inal right.
But if that had not happened, But say it had happened in the regular season finale and you had not had him, and then you'd have lost the game. You'd have felt like a complete idiot.
Right, See.
What people need to understand that. I can tell you from a coach's perspective, you're not afraid to put him out there, but you also put them out there with the fact that they're going to be going one hundred miles an hour when they're out there, because that's the only way that you can play this game. It's violent and it can be unintentional. But if somebody's injured, it doesn't matter that you were playing that game and didn't have to win it. If they get injured, their injury matters.
Sure.
Yeah, so that's what he's up again.
But on the flip side, if you're Demiko, what if you think they need to play?
Yeah, you need to get this team all win.
Well, but remember they don't have the week off. They will play week one of the playoffs.
Yeah, they're going back to back.
They're going back to back. They will have had eleven days off coming into this game. I think he's got an interesting decision to make from that standpoint. But if he decides that he doesn't want to play them, which is totally reasonable and he's a good coach, then how hard is it going to be to sell that.
Against because you'll love guys coming off of the Tennessee oilers.
Here's the other part that caveat the conundrum.
The Titans have already beaten him one. Well, that's it.
If you had beaten him on November twenty fourth, I think I think it's it's a no cell. You don't have to sell it at all.
And that's that's the other caveat to this.
Right.
We'll find out.
But do you, like, do you agree with coach Mack that the NFL should continue to play Christmas games when Christmas falls on Tuesday or Wednesday?
Yeah? I think so.
I mean I think for the league, I mean, they made a good chunk of change off of those fifty million.
Seventy five per game.
Yeah.
Who is the best person on the Netflix telecasts?
Oh?
Because they had I mean they had eight hundred people that they trust everybody.
Yeah, they've had every person. I really liked Laura Rutledge and the mccordy's I thought that that was a really good, good parent, caring like they all three of them worked really well together.
I thought that was good. I thought Noah Eagle did a great job.
He's good.
I thought he did a really good job.
He was a topic of conversation at our house just because of how good he was.
We've always thought he was good though, right, Yeah, well, I mean twenty eight now I.
Think, yeah, something like that.
I mean, he's the real thing.
He didn't act like twenty eight.
No, not, Well, he's like his dad. I mean he's like his dad. Clearly he has had some advantages because of who his dad is. But the bottom line is it's what you do with the advantage. Yeah, and it's I don't think there's anybody who sees him and goes, well, he doesn't belong. Yeah, you're like and he The first thing you say is you go, he's twenty eight. Yeah.
When I listened to him to a game, I'm not distracted by him, yep.
Which he just does a game.
Which is his dad.
Straight, that's his dad too.
I mean that's what you do say that I'm pretty distracted. No, you're not distracted.
You'll distract believe you're both you move a lot, move a lot.
I'm pretty close to you. I'm not distracted. I'm with you all right.
Topic too. This is a coach mac question. Titans and the Jaguars will play for the second time in three weeks. When you play a team that quickly back to back as a coach, what do you have to change?
The first thing you do, if you lost the game, you go back and you pull it apart and find out where we lost it. This one's a pretty easy one. You find out where you lost it. You didn't score when you got down in the red zone because you move the football right, ended up kicking. So you parse that what happened on the first, second and third down that made us have to kick field goals in the
low red zone. The next thing you pull apart, you pull apart the second half where Brian Thomas Junior was a non factor in the first half and then all of a sudden he was all they had in the second half. You look at that and say, we've got to do something to start from game from the start of the game to keep him out of it. The third part of it is you look at what's been given you issues that the opponent is looking at on tape. You've got to get the run fixed. You got to
get the run defense fixed. That's what you do. You look at what's happened to you. You look at what they're looking at. They will go back and look at the game and say, we were able to stop them in the low red zone. So let's see what they present us down there, and then they're going to feed the ball. Brian Thomas Jr. You know that that's getting ready to happen, and you have got to be able to solidify your run defense because Tank Bixby is their running back now at the end is a third down back.
So that's what you got to do, all right.
So that takes us to topic three, and that is something that happened on the Brian Callahan Show on Monday night that we did. We had Jeff Logoman on and one of my favorite he's fantastic. I mean, they between Frank Frangie, Tony Boselli and Jeff Logoman, great group that Jaguars have a great broadcast, no question. So when Amy and I had him on, we mentioned that Brian Thomas Junior was not involved in the first half of the
Titans Jags game. On December eighth, and he informed us that he was to be involved, and that mac Jones apparently checked to other things things, and so in the first half of the game, Brian Thomas Junior two targets, no catches.
