 This is the OTP presented by Farm Bureau Health Plans, plan on paying less for the coverage you need with Farm Bureau Health Plans. Get a quote today at FBHP.com. My Mike Keith with my Titans Radio brethren, Coach Dave McGinnis, Rhett Bryan, we're going to pose for a picture here real quick. Picture. All right, picture right here during the OTP photo. Thank you. What a strange week it has been. A week unlike any other that we have had, I don't think there's any doubt about that. I was going back and looking in terms of how this departure of the head coach went. The distance of it is not totally different than say Mike Malarkey. Mike Malarkey was let go on the Tuesday after the New England playoff game. So it was two days. But he did have the final press conference on Monday and you'll remember in the final press conference he said essentially he wasn't going to make any, he didn't plan to make any changes on offense and everyone kind of was surprised that he didn't come out and say that and the next day he was let go. I don't know that everybody was shocked, Coach, because in Mike Malarkey's case he was going into the final year of a three-year contract and you either realistically had to extend him or let him go. Yeah, well, there were some other things too after the Kansas City game. Well, he had said after that game that he was, so you win your first playoff game in 14 years, yeah, 14 years. And he had basically in his press conference gone into the fact that he was disappointed that ownership had not dispelled rumors about him being fired, potentially. And that wasn't received well. Well, he took it to a personal level, Mike, because he talked about the stress that it brought on his family. Because I was sitting in the room, then I was sitting here going, oh, that's probably not going to go well. Well, we were listening, I can't remember if we were already on the bus or where we were when we heard it. And I guess we would have heard a playback on the bus, but it was very odd. It was a very odd tone. And your thought process then was, whoa, I don't know if this is the time to. Yeah, you just want to play off game. Yeah, it's kind of like the old Jerry Clower line. I don't believe I'd have told that. I don't believe I'd have told that, brother. Yeah, and from all my years in the league, it's best to keep. You've got a lot of thoughts. Just keep them to yourself until it's the right place to do it. You know, usually usually airing grievances in public. I think in any business is not good. Right. And especially a very visual and a very visible business. Just you can have the thoughts, but keep it to yourself in the right context. But Mac, how hard is that to couch and to because that's clearly testing a person's patience because things are building and you might have frustrations or you certainly want to speak on a topic. How tough is that? Well, I've been there. I know you have. That's why I'm asking. And I held it in. You hold it in until, you know, and I did it, you know, for the fact that it in the end, it doesn't do you any good. Number one. And secondly, you've got to understand that when you when you come out like that, you may be saying something off the cuff or something to get off your chest that is going to affect a lot of people. Well, then they played another game the next week. And at that point, they go through the game, lose it. New England, 35 to 14. The end of the season news conference is the next day. And then the news hits that that they had decided not to continue on. I guess it was January 15th. They decided not to continue on with Mike Malarkey. Jeff Fishers was actually 25 days after the last game. Yeah, that was a lot different. Very different. Mike Munchak's was actually six days after the final game. And, you know, the word was they asked him for some changes and he had closed the season well. They thought a lot of Munchak, but just couldn't get it worked out. And so decided it was best for all that he'd not continue this with Mike Vrabel's firing was very different in that Monday became unusual. And it became unusual because there was not a final press conference, which was outside the norm. And then people started to wonder what was going on. And then when the news hit about 1130 on Tuesday, I still think it took people. A back overall, I think the number one reaction before anything else was just surprise. Yeah, well, you never really know what's going on unless you're in the room. Right. And I've been in the room. And so I can speak from, you know, to Red's previous question, I can speak from experience and, you know, there's a lot of conjecture normally around all of these things. I mean, it is. And it's and, you know, and the term Black Monday has become a big deal. And then at far it's just nationally for conversations and stuff. But unless you're in the room, Mike and Red, you really don't know what's going on. You don't know. You can you can surmise. You can have a lot of conjecture. And that's why it's always best if you're one of the, you know, if you're one of the principles, which I was at one time is just keep your powder dry and in the room, because the rest of it, you can't dispel rumors and you can't dispel conjecture and you can't dispel people's opinions on the outside. Right. So everything you don't know unless you're in the room. One follow up to what Monday was the tell to me was that there was no press conference. And I think that's what immediately got people's radar up. So we had locker room clean out day and a lot of the media members were there. I was there gathering some audio myself. And we had some players tell us there was no final team meeting. Tell me why that wasn't a tell or as big a