Titans camp: Good locker room vibes and an even better outlook in the AFC South
Marcus Mariota is on track recovering from a knee injury and the upside of the offense is undeniable
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7 min read
NASHVILLE -- The Houston Texans don't know exactly who their starting quarterback will be, or if he's really any good. The Indianapolis Colts don't know precisely when their starting quarterback, Andrew Luck, will be playing football again following significant shoulder surgery, and have been in dire straights without him. The Jacksonville Jaguars still have turnover-machine Blake Bortles as their starting quarterback despite a regime change, and he just lit up the internet the other day by tossing five picks in a training camp practice.
So, yeah, it's not a bad time to be the Tennessee Titans. This upstart club has been having a very steady and productive, if under-the-radar, training camp thus far right up until watching first-round pick Corey Davis suffer an injury during Thursday's practice (nobody seemed to be particularly freaking out about that situation, by the way, as he headed for an MRI exam).
It's difficult to discern all that much when spending just a single day with a team, but one can tell that potential superstar quarterback Marcus Mariota is making big strides coming back from his late-season knee injury, that this offense seems poised to take off, and that general manager Jon Robinson's concerted effort to rebuild the secondary might turn out similar to his remarkably quick work reshaping the offensive line.
And, perhaps most importantly, there is a sense of camaraderie, a true esprit de corps, that permeates this locker room, and that bodes quite well for the future of this young team. Robinson's handiwork is ever present on a club that has physically transformed the confines and geography of the locker room itself, and management and old-school head coach Mike Mularkey are clicking with this roster comprised largely of millennial types.
"Everyone just meshes here," said vagabond tight end Philip Supernaw, who has found a home in Nashville after being a near-weekly victim of the NFL's transaction wire. "It's unlike any locker room I've been around. A lot of locker rooms have like cliques and stuff like that, but here everyone is cool with everyone. It doesn't matter who you are or where you come from, everyone just wants to be a good teammate."
You can see it in the small ways players interact after practice in the locker room -- offense and defense; veteran and rookie; established and firmly on the bubble. There are a bevy of video game consoles, a mix of the latest technology and games from 20 years ago. Owner Amy Adams Strunk invested about $10 million into much-needed upgrades to this facility, making it more fan-friendly for training camp in the process. There is a stuffed beaver -- yes, think taxidermy -- that was a birthday gift to street-fighting tackle Taylor Lewan from his girlfriend that now makes the rounds in the locker room (he was perched at one of the card tables in the room Thursday, wearing a fedora and sunglasses, but I'm told his locale and wardrobe can change by the day).
"It's like the locker room mascot," Supernaw said of the deceased animal. "Sometimes you get chosen to have the beaver and he like sits in front of your locker and stares at you. I don't know, man. The beaver like goes around the locker room and he wears different hats and clothes and has like wardrobe changes … I haven't really interacted with the beaver myself. He kind of freaks me out."
Fair to say dudes are having fun here.
Previously, rows of huge lockers divided and dissected the area, cutting off players from being able to see or interact with one another, but now it's an oasis of open space with far greater creature comforts than before.
"That was one of things we set out to do was get good football players, but also get good people too," Robinson, entering his second season here after spending much of career as part of the Patriots dynasty, told me. "And that's what we've done. The guys that are here, they're tough, they have a team-first atmosphere, and they like being around each other, and Mike does a tremendous job with that."
Mularkey, after shaky stops before as a head coach in Buffalo and Jacksonville, has reinvented himself as more a new-age teacher in Nashville -- with plenty of throwback qualities, including a 1980s-type running game -- and his willingness to let guys shoot baskets in meeting rooms to try to get out of sessions sooner, or put a Nerf basketball net in the locker room itself, is going over quite well here.
"It's a really good bond, and the actual physical locker room has transformed, too," said Robinson, who has navigated two drafts expertly and reaped a haul of assets in return from trading down. "The renovations that Amy has done have been outstanding. That locker room used to have a bank of lockers right down the middle that essentially separated people, and we've changed all of that. It's all new and the locker room is really open, and the running backs can talk to the DBs and the OL can talk to the DL."
There's an interesting mix of forward-thinking, progressive decision-makers like Robinson, and totally old-school coaches like offensive line guru Russ Grimm. Grimm, a former member of Washington's esteemed line dubbed "The Hogs," made a decisive impact with this young group last year (rookie Jack Conklin played at an All-Pro level, for instance). The hiring was slept on nationally, but it is one of the key reasons why what used to be an organizational deficiency that left Mariota vulnerable is now a strength.
"He has an old-school approach and he certainly works on technique and teaches them footwork," Robinson said, "but he doesn't harp on, 'Your foot is at 48 degrees and it's supposed to be at 45 degrees.' He doesn't get caught up in all of the minutia; he just works like, 'Get your guy, get on him, block him, take him off the line of scrimmage. Set him, punch him back, don't let him get on the quarterback.' He keeps it simple for them and lets them have fun playing football. He's been a very, very key piece in that offense and that whole room coming together."
"They're a bunch of studs," Mariota said of his offensive line. "That's probably one of the best groups in the league, and they really feel that way, and they should."
The two questions on that side of the ball this year: can Mariota stay fully healthy and continue to blossom, and how will he mesh with an overhauled group of receivers? Eric Decker was astutely brought in to lead that group once the Jets finally got around to releasing him. Davis, they hope, will make an immediate impact as a rookie. Even third-round pick Taywon Taylor is opening eyes.
"It's really a matter of trust," Mularkey said of that learning curve and which pass catchers will bond best with his quarterback. "He's going to know which guys are patient in their route running," and the coach said his passer won't entertain throwing to those who run the wrong routes or have sloppy timing.
As for Mariota's ongoing development, the organization is hoping to see an extension of some of the mantras the young man started taking to heart this past season. Mariota is running better with time and said that while his knee stiffens up sometimes during lulls in practice, the recovery process is right on track.
"He's doing a nice job," Robinson said. "He's pacing himself and he's made some really good throws. The one thing for us, last year that we talked about, was him just learning to live another play. You don't have to make it every single time.
If you are running, get that slide and slide five yards early so we can win another play. If you are scrambling, don't force it into a spot, just throw the ball away and let's play another down. And as a young QB he really took a step in the right direction as the season went on last year, and he's getting his confidence back every single day with the leg, and he's running some more, so we're excited about the direction he can take us."
I suspect that direction ends up with them atop of the AFC South and back in the postseason for the first time since 2008. Heaven knows what the poor beaver will be wearing by then, or what the collective quarterback rating of the other starting passers in this division will be come January, as well.
