um let's talk Tennessee Titans so DeAndre Hopkins is hurt there's a lot of interesting things happening with the Titans you know they've got will Levis heading into year two here off season some aggressive moves Calvin Ridley big signing $23 million a year they trade for lerus sne and pay him over $19 million a year to play Corner this over the last couple weeks they brought in Jamal Adams as a free agent strong safety and now over the weekend quandre digs one year f a $5 million deal to play free safety reuniting the Seahawk safeties there so there's veterans this defense is really interesting of just new veterans in Tennessee but then on the offensive side of the ball you have DeAndre Hopkins and so this this type of team that's you know skewing a little bit older now with a lot of their recent signings DeAndre Hopkin Hopkins has an undisclosed knee injury that's reportedly going to be a four to six week non surgery type of injury how big of a blow is this for the Titans um I guess it depends depends what shapee he's in when he comes back if it's four to six weeks even if that puts him into the regular season you know misses a game or two like in he's back say week three um but he's back 100% I don't think it really matters I don't think it makes much of a difference other than obviously the two weeks that he misses um if however it's it's a knee injury again he's back he can play week one or week two but he doesn't quite look like Nuke for a few weeks then maybe that's a bigger deal but actually it's one of those those situations where I think it could be a slight positive because now it forces tray and Burks during training camp and preseason to get more work you know get more reps and figure out what they're going to do with him and you know not needing to lean on Burks I think is huge but I would also still like to see them carve a roll for him and try and get him you know adjusted to a bigger part in the offense so it's almost The Best of Both Worlds in that scenario where the the practice time is freed up for Burks but theoretically in the regular season once things go for real he gets relegated down the depth yard again they don't need to use him that much in my simple brain sometimes Sam I look at a guy like Nuke and think about the discussion we just had about Tyreek Hill where if he has if he blows a tire if he has a knee injury or a leg injury it's like okay what's he what does he do but if Hopkins has a knee injury it's like well well he's already lost the step yeah he's he has but now so is it that big of a deal because he's still he's so good at the catch point and if he's not as smooth in and out of his breaks or not separating as much as he usually does does that matter because he could still win yeah I mean so he's 32 now and when you watched his tape when the Titans got him you're like okay is he does he still have it because obviously the time um in Arizona hadn't gone amazingly uh when you watch this tape from Arizona you're like okay he can still win basically everywhere the one thing he doesn't have anymore is that deep speed he doesn't have that step he's lost the step right but he's so good at everything else it doesn't really matter because he can still separate underneath he can still make contested catches he still understands defenses you know he can figure out where the Gap is he can open up the Gap he has everything accept the ability to run the top off a defense and even then if you give him the shot like if you throw him the jump ball like will Evis was willing to do he can still make some of those plays so it's not like the vertical threat is completely off the table it's just that like by alignment he's not moving the defense in that regard whereas Tyreek Hill Tyreek Hill lines up out wide in is ated formation you know on himself by with a corner that corner is going to change how he plays him relative to basically any other receiver in the league and it's an auto Target right it's an auto deep ball to Tire you kill so he's literally changing the defense simply by alignment whereas new ckins isn't doing that anymore now again that's not to say that that Target is is off the table like they might still throw it to him but at least the corner doesn't need to change what he's doing simply based off where he goes on any given play so that thing that we talked about with Tyreek Hill you know what happens if he loses the step well nuke's already lost the step so from that perspective I don't think the knee injury is going to change anything it's if it changes everything else like he comes back it's still in his head you know he's just not quite 100% all the sort of psychological lingering effects that a knee injury has on somebody um I started watching that uh receiver the Netflix show yeah Moy halfway through it or whatever but it is fascinating like the hamstring injury was basically the first Serious injury that Justin Jefferson had had um it we talked about this with Trevor a while ago as well like there's something that the first time you have a significant injury there's no way of getting that out of your brain like it changes something fundamental within you because For the First Time it occurs to you that your body will not always just hold up and take whatever punishment you offer it somewhere along the line there's a Breaking Point and your body says no and that I I do think that changes something inside you where for the like up until that point in your life that never entered your head it was simply wasn't there it had never occurred to you that you weren't bulletproof and then the first time it's proven to you that you're not bulletproof you're never able to remove that from the back of your head somewhere it's always there maybe you can you know put it in a back room and lock the door and be able to overcome it but it's there in a way it's simp wasn't before that ever happened the Titans as a team as I