deal as there's no press conference. Well, a lot of times you don't have a final team meeting just because of the fact that you have meetings, individual meetings. Right. And you'll you'll meet with the with with the players individually, you know, as that goes on, because in a in a big team meeting, there are some guys on the team that aren't going to be there. You know, they're they're not going to be there. And so the individual meetings is what is really more critical than just an entire team. Well, and that's what Ryan Tannehill said, too. He said Mike Vrabel had done team gathering some years and other years he had not. Correct. And in my time here, and I was asked about it on the radio, I guess. Yeah, it was Monday. I don't remember that being standard operating procedure. I know it's happened some, but I didn't feel like that it happened every year. And then what Ryan Tannehill said, back that up, that Vrabel had done that some years and some years he had not. So I'm with Rhett, though. The press conference has almost always been held on Monday. It doesn't have to be. Correct. You have to hold one by the end of the week via league rules. But here, it's always been done the day after the game. As far as I can remember, I don't know if there was a trip we took at some point or there was a weather thing that had come up or anything. There may have been exceptions, but maybe. But there was a reason for it. Right. There's a. It was the first time I could remember. There wasn't a season wrap up presser from the head coach. And I think the reaction among most people at that point is they're trying to work a trade. You know, that's what people kind of went to at that point because the majority of the speculation was that he was definitely going to be back outside the building. And then it was you get to Monday and then there's the talk of the trade possibility. But as you dig into that, it's that's it was going to be that was going to be a very convoluted thing to try to do. That's exactly the word I was going to use because it is. Right. It is. Now, people will point to well, Sean Payton was traded. He wasn't an active coach at the time. Right. He wasn't an active coach. He was under still under contract, but he was not an active coach at the time. But it is very convoluted and it takes time. And plus the principle of the parties involved has to agree to it. Well, and the other thing about the Denver thing, they had already been through their entire process. Correct. So they had checked every box. They had talked to every to everybody they wanted to. So they were done. The time constraint issue, because if you're sitting here, I mean, just hypothetically, you make a deal with someone, then they still have criteria they have to meet. Sure, which is probably not going to be totally honest. If you're interviewing people just to interview them because you have to meet requirements, I don't think anybody thinks that's really cool. The team, you know, the teams on either side wouldn't think that was very cool. I wouldn't think the league would think that was very cool. And it's just not right. The second part is, what if the other team pulls out? What if in the course of those interviews, they meet they meet somebody they like better and they say, you know, we're just not going to do this because they're not bound to anything. And you as the trading team have to sit and wait because you can't start interviewing coaches while you still have a coach. That's and see all of that. You're laying it out very well and people don't think about that. Right. And here's the other thing, Mike, that when you start talking about trading a coach, the first thing that comes to mind is we're going to get first round draft picks. Right. Wait a minute. You probably aren't. You probably are not going to do that. And so then you've got to negotiate the picks that you're going to get. There's a lot that goes into it. And so convoluted is a perfect word for it. But it's more intricate and detailed than people know, unless you've been on the inside of it and know what all of that works. And everything in the National Football League is done on a timeline. Oh, yeah. There are there are deadlines for everything that's done in the National Football League. And regardless of your circumstances, you still have to meet those deadlines, regardless of what goes on. I was thinking and I totally agree, Mike, with the way the Rooney rule is set up and those things. I'm like, there's so many layers to this. It would it would be painstaking to try to do all of that. And yeah, you're right. If somebody just says, no, we're not going to do that. We found our candidate. We like that. It's easier said than done, I guess, in this case. The thing I'm even thinking about all the layers to it, I would assume much like when a team trades with another team for a player in picks or whatever, you know, all that paperwork has to match that they send into the league office. I would say even that has to be the same thing to go for the trade. 