That's not involved.
Okay. At halftime, apparently Brian Thomas Junior was going to be part of the game plan because mac Jones was told don't check. Yeah, no more checking. Ten targets in the second half of the game, eight catches, eighty six yards. There it is, okay. And then against the Jets fourteen targets, ten catches, one hundred five yards, two touchdowns. Against the Raiders last weekend, thirteen targets, nine catches, one thirty two
and a sixty two yard touchdown. So since mac Jones, according to Jeff Loghman, was told don't check, Brian Thomas Junior has thirty seven the last two and a half games. Brian Thomas Junior thirty seven targets.
Yep.
On those thirty seven targets, twenty seven catches, three hundred and twenty three yards in three touchdowns.
You think mac Jones's got the memo.
I don't think there's any question. But my question is how often does that happen in the NFL that you that back from your coaching days or from what you know of the league, that you put something in a game plan and it doesn't go the way you want it to because of a player decision. Let's call it and you come in and go listen, that's just we're going to do this.
I've seen it. Of course, it depends on the quarterback. Okay, it mostly happens with veteran quarterbacks. Okay, okay, that's number one. I've experienced it. But I've also experienced it because not only mac Jones was told, but the play caller was told. I've experienced that at I've seen the head coach with a play caller at halftime when it wasn't quite going right, come up with a play sheet and say, look, I'm thinking of doing this and give me that thing. Here's
what you're doing. You're going upstairs. I'm calling this thing.
So it happens, ye, Well, it seems like it was a good decision.
However, here's here's the here's the bad decision. Not doing it in the first half.
Well, we we thought it was a great but Mike, you remember doing the game we were a little bit like, why are you not throwing to that guy?
Why is that? Because that guy's really good? He is, and we we went you know, it.
Just wasn't there, guys, two targets, said he only had two targets.
Two targets.
Wasn't there?
And then the second half thing about three straight plays, it's it's like, Okay, we're gonna make this so obvious to our own people that this is what we're doing. We're gonna throw to him on the next three plays, whether he's open or not. If it's first and one, we're throwing the ball because.
I need you to get the picture.
Yes, we need everyone on the same page.
And that's what happened. So anyway, that's what the Titans need to be ready for from the jump.
From the jump, I mean, the guy's averaging eight targets a half since that game. That's wild, and that might be low. I mean they may throw to him twenty times on Sunday, and let.
Me tell you, because of what's where they are and what they he's their best weapon.
Oh god, yeah, he's really good to Is he even a little better than you thought he would be?
Yes?
Yeah, Because everybody's like Melik Neighbors, Milik Neighbors coming out of LSU.
Well, see the thing on this guy was Mike notrupt. But you know that's how deep we do the draft. Sure, everybody thought this guy's really good, but he's just a linear dude. In other words, this is the guy that you can use with somebody that has got all the nuance route running and you can just you can run him through the defense and you know he'll be able to make the combat kit. He's really good at the nuanced routes and I mean he's better quicker than I thought he would be.
Well, what's funny is he was taking twenty third in the first round. Remember Justin Jefferson went twenty second exactly, and people were kind of like, well, he's a really good athlete, but is he a really good receive? That's it, and that's what it feels like. That's what Brian Thomas Junior was too.
That's it. That that was exactly it because everybody loved the package. Is it just is it nuanced enough, early enough and clearly it is. Wow, Yeah, he's all right unless you just get him two targets that it doesn't work so well, looks great, for your opponent.
It's fantastic.
I don't think that's gonna happen again.
Guys, not gonna happen.
I don't get that feeling.
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Tighten Up. Holme is at the forefront of all that we do. It's why we're so committed to caring for the places and spaces in which we work and live. Ashley the official furniture provider of the Tennessee Titans. We continue with the OTP pregame with Coach Dave McGinnis, presented by Farm Bureau Health Plants. You can plan on getting better with Farm Bureau Health Plants, better coverage, better rates, and better customer service FBHP dot com Topic four Titans
defense coach has had a rough time in December. What's going on with the Titans defense in December?
