 The monster, Derrick Henry! Sam! The John Evans, AJ Brown, taking him to school! We welcome you to another edition of Titans All Access. With Amy Wells, I'm Mike Keith, and we are joined by esteemed guests from TennesseeTitans.com, the senior writer, editor, Jim White, the great Jim White. Glad to have you with us on the program, Jim. Hi, to be here. And from Titans Radio, our head coach, Dave McGinnis. Coach Mack, how are you? I'm doing wonderful. Great to see everybody. All right, so we're going to jump right in. The draft is a week in our rear view mirror, but now it's time to kind of review the class. You know the names, but what about the fits? Amy Wells, you have the first question. All right, and this first question can only go to Coach Mack. Because on Titans Radio, we heard you. You were not surprised that the Titans selected Georgia offensive tackle Isaiah Wilson with first pick. Why do you like Wilson, and why do you like him for the Titans? He fits perfectly with what the Titans do. Big, massive human being that can move. He's athletic, he's got long arms. He reminds me in the 1987 draft, the Buffalo Bills took a guy named Howard Ballard out of Alabama A&M. They called him House. Six, six and a half, 325 pounds, which was a lie. He was, he was at least 350, 360, 12 year career. He makes a perfect bookend on the other side with Taylor Lawan. I absolutely love the