100 percent. And but I go back. What coach said is the most important overlooked fact in all of this is the coach has to agree. Correct. Different from the player part of the reality is if you were Mike Vrable, why would you agree? Why would you not want to make them fire you so you could make your own deal? Even if it's with the team where you want to go, you want to make your own deal. You don't want to be tied into anything at this point. If your current team no longer wants you. Then from from the coaches standpoint, I'm not sure why a coach would agree. Thank you. Just insert any name in that. Any name. Insert any name in that box. I mean, I was a coach for a long time. Insert my name in that box. You don't do that. And Mac, let's take your representation wouldn't let you do either. Let's take it a step further to go back to your point about you're not automatically getting first round draft picks. No, let's say hypothetically you are. Why would you go to a place where you're going to be handicapped and not have a first round pick if it's in this year's draft? Why would you go to that situation knowing that you'd be behind the eight ball and trying to do player acquisition? You'd have to you're assuming now that that you're going to the place that you're traded to, you know, that is. But I'm just saying, even in that hypothetical, I wouldn't even I'm like, why would I go there? Well, but you look at it, too. I mean, John Gruden wanted to go to Tampa. He told Al Davis he wanted to go to Tampa when Al Davis called him and said, Tampa wants you. He said, that's what I want to do. Please do this trade. Bill Belichick was not going to coach the Jets. He resigned after 30 minutes or whatever. I resigned as the H.C. of the NYJ on a piece of paper, a piece of paper. Yeah, right. He wasn't ever going to go there. He was going to New England because he had been there before and the crafts wanted him. These were deals that were already in place in place during a totally different time when the league did not have all of their rules in place. And it's not just the Rooney rule, which is part of it. But remember this year, you cannot interview current NFL coaches until after the divisional round in person, in person, right, right? Versual you can do in a window and what they're and what they're trying not to interrupt, I'm sorry, but what they're trying to do is they're trying to give coaches who go deep in the playoffs a chance to still be in the hiring cycle because everybody was making their hires before they could talk to every possible coach. So I mean, they can't limit it out all the way to the Super Bowl. Maybe they do that at some point. But right now it's just Zoom interviews. The Titans are about to start Zoom interviews. Some teams have started our starting Zoom interviews and then. But you can't bring them in if they're a current NFL coach until after January the 22nd. And that's a big Monday after the division round. You can start bringing them in. And that's a big point. It's a huge point. And it's a huge point, too, that you need to be able to start those virtual interviews, right? Because that takes the place of an initial interview. When I was coming up in the league and then became a hot young coordinator, they would send the league would send a television crew to wherever you were. And if someone come from the league and they would conduct an interview on camera with you, tape it, you know, let you look through it and look at it, approve it, and then they would send it to the league. And then it was it was dispersed to all the owners. And they can, you know, they could look at that, but you never really got to talk to anybody until you were invited to come in for an interview. The all the rules have changed so much, Mike, as to what you're saying right there. But if you're if you're trying to hire a new coach and you want to get in on these initial Zoom interviews, you got to start immediately and you got to start quick, especially if the some of the candidates are still in the playoffs are still in the tournament. Yeah, I understand what the speculation was about the trading. I get that totally. I don't think anybody was wrong. I just don't know that everybody fully realized what would go into it. They didn't. I mean, I didn't. I honestly, you know, I had to read some things and go over some things. And then the first thing I thought is this is going to be really hard to do. But I didn't know that until I would delve into it. And it's funny you say that because I had the same thing as you have people at your office or people, your family, how does that work? Like, I'm still kind of digging through that. And you look at, I think there's been eight trades for coaches since the AFL and FL merger in 76 of those in the last 24 years. And I'm thinking as as structured as it is now, it's going to be even less of a thing. Like somebody the other day, I was like, it's happened. It's just not frequent. And I said, I don't know that it'll be as frequent as been in the last 24 years. Well, to Mike's point, though, it happened before these rules were in place. Yeah. And it's and all of this has sort of continued and you're going to get, you know, people have asked, when will the Titans have their coach? You would think they'd like to have their coach by, you know, sometime January 25th, 26, maybe Monday the 29th or Tuesday the 30th, but they might not. They might not. They might not. I mean, it may go if you've got somebody you really want, then you would be willing to, you know, kind of wait around during that process. But you will have some opportunities to make that contact and start to have some things in place because you've gone through all this. Yeah. And by that, by that dateline that you just brought up, if you don't have your coach, you're getting pretty close to having a coach and knowing who it is. And I mean, I've experienced it. I mean, I've been to just about every senior bowl that's that's been since I've been in this league and there've been teams down there without a head coach. Now they were close to getting a head coach, or maybe the head coach was hired while they were down there. But it's not that's that's not the deadline you're looking at. But as you say, you bring up a very, very real point. And back to my point about deadlines in the National Football League that you got to meet, there's