The first thing, when you're coaching defense and people can run the ball on you, that makes everything on ravel because now what has to happen, whether you want to or not, you need to start borrowing from the back end, okay, to get up there and help it. Now, when you do that and you put yourself in single high defense all the time, single high defense is the easiest deal. That's a safety in the middle with people down, everybody else down. That's the easiest defense in the world. For
quarterbacks to read single high. You know, it's why everybody starts out. They start out in a shell with too deep and then morph into whatever you want to do. But if you're having trouble stopping the run that the Titans have had two out of the last you know, the Washington game particularly and the Indianapolis game, and you have to start borrowing people to bring it down there.
Then when you're calling defenses, it puts everything caddywompus. I mean, now all of a sudden, all of a sudden, you're on your left foot defensively. And plus those eight gaps haven't changed in the history of foot I watched practice every day. I watched them practice against this RPO and
some But you've got to be specific assignment sound. If you're not or if you're late at the second level where they're running gap schemes which they're doing now with the r PO gap scheme is where they're pulling a guard, pulling both guards pull a tackle. But you've got to replace gaps. If you're not replacing gaps fast enough from the second and the third and whoever the borrow guy is for the plus one for the quarterback. If you're
not replacing gaps fast enough, you got problems. And that's what's happened.
Can I ask a logistic question, who is responsible for making those gap adjustments? Is that the players on the field as it's happening, Is that the coach change.
All week in practice those that scheme was not anything that they hadn't practiced. It's the same scheme without the true quarterback being the runner that the Titans run. Gap schemes have come back. It used to be all inside, all outside zone. I mean that was in vogue for a long time. Before that, it was the eye formation with the power plays. Okay, now everybody still has elements of all of those things. But these gap schemes, especially
with these quarterbacks now that are that are runners. You you practice it all week, there's not anything different. And it also goes along with what I call a crunch. You hear me call that a crunt where they bring a tight end and use him as the next replaced blocker behind the line of scrimmage. He'll come behind the line.
But all of that is practiced and so and especially nowadays, Amy with those tablets that you have used to be when you had those print outs, I mean you had to really be Sherlock Holmes to read those print outs and understand because I had to snap them, you know at particular times. Now with these tablets you can see exactly what's happening. But that is that's what drives you nuts as a player and as a coach. When you've practiced it, you know what they're doing and you can't
stop it. That's the issue.
So you talk about the fact that the aid gaps haven't changed ever. Ever. When we used to play years ago against wishbone teams or veer teams or wing tee teams, the big thing that we were taught is that you have got to stay in your lane and that you've got to keep your outside free. If we were in base defense, you got to keep your outside free so they couldn't turn you and open the holes. Things like
that is it as simple as that. Even today, that guys are just taking bad angles to the holes and are getting their outside edges blocked, or things like that are happening.
Or you're not getting your edge set fast enough, right, not getting your edge set fast enough, you're not replacing. I mean, you know, linebackers are really important in this. First of all, it's hard on the defensive front of the interior because when you pull people now they're getting angle blocked, they're getting down blocked. So what they've got to do is this his polls. Now, I've got to play into this and not only play, you know, horizontally into the guy coming down on me, but then I've
got to try to get vertical. Okay, that's number one. With all the with all the pin and pull, pin and poll, that's what it's what it's called. But the guys replacing, they're the guys that have to jump gaps. And not only jump gaps. You can't jump, you can't replace gaps and keep running sideways, right, because when you run sideways, all that happens is it stretches like this. Then if you don't get the edge set quick enough, and these guys don't react quick enough and you can't
and you're getting blocked down on. That's why that that seventy yard run, I mean that was that was to the post safety with nothing but turf, right, nothing but turf. And then you've got a guy that runs four nothing, he's going to outrun you. So what you've got to be able to do. Everybody has their part in it. You've got to keep your part in it until it is here all the time. You set an edge, build a wall, right, and then run and hit.
Just the reason I asked that question is because what you're talking about is what we were taught.
Well, that's what it is got, you know, fundamental.
Whether they were taking you've got to get to your spot. You got to beat that guy to the spot, and you absolutely cannot get hooked. Whatever it is. Do not get hooked because you've got a hustle to the spot. Because players of today, even on defense, don't do that a lot. Growing up, they don't play against that sort of as this comes back into vogue, did they know how to do that? Now? They do?