mentioned earlier just a what a group that theyve brought in here Sam right the entire look at the secondary lerus sne comes over from the Chiefs chetah aier comes over for 12 million a year from the Bengals that's their starting quarterback tandem the only and now quandre Diggs and Jamal Adams come in to join guys like ammani hooker hooker's had a pretty productive career for the Titans there Jamal Adams you know just never panned out in Seattle and never you know there was a point where it was like him and Derwin James were the two bigname young safeties like they were going to be the future of the safety position and then Adams just really did not play well in Seattle whatsoever did not do anything close to what he did with the Jets they changed his role they tried to use him just as a pass rusher or more more as a pass rusher almost like the the pass rushing safety we used to joke that he was the best pass rusher on Seattle because of the way he rushed the passer cuz he was actually good one-on-one even uh beating tackles at times and so the Titans kind of have this mishmash they've got like Kenneth Murray a linebacker this just group of you know could have would have shouldas on the defensive side of the ball and it's it's really interesting to me because they've gone this veteran route and it's year two of Rand carthon as general manager you've got a Young quarterback and it's just a slew of veterans who have played good football at some point in their career and you know we'll see if it I'm going to go there next week I'm G to go check out Titans Camp next week and I'll let you know how it looks the other thing that's interesting to me about that is Vel I think it always felt like the Titans defense was overachieving relative to the talent level from a Personnel standpoint and I think Vel got a lot of the credit for that in in the same way sort of belich did in New England well again that's no longer there so now theoretically they've upgraded the personnel and the talent looks a lot better but have they downgraded in terms of their achievement levels relative to the talent like is the defense actually going to be any better even if on paper it's improved fairly significantly in a lot of areas chat's asking me uh did Caleb Farley die why is he not listed as a starting Corner well he's only played 260 snaps since getting drafted in 2020 chat's really asking why is he not listed as a starting Corner yeah I mean look I was a I was a Farley fan coming out six 62 movement skills he had that and he had a really nice what's that he had a really nice rep the other day he had Ace rep the day saw saw one nice rep Ergo he's still there I saw that as well um the problem with Caleb Farley he came out with this chronic back issue he's uh been injured for the majority of his three years in the league as I immediately tore a knee right like almost one of the first things he did was like boom knee injury done so there's a small sample size here of 107 coverage snaps yeah and in his two years 2022 34.7 PS F coverage grade 40 grade last year on his 37 snaps it's a tiny three years right cuz 21 he missed all of 21 so immediately done for the year knee injury like first thing that happens to him is oh you're you're missing your rookie year and then the next two years is what 10 and something coverage snaps yes 107 coverage snaps across three years so that's why uh is there still potential with Caleb Farley yeah maybe but relying on him but you know the way they say you know the way for some reason they've always said and it's never been true that you don't lose your job due to injury you know well he lost his job due to injury that's why he's no longer a starting quarter he did and there's probably a reason that they went out and got leria Sneed for a lot of money and Chet Bay aier paying him as I mentioned over 12 million a year across three years here so and Roger McCary playing in the slot so yeah it's going to be an uphill battle for Caleb Farley to see snaps for the Tennessee Titans yeah they declined his fifth year option he's playing out the last year of his deal effectively like he's in he's still there and if they get anything out of him this season it'll be a bonus but they're essentially treating him at this point like you know free like house money like if he proves anything it's a it's it's a result but we're not actually expecting anything anymore yeah so I'm going to go to Titans Camp next week they've got two joint practices with the Seattle Seahawks going to see them in person I'm interested in seeing that the the new look secondary will Levis his development yeah and the 360 lb nose tackles that they have the the defensive lineman they've got uh bring in tandre Swat his former Texas teammate Keandre kurn's already there at 330 PBS Quinton bannan is a 350 pound or whatever they got they know some big defensive lineman that are going to be fun to watch as well tandre sweat feels like an interesting um inperson experiment you know so with the Senior Bowl in person he's uh well obviously he's big like but the the thing about tandre sweat was at that size he actually moves and plays like somebody significantly smaller you know how much does that Translate in person so yeah I'm looking forward to checking out Titans Camp again interesting team the the the nuke Hopkins injury I hope this doesn't become so a lot of I guess the point I'm trying to make here is a lot of times when the team is constructed like this whole bunch of veterans you and you do start to get nicked up and it's like that's the that's the bust part of the the Boomer bus that you're going for here that's how the Titans have kind of built this thing around will Levis right now so hopefully new new Hopkins is back because I think the Titans have a lot of a lot of potential talent that you know they could sneak up on some people this year if Will Lis yeah takes care of the football [Music]