comes a point in time when you need to have one in place just so everything else can slide in. Yeah. But I mean, you'd like to have a coach by the senior bowl, but you don't have to. You don't have to. No, you don't have to. You do not. And I mean, because all the scouting work and all the all the legwork that goes into what the senior bowl is, what we're getting ready to do is go down there and look at that's been done 10 months in advance by your scouting apartment. Hey Titans fans, it's always game on with Duncan. So grab a coffee and kick off the action, whether that's drinking a cup of coffee on your way to the game or grabbing one to go before watching the game at home. Duncan is always there to help you get your game on. Just like the pros, we need to be at our best come game time, which is why Duncan is the most important part of your game day ritual, because it's always the best call for football. America runs on. Duncan, there it is. When do I get one of those? You want one of these? Yes. You can have this one. No, you're drinking out of it. Yeah, it's dirt. So what I want to know of all of Dave McGinnis, I want to know of all of the candidates who've been mentioned that the Titans have asked to interview. How many of them do you have pictures with when they were children sitting on your knee or on a jungle gym or a four year old birthday party? How many of these guys have you known since they were born with you and Chuck E. Cheese? First of all, first of all, I had a jungle gym growing up and it was outstanding. It was outstanding. We had the best jungle gym in the neighborhood and everybody came over there and kids broke their arms on them all the time. They were the best. They were the best. They were so good and so unsafe and my grandfather bought us the biggest, most elaborate jungle gym and my grandmother and mother were so mad at him because you got kids climbing up 10, 12 feet off the ground on metal. King of the mountain and you try to punch the guy off the top of the jungle. I shot my brother with a BB gun off the top of it and he broke his arm. So yeah, and he still speaks to you. Yeah, just fairly, but but bringing up jungle gym triggered me pretty much. You know, that's things too. I've been shot by a BB gun after that. That's not fun. So anyway, I know I know I know a couple of them like that. Just like, you know, before the Jacksonville game, Press Taylor came with a booth to see me. Nice to me, Press Taylor. Press is good. Comes with a great family. Yeah, that was great family. Yeah, he waited for you. He's getting ready to coach a game and he's waiting for Coach Max Segment to be over. Because I can wait. So I mean, but I've I've been in this realm so long and there are there are coaches, sons now that are coming up through the ranks that are pretty good football coaches. Yeah, it happens. So how many of them? So Brian Calle Hansman mentioned. Well, I knew I knew his dad, Bill, you know, very, very well, still coaching with the Jets, right? He's a he's a he's a offensive line coach. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. He's one of the great offensive line coaches. Really good. Yeah. Really, really good one. Of course, the one I know the best is is is slow. It's Brian's slow because I work with I work with Bob, his dad for three years. He was when Dave wants that took over for Mike Ditka. And I stayed with them after Mike Ditko was let go. Slow was with Jimmy Johnson on that staff that won the Super Bowls. In Dallas and then slow came in. It was a defensive coordinator. So I've been around the slow family a lot. Very just a real great family, football family. His brother, Stevie, is in the personnel department in San Francisco. If you if somebody hires Brian Callahan, do you think his dad comes as the old line coach? Well, I don't know. I mean, that would be interesting. Package deal package. Well, I mean, you kind of want that, wouldn't you? He's pretty good. Yeah, he's pretty good. He's more than pretty good. Yeah. He he he he he gets it. And he's been a head coach in this league and in major college. And yes, he gets he gets. But, you know, offensive line play. I'll just say this for Bill Callahan. He gets it. Yeah, he gets it. So let me move to something different. This is something I do. And this is kind of one of the crazy things that I do every year the day after the season. Crazy, crazy. Indeed. So I do. I run the key stats for the playoff teams. Nice to compare what they're doing. And, you know, some a lot of years we've been in the playoffs, which has been great this year. We're not. And I was going to share a few of them with you to see. OK. If you think they make sense. The obvious one when you start on offense is points per game. The average playoff team. Twenty four point eight points per game. Makes sense. Titan, seventeen point nine. So it's a touchdown. It's a touchdown game. Yep. Which in a one score game makes a big difference. It makes a big difference. But that's your standard. You would you would kind of expect that, I would think. If you take Pittsburgh out. That number goes to like almost twenty five and a half points a game. Pittsburgh is the Pittsburgh is the team offensively in the playoffs that would be the below the norm. Below the norm. Yes. The one at the top would be probably Miami, Miami. But anyway, twenty four. You know what? And that's a little bit skewed for this reason. And Miami had a seventy point game. They did. They had a seventy point game, which go ahead. They did. But they also had a couple of fourteen point. Yes, sir. They did. All right. Rushing yards, I don't think is a is a big deal at all. The average playoff team one hundred twenty one and a half rushing