Because you sure you practice it, but you've got see you can practice it all you want, right, but until you get on the turf at full speed and everything is rolling. I mean, it has to happen so fast that And again, I've coached with these coaches against I mean, when Russell Wilson came into the league, he brought that to Seattle because that's what he did at Wisconsin, right,
was the RPO. And so we had we brought RPO coaches, offensive coaches from college, the best ones, the best ones to come in and give us clinics on what heard it? On what heard it?
Okay, but isn't it fascinating it just talking about it.
I like the fact that you bring up single wing, that you bring up wishbone. Oh, sure, they're all the same. Those principles are the same.
But that's what's so incredible. I Mean, when Tom Landry brought the shotgun to Dallas, everybody thought, well, this is crazy. It's like, no, this is the single wing. He grew up playing. He knew what this was. These are still elements of things that we saw commonly in the seventies and eighties that are now being used in different ways. But the principles about how you have to play defense against it are still the same. Is that you've got
to think on defense. You can't just I mean, listen if if I if I've got it right, and correct me if I'm wrong. But I mean, if you just turn it loose and start running upfield, and guys start running around blocks, which is some of what you're seeing in the I mean, if a guy runs around a block, he's taking himself out of the play.
Yeah, not only himself. If you run around a block, then you've also got somebody else that is that. Now, Now the guy replacing behind you has got it, has got a cross face of two blockers right to be able to get where. Yeah, I mean, it's a siment football. It's a it's a it's a signment football. See. I used to love it coaching linebackers when somebody was going to just put a single back back there and run
inside and outside zone. And I had a defense, you know, the defensive front was getting off and knocking back and it was it was one back, one gap. If I can, if, if if I can go downhill in that gap and teach by linebackers, this is your gap. You go downhill
and into this gap. If you're the backside guy and you're the overlap guy, then we can start talking about now, how how are we going to play the point, Because at times, what you'll start to do, you talk about keeping your outside arm free, Then what you start to do is a defense. Then you start to you start to spill the block. So the guy's coming to try to reach it, you go underneath him or you you set him inside and you create the roadblock going outside.
So it's a ying and the yang type of thing. But if you don't ever get it done early, you got a problem.
Yeah, because and again I'm referring to years and years ago, if we did try a stunt, then the people behind us would know, oh, they're gonna stunt here, So I have to so I need to go more outside.
Yeah, I mean, it's it has to it's it's coordinated, right, It's like piano keys. I mean, you know it's it's coordinated it and it has to be. But the element is, and the element in this league when you've got quarterbacks like Jaden Daniels or you've got one like Richardson, now
that are runners first, legitimate runners first. Then you've got to start plus one and then the old wishbone techniques coming to mean because now I mean, somebody's got to have the mesh, somebody's got to have the quarterback, and then somebody's got to have the perimeter. Now it's not so much the pitch anymore, Mike. Now the pitch part of it has become the throw on the RPO. The pitch has become the throw from the wishbone now. And
then they read different things. They see how you're playing it, and they'll read the front side linebacker, or they'll read the back sideline backer. They'll read the three technique, they'll read the five technique. It's we can go deep if you want to.
It's amazing to see some of this. I mean I saw play in an NFL game recently where they actually optioned the full back just like out of the old wishbone. They rode the full back through and left the ball in his belly and he went for I can't remember as a first down or a touchdown or whatever. Yeah, but it's like those It's fascinating how things come back.
Well. Yeah, and you know, as I said, I mentioned before, we brought those guys into letting. When I know, you sit and listen to a clinic on this stuff, and then they start telling you what they're going to read, which Are they going to read the three technique? Are they going to read the shade, They're going to read the backside linebacker, They're going to read the front side outside back.
It's yeah, we see some actual option now where they do option the end, which is crazy.
Well, people are people. People are optioning now. And then they've got the wham person. Uh yeah, you know the wham principle where they bring somebody from the outside. Now that that Dan Lyman is looking and all of a sudden, he's not blocked and instead of somebody coming here, somebody's ear holding him here.
Topic five. Titans have signed a kicker to the practice squad.
There you go.