yards per game on twenty eight carries. They averaged four point three one per carry. The Titans one hundred eight point six rushing yards per game on twenty six carries. They averaged four to a carry. They were behind a lot so they didn't get to run it quite as much. But if you're looking at yards per carry, about the same about the same. So the run the run game doesn't seem to be an issue. The pass game, however, playoff teams average two hundred thirty seven yards passing per game on thirty three point six attempts with twenty two point two completions. So they average to complete sixty five percent of their passes and the playoff teams average nearly twenty eight touchdown passes. I was waiting for the touchdowns. Yeah. OK. The Titans averaged one hundred eighty point four yards passing per game. Seventeen point six completions out of twenty nine point one attempts. Titans complete just sixty one and a half percent of their passes. So they're four percent below the playoff teams are, which means the clock doesn't keep running. Obviously, it's a misplay. League average is roughly sixty four percent. So the Titans were under the norm and the Titans just fourteen touchdown passes. Half. There it is. Half then there and there. Now you're starting to dig into something. Now here's a couple more. Playoff teams averaging thirty six sacks allowed. Titans sixty four sacks. Playoff teams convert forty three percent of their third downs. Titans thirty three and a half percent of their third. Big difference. Big difference. Titans OK on turnovers twenty turnovers. They're actually below the playoff teams average of twenty one point seven turnovers for an offense. So they were I mean, if you'd have told Mike Vrable before the season, his team would only turn the ball over twenty times. He'd have taken that in seventeen games. Yeah, absolutely. You'd have taken that red zone success. Playoff teams average fifty nine red zone trips. Nearly fifty nine percent touchdown scored in those red zone trips. Titans forty eight red zone trips. Forty eight percent touchdowns. And there's a difference and there's the difference. Defensively, when you look at some of these numbers, it's pretty interesting. Playoff teams allowed twenty point two points per game. The Titans allowed twenty one point six points per game. Negligible. That's that's not a big deal. Playoff teams allowed three hundred nineteen point five yards per game total offense. Titans gave up three thirty five per game yardages yardages mean anything. Right. Correct. Run defense. The Titans were actually better on run defense than the average playoff team. Hundred five yards rushing per game on twenty five carries for a four point one five per carry average for a playoff team. Titans one oh seven point seven on twenty eight carries. Three eight per carry on rushing. And I think we felt that during the year. Yes. Yes. Pass defense. Playoff teams two fourteen a game allowed sixty three percent completions. They allowed twenty three touchdown passes. Titans two hundred twenty seven yards per game allowed. Not too bad. But nearly sixty eight percent completion percentage. Yeah, that's it. That's it. That's it. That's a continuation of series. Yes, there and twenty touchdowns allowed. So not not terrible on touchdowns. No playoff teams averaged forty nine sacks per game or per team. Right. Titans had forty five. Playoff teams fourteen interceptions Titans with six. Yeah, and there's a big difference too. Big difference. We Titans were just as good on third down as playoff teams. Playoff teams allowed thirty eight point four percent of opponent third downs to be converted. Titans thirty eight point five percent exactly the same. Yeah, exactly the same. How about red zone defense? Red zone defense is interesting. The opponent, the playoff teams allowed fifty one red zone trips with twenty nine touchdowns, meaning the touchdown ratio was fifty five percent. The Titans allowed sixty one red zone trips, probably too many, but only twenty three touchdowns. The touchdown rate was just thirty seven point seven percent. Titans number one in the NFL. That's number one in the league. And that that that right there counterbalanced some of those other ones that that's why you had your one score game. That's right. Average takeaways for playoff defenses, twenty four. Titans with fourteen. And there's a there's a huge difference there. Average turnover ratio for a playoff team plus two Titans minus six. And another one I ran. Average penalties per team for playoff team. Six penalties per game. Fifty yards, Titans seven for fifty two. The same. But there's some there's some significant ones in there. There are some. You can see how a game seesaws. And so when do we talk? I mean, all of the things that we present on Titans radio before the game of here's here's what might happen. Here's what has to happen to be able to win. You can see the counterbalance in the things that we talk about as far as third down success, as far as, you know, limiting explosive plays, as far as scoring touchdowns. Once you get in the red zone, making them kick field goals on defense when you're in the red zone, all of those things come out. But the turnovers in the National Football League, we always talk about turnovers and explosives are huge things. Yeah, the other thing, too, when you run numbers like this is that it is staggering how much less the run game means than it did even ten years ago, maybe even five years ago. It's it's much more about the efficiency and the success in the passing game. Well, and but the run game has to compliment it because it's some time. Yeah. And at some time, you're going to have to be able to run it. But to say