They had Braydon Nervisen last week when they didn't know if Nick Folk couldn't go. Turned out Nick Folk couldn't go. Narvisen kicked in the game. He was released on Monday, and on Thursday they signed Matthew Wright to the practice squad. Matthew Wright, and we don't know if he'll kick or not, but he's on the practice squad. Yeah. He's appeared in twenty seven games. He's converted fifty one of fifty nine field goals, so he's only masty eight that's good. Forty
of forty two extra points. He has twenty four touchbacks on ninety four kickoffs, right as seven of eleven on field goals of fifty plus with a long of fifty nine against Las Vegas in twenty twenty two while he was playing for the Chiefs. So there you go. Bizarre off season story for this guy. First of all, he comes into the league in twenty nineteen.
First of all, can I just say something.
It's not weirder than selling bricks off season?
Uh? I mean career stories for kickers. It's all bizarre because they're like this. You know how Saturn has a lot of rings around him. Yes, that's the world they live in.
Well, it's interesting he would say that because when he so.
He kicked, he lived in a Saturn.
They lived in a Saturn. He helped make saturns in spring Hill years ago. No. Actually, so he goes to UCF. Okay, yeah, yep. He interns with Lockheed Martin while he aerospace engineering. Yeah, while he's at UCF. So after he tries out for the NFL and gets cut, he goes to work for Lockheed Martin.
Of course he does as an aerospace engineer.
I guess. So then he decides he's going to try the kicking thing. So obviously they're not going to let you just come and go as you please at a place like Luckheed Martin. So he's been around different places. We saw him in twenty twenty one. I'll go back to this in a moment, but let me give you his off season this year. Okay, twenty twenty four. So Matthew Wright spent the two twenty twenty four offseason with Pittsburgh before they waived him August twenty sixth, twenty twenty four.
So right at the end of training camp. Okay, all right, So he does nothing with a team for six weeks. Is He's signed by San Francisco to replace the injured Jake Moody on October eighth. He makes all three of his field goal attempts at Seattle on October tenth, Good job. Stays with the team until November fifteenth, when they wave.
It Okay, no longer in San Francis.
So he's no longer in San Francisco as of the middle of November. Wright was then signed to the Kansas City practice.
Squad just three teams.
Eleven days later, November twenty sixth, He made four of five field goals against Las Vegas on November twenty ninth. He then hit four of four field goals, including a thirty one yard game winner that banged off the left upright against the Chargers. On December the eighth, Wright was named the AFC Special Teams Player of the Week. There you go, and the same week he was cut. He
was cut December fourteenth, twenty twenty four. So he signs with the Titans twelve days later, the day after Christmas, December the twenty sixth. But he's also part of one of the more bizarre stories that technically involves the Titans. Do you remember when urban Meyer was coaching Jacksonville in twenty twenty one.
I liked it when Yeah, that was a good time for us.
I liked it when he was Yes, he did a really good job.
Yeah, we really love that.
So he gets into they have a kicker who's out of this world named Josh Lambeau.
Yeah.
Yeah, So Josh Lambeau misses a couple of field goals in preseason allegend, urban Meyer comes. I think they said he kicked him duringstrac and he said, hey, dip blank fill in the blank, dip blank blank. Uh, this is allegedly make your blank and field goals.
That's okay, that's normal. That's good.
So the Josh Lambo thing didn't didn't go well, so they eventually cut Josh Lambeau, who gets off to Not surprisingly, Josh Lambo is a little wigged out by the whole thing. Yes, allegedly started the year of three and they cut him. They replaced him with Matthew Right. There we go, Matthew right. So we go down there to play and Matthew Wright is just off the practice squad. He's like, what here?
I yeah, And Matthew Wright ends up missing a fifty three yarder against the Titans, missed an extra point against the Titans. Would play against the Titans later in the year, but all he did was kick off one time. Because the Titans won that game twenty to nothing. That that was the last that's the last Titans shutout. Yeah, so he's kicked against the Titans twice. He's also kicked for Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Sancisco, San Francisco. He's spent time with Atlanta,
with Detroit. It's he has good numbers.
See, I'm so glad that you share this with the ot people like this because this is what we get in the booth all the time, the crazy.
This is the part of it. They start to glaze over.
You have got information on information and and and and an interesting minutia.
It's not is it?
Yeah? Oh, I love it. I mean I absolutely love it.
Final fact on Josh Lambeau, just to wrap it up in a bow. Yeah, do you remember the last team Josh Lambeau kicked for no, No, he was the Titans kicker during in the Thursday night when at Green Bay in twenty twenty two, he.
Made during all of our kicker chaos.
Well, Randy Bullock was heard.
That's when Bullock got it.
And so he made three or four extra points. That was the last game Josh Lambeau ever kicked in in the NFL.
And when Josh Lambeau was here, nobody kicked him during stretch.
That we know of, allegedly allegedly.
It is so just so love that. Again, I go back to that's the world those kickers living.
It's crazy.
It's a whole different subset of people.
It really is. But that's the best way.
To explain this to me. And I want you to be totally serious with this answer, right, I mean, I don't know if Matthew Writ's kicking Sunday or not. No, I would think Nick Folk wants to go. Hopefully he does, but whatever, yep, But what in handling them? I mean, this guy, he's been all over the place trying to keep a job. He's had some success. There's got to be a part of him that wonders, why hasn't somebody
just given me a real shot. He's made fifty one of fifty nine field goals in the NFL, but nobody has ever chosen him as their guy. So you know this is in this person. How do you handle them as a coach? When you as a head coach? Yes, I never talked to him, really, No. I would hire the best special teams coach I.
Could hire everywhere. I was right, ended up with a great one in Bones Fossil.
Oh.
Yeah, Jeff Fisher. You'd say Jeff Fisher was a pretty good head coach for a lot of years. Right. He never messed with the Kickers, never met hired special teams coaches. The only thing Fish would do on special teams with a special teams coach is draw up all that fake stuff that aj Trapasso, right, all the stuff that we
used to do. He'd get involved in that. But technically teaching them, it's like, these guys are like golfers, right, Yeah, they've got swing coaches and they've got particular ways they do it. And if you get in there, I knew that I didn't know anything about technically to talk. Now I could tell them, look, those two yellow things go between them. I will tell them that. Glad to have you here, you know, and put you on our shoulders when you make it. Congratulations. You're a big part of
this team. But you start messing with those guys if you don't really understand what they go through. I mean, it's a you, it's they're just like golfers, man. Because to your point, this dude, you watch the PGA too, Yes, yeah, how pure those guys are. But you also if you watch tournaments, you watch them hit off, shank one, sure, pull one left, whole one. Right. Well, what it's a it's it's an amazing thing.
But the guys that we're watching on the PGA Tour are the guys who are out there every week. We don't often get to see the guys who get in on one sponsors exemption a year or or they're trying to keep their card. I mean, yeah, I mean we see, you know, we see all the guys who are the things. We don't see the ones who are fighting, you know, because every once in a while one of them gets in the last two or three groups of the day, but rarely. I mean, Nick Folk's a guy who's kept
a job in the league forever. Yeah, Matthew Writ's twenty eight years old. I don't know how you do that.
Yeah, he's trying to get his card. He's trying to catch on.
And the thing about it is all of these guys can kick. Oh yeah, they can all Just like the golfers that are on the that are on those those tour minor tours trying to get there, they can all play better than ten two percent. They're the two percent that can play at that level. Yeah, And so it's just that's why you've got to appreciate a guy like Nick Folk. That's why we appreciated a guy like when we had Craig Hentrick here, sure, I mean, because to
do it year after year after game after game after game. Mike, you remember when Fish, when we were having when we were having all those kicking problems, and we when we brought Gary Gary Anderson, Gary Anderson back in, brought Gary Anderson back in this true story. Now Gary Anderson runs a fly fishing camp in Canada.
Well, sure, why wouldn't he expert expert?
So we brought when fish call and brought him in. Said hey, Gary, we need you. Now. You called a lot of his field goal. Sure if it was if it was a thirty nine yard er, he kicked it thirty nine and a half. If it was forty two, he kicked it forty two and a half. It had just easy. But during practice he would set up rings in the indoor and practice fly fishing, you know, throwing it in, throwing it in rings, and then when it was time to kick, send Matt Thompson in there. Matt,
go get Gary. It'd come out okay, so make it six or seven, go back in.