that you're going to lean on it the whole time. It just doesn't happen in the National Football League just because of the way the rules are set now. And some of these numbers, rushing numbers are skewed to because of quarterbacks running 100 percent. The thing that has shifted to me and all of that because, Mac, you know, you're right, with the way these offenses work, you've got to have three downbacks to make all that stuff continue to to gin. But, you know, it hadn't been that many years ago, Mike, if you ran the ball by committee as a team, you almost looked at it as like, what's wrong with you? You don't have a bell cow. You don't have a stud back. What's wrong with you? But the whole thing is the way of the world. Yeah. And that's and that's where it really is. Because when you, well, I'm going to talk about that in a second. Let me mention Seat Geek is now the official ticketing partner of the Tennessee Titans. Whether you're buying or selling tickets to Titans games or any live event in Nashville, Seat Geek is the place to do it. Seat Geek, the new official ticketing partner of the Tennessee Titans. So Titans fans can fan. Yeah. I mean, you're right, because I've done some work on that, too, as we get ready to go into this fascinating off season. It is going to be a fascinating one. And you talk about the Titans. It was going to be that before this week happened. They got more fascinating on Tuesday. Oh, my word. So, Rancarathon and Anthony Robinson and Chad Brinker and whomever the new head coach is and probably some guys who continue to work in all of those areas, they are in a position where they are now going to be able to reset the valuations for this franchise in terms of the salary cap. Absolutely. And this is the first time that I can recall that somebody has had a chance to set the philosophy here at least because it feels like we've always been battling the cap forever. Last year, certainly battling the cap. But you're going to sit down and you're going to attach a value not just to players, but to certain positions in terms of how this game is played. Yeah. And that that is a is a very relevant point because, first of all, I'm excited about this off season. This off season is going to be exciting because you have a chance to do that and you have the assets to do it with. But, you know, I talked to a lot of people and they say, well, the Titans are going to have a whole lot of money to spend. I said, there's a big difference in having a pot of money and then allocating those assets so that it's beneficial, not only at the present, but in the future. Well, that's the you can't take that money and just be a drunken sailor on leave and just be throwing it out of your pocket. You cannot do that. And as you said, this is a time right now where you've got a chance to reset a lot of things. Well, you've got a chance to set yourself up going forward for the next four or five, six years, which is a window that you're looking at anyway in the National Football League. And there's it's no secret to any of us or the three of us sitting here, the people behind the camera, the people listening to us. One of the major things is you've got a young quarterback. That's it. You've got a young quarterback. And that is the axis that everything revolves around when you talk about resetting your money. Well, and his cap hit in the next two years. Will Leviss is is under five million dollars, which is and then Tajais Spears as your lead back. His cap hit in the next two years is less than three million dollars, which is when you're visualizing that pie chart that people use like look at the Broncos and what the piece of pie is for Russell Wilson and the quarterback. Go back to your how much positionally you allocate and you look at the I mean, it's vastly well. But let's say all right. Let's say Will Leviss becomes really the dude that he becomes that guy in 2026. Will Leviss is getting paid. Sure, he is. And you want him to. He I mean, that's going to be if he becomes that guy for what quarterbacks cost, he's going to be 50 million dollars. I mean, that's what those guys cost now. And just to think what it will be in two more years. And again, with the caveat that the salary cap is going to escalate, it is going to escalate every year. And the thing that's important, too, we went through a very, very strange time with the salary cap during covid. Right. That was that that was a retraction. And a lot of these contracts were made not knowing that the whole world was going to catch covid. And so now we're catching up and we are we're speeding up to that. So your point is very well made, but you're going to have the assets to do that. But you still, because of this reset moment, have the ability to know that if he takes off, you're going to be able to pay him and not have to take the team apart. A hundred percent true. That's the whole thing they're doing right now with the valuations. I mean, Tannehill and Henry last year against the cap combined cost roughly fifty three million dollars. And, you know, the ex I mean, Tannehill played well here. Didn't have a great two thousand twenty three, but he had played well up until then. You signed him to the four year contract. He earned all of it. Henry got the four year contract. He earned all of it. All of it. But what are you going to prioritize in terms of where you're putting your money and your assets, knowing that you have to do that, not just for twenty twenty four, but for twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven. So at some point, I mean, you've got a chance if you do this right, because the cap's going to be going up and because you're doing this reset, that you don't have to take the