But you know Jeff wanted him so badly. You'll remember this that when Joe Nedney got hurt for a second time, Yes, in two thousand and four, they couldn't get Gary in in time because he had stuff that he had to do with his business. Yes, so they used was it Aaron elling, I think that's who it was that we used for a week that ended up having to punt in the Miami game. He was the AFC Special Teams Player of the Week and then we waived him on Monday to bring Gary here. It is because Gary wasn't
trying to do any of that macho stuff. He was not trying to see how far he could kick it. Coach said it just right. All Gary was trying to do is make it and that was it. I mean, he was going to make the field goal. He was not going to show you how strong his leg was, and he wasn't about setting records or anything like that.
He just made the field goal and he left. But he was so reliable, and reliability is what you want, and that's what and that's what Jeff wanted, is that they said, well, we understand Gary can't get here in time, so we'll use this guy as a one game filling.
He just made the field goals and then left.
It. I could show you footage he would hit the kick and then start towards the sidelines. He would he would not. I'm not saying it's not.
That he was not interested.
He was just he wouldn't watch it.
He wouldn't watch it. No, he didn't watch it, and and and again. He didn't stand and admire how far up the netted hit or anything.
Yeah.
He all he did was make it and then he left.
I mean it was he was.
He's a great dude from Sweden. Yeah he was.
He was. Yeah, he was one of the best dudes in the history of guys. I really loved guy because he was so called. Back to the PGA Tour. You ever watched Freddy Couples play golf? Yes, even at this age. I mean it is silk still smooth. Yeah, and he did Ernie L's that's the same swing. But but this is like Gary when hit it, just walk start walking. I know it's good.
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Visit Snickers dot com slash Rookie Mistakes for details. Time for the key ingredients of the game, delivered by Little Caesars. As the Titans get ready to play Jacksonville, here we go. Key number one. Run the football. The Titans did run the football well against the Jaguars on December eighth. Tennessee had control of that game, and while they didn't finish the job that day, the run game was not the issue. Fine place to start towards offensive success in Jacksonville on Sunday,
Key number two. Get the Jaguars in third and five plus with titand Evan Ingram out for the season with a shoulder injury, Jacksonville's best run after the catch weapon is not available. If quarterback Mac Jones has to hold the football to wait on receivers to come open on third and five or more chances for a sack and an interception increase. Key number three. Play the same game
only better. This is incredible. The loss to Jacksonville on December eighth was the first time in the sixty five year history of the franchise that the Titans have lost a game when they have been plus two in turnover ratio and limited the opponent to ten points or less. That won't happen again. So when turnover ratio hold Jacksonville to ten points or less, but this time take better
advantage of opportunities to score touchdowns. If the Titans do that, this Sunday history shows Tennessee will not lose.
You've stopped trying your way over head.
Well, I stopped trying on the key points.
You stop trying on the time time limit?
Yep, well nobody cared.
I care.
Little Caesars is the official pizza partner of your Tennessee Titans. Download the Little Caesars app and get your favorites delivered today. Delivery fees apply. That's why I said, we need to start implementing consequences for when you went over and you vetoed that decision.
Hey on, give me your pizzas trade mayonnaise. Yes, I have a squeeze.
Bottle a mayotivation from Helman's Mayo.
Titans cheers be loud, and your buffalo chicken damp make your mama proud.
Should we publicize Buffalo.
Well, it's Buffalo chicken, not the city of.
It could be.
I'm just reading what's in there. I tried to say deviled eggs. Shut me down.
Helman's the official mayo of the Tennessee Titans.
Mayo game day be delicious.
You know.
I heard that on a commercial and they really undersold that line, and I was really disappointed. But I try to give it a lot of gusto, and I felt like they weren't even trying.
Maybe so huh.
It made me I notice it every time.
Well, here's our mayotivation. Don't kick your kicker. Don't kick your kicker in warm up it's stretched.
Don't kick anybody, don't kick people, just don't do that.
And of all the things, and don't let Santa in your house.
Don't let's say, hey, this is not a problem at my home any longer. It's over. The threat has been neutralized. Santa's thank you for doing this until Easter.
Thank you, thank you for sitting in the Snickers hot seat. Coach Man.
I love the Snickers hot seat. I love the Snickers hot seat. I stole the whole jar Snickers. We know the first time I was here. We're aware.
I know.
I took it.
I'm gonna fill it with mayonnaise next time. See if you steal that.
Probably delicious but harder to give away.
You would steal it for coach.
Dave McGinnis and Amy Wells. I might keep thanking you for joining us for the OTP pre game