team apart. Here's the thing. Now you can now you can set your asset allocations without being forced to do something. Right. That's the big plus. Well, and I mean, I think that that's probably where the decision is going to come in on Derek Henry's future. It's it's not it's not can he play? No, it's not. Do you want to pay him as a star? It's do you do you invest in the position? Understanding that. You can take money elsewhere if you don't invest in the running back position. Here's a question I have for you, Mac. As they're assessing this situation, knowing that we don't know what the cap number is, I've seen reports of it going from two twenty four point eight to two forty. It's supposed to be two forty. Yeah. Are they making evaluations based on what it is currently? And then if they get extra, that's just icing on the deal as when that cap number is released. Are they are they working on an estimation? They're working on a middle estimation. OK, they don't go. They don't go with the because, you know, it's going to increase. Right. But so if you go middle of the road, middle of the road. And if you then if that makes sense, you have it, you have it. But you don't go on what the baseline is now because you know it's going to increase. You just don't know how much. But the Titans are not going to spend up to that. No, you don't do that. That's not what you do. I mean, because that's the thing that's the misnomer in this is it's like, oh, you've got two hundred and forty point eight million that you can spend. You've got to spend two forty point six. No, no, no, no. I mean, again, that's what this moment is. That's exactly right. Is this is the moment where this group who uses analytics, who uses different evaluations for position groups, different lengths of contracts to understand what this is going to be, understanding what your future has. The biggest thing that potentially has happened for the Tennessee Titans is they may have hit it with Will Levis. That's huge. And if you've hit it with a second round quarterback for two years, it's absolutely fantastic. Now, you don't get a fifth year option with him, though, because he wasn't a first round pick. Correct. So you're going to I mean, there's going to be a contract in year four. You know, you understand that, but you can plan for it. You plan for it. And here's the other thing. You want him to be that dude, because if he's that dude, then everything else that you've allocated around him, if you do it correctly, you'll be able to get where you want to get. But it will also affect what your draft strategy is 100 percent. It does. It all it all goes together. And, you know, and again, when you're in it and done it, I've cleared a cap before I've done. I've done all of this. You've got to be able to project. And now you're going to make some mistakes because you're dealing with human beings, both in your instance and in the people that you're evaluating. But you've got to be able to you've got to you've got to be able to layer this thing so that you're never up against. All of a sudden you talk about 240 million. It's like buying a house, you know, for five million dollars and you spend all five million and you got nothing to pay the bills with. You can't do that. You've got to you've got to piecemeal the thing together, but do it do it intelligently so that you're not ever putting yourself back up against the wall again. Yeah, you've just cleared your credit card balance down to zero and you're not going to max it out again. You're going to figure this thing out. I don't ever remember the Titans doing this. Do you read? No, I can't remember an instance. I can't remember an instance where they have had this moment. The closest that had been since been with the Titans. Now, I've been with another club when I was a head coach where we had to clear the books firebomb the whole thing because it was just out of control. I started looking at that cap and I about passed out. But here, the only time we were ever close to that is when we had when we lost Javon, we lost Samaria, we lost, you know, all of those guys, you know, lost Eddie, lost Mac, God rest his soul. All of those guys, we lost those guys and all of a sudden you're sitting there going and so, you know, the two years after that were really piecemeal together. But you were able to bring in the David Thornton. So you got Chris Hope, you got Kevin Mawai. And then you drafted, you hit on some draft choices. And all of a sudden then you're back, you're back to 10 and six, and then you're back to 13 and three, you're number one. So it can be done, but you have to be judicious with your money and your picks and your strategy. You've got to make a decision on what your strategy is going to be. And again, I use the word valuations. There you go. Because that's the part of it. You know, it was as if people when the Titans let John O's Smith go. People like, how can you let John O's Smith go? I said, you're paying a running back. It's a choice. It's a choice. You go to Kroger and you've got so much money, you can buy one thing, but you can't buy another. That's the way the cap is. That's the way the cap is. If you if you paid Derek Henry, which made total sense for where they were at that moment, sure, a hundred percent, then you make a decision that you can't do other things. Now, is that the same decision you make now? We'll see. I mean, we'll see how these guys see the cap, but it's going to be fascinating in that way. And I think it's going to be something that factors into to who the new coach is. If he kind of buys into what they're and I mean, I don't know what their thinking is on this. No, I mean, I haven't talked to him yet about it. And I won't ask. I might ask. Yeah, you can. You can't because you're Mike Keith. I won't ask. I don't know. The thing that the thing that I do know is, though, is you've got a chance to reset it. Right. You see, that's different. That is different than having to than having to in banking, having to go borrow again to pay the loan that you just had. It's different. Now you can completely, as Rhett said, you can go to ground zero and reset it with a strategy. You want to add. What would you like to add, Rhett? I don't have anything else to add. You're good. Well, then we just said we're just going to end this. Rhett, I wish you'd add something again, because I like sitting here talking to you guys. That's fine. Well, I just I'm glad we've had this this this OTP because there's some questions that I think that I wanted to know. And I thought the OTP people wanted to know about the process of a lot of the structural things we're discussing. Because, man, I, you know, this stuff, I'm not a very smart person at all. It's way over my head. I had a guy ask me, he goes, so they got, you know, two hundred and something million under the cap or whatever. And so we get like three players. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, I know it doesn't work like that. Whatever those numbers you see reported of a four year deal for a player. And I'm like, I don't know how to convey this to you, because again, I'm not a very smart person. But I was like, that's not how that works. First of all, you're a smart person. Well, thank you. I wasn't efficient for a compliment. Someone finally disagreed with you. That's good. No, you are you are a smart person. But the salary cap, you can you. I've done it. You'd start digging into the salary cap and manipulation of a salary cap. It'll cross your eyes. But the thing is, they don't have to play any games with it right now. That was my point. They don't need a bunch of trick things or voidable. They've cleared the blackboard. That's the whole thing of the giant math problem. That's the whole thing. And they can start. And Amy Adams-Strunk has empowered this group to do it. To do it. Yes. And that's what I think is the big takeaway from where we are right now as we as we start the process, just like she chose to empower someone else to make the decisions last off season about several veterans. That's why she changed general managers in December is because she wanted someone else to come in and look at it with a new set of eyes and to make the decisions that they made. And they, you know, they let some guys go who were well thought of players, guys who'd done a good job, had to eat some dead money in order to do it. Wouldn't easy, which is why they weren't going to have a lot of extra money to spend last year. And now you're you're starting the building back process, knowing that you have Jeffrey Simmons and you have Harold Landry and you have some guys like that. And then you have this group of rookies who played a lot of football who seem to be people that can help you with the foundational parts of your roster. And now you've got to, you know, you've got to go after offensive line. You've got to go after wide receiver. You've probably got to go after secondary. All those things you would think or those three areas you would think factor in right away. But you can. But you can. But you can. And the thing about that is that you're saying that's so true. You don't have to you don't have to start making choices. Either this or that either this or that. Right. If you do it right, you can spread it out. And you could have both. You could have both. And depending on what happens, as you're saying that, I'm thinking about who could be here, who cannot be here. The median age of this team is going to be quite young. Yeah. You know, as the highest median age in the playoffs, Miami. Yeah, a lot of those defensive guys that have some age on. So Monday is the deadline for underclassmen to enter the 2024 draft. So we'll know who the underclassmen will be. Senior Bowl Week starts on January the 29th. And Shrine Game Week starts a couple of days before that. February 20th, Tuesday, February 20th, clubs can designate franchise or transition players. The combine begins Monday, February 26th. Um, the franchise transition player designation window closes on Tuesday, March 5th. That's also when college pro days can start. That's also when players can take 30 visits to NFL facilities and can interview with teams via video or telephone. The quote unquote legal tampering period for free agents, which I love begin. I love that term begins on Monday, March the 11th. And then the 2024 league year and the top 51 rule goes into effect Wednesday, March 13th at three o'clock. What did I say when we started this whole OTP, the National Football League runs on deadlines. Yeah. And then league meetings, the big league meetings, which is the spring get together in Orlando, March 24th through 27th. And then Monday, April 1st, clubs with new coaches may begin the offseason program. So that will be here. There is a deadline for everything you do in the National Football League and the train stays on that schedule. So that's why you've got to jump on it and go. And then the annual player selection meeting in Detroit, Thursday, April 25th through Saturday, April 27th. Gavill, Gavill coverage on Titans. And then and then pre OTAs and then phase one, phase two, phase three, OTAs and then training camp. And I can't wait for all of it. It's going to be interesting. It's going to be different. Going to be interesting, interesting and different. I'm all in for it. For Brett Bryan and for Coach Dave McGinnis, I'm Mike Keith. Thank you all for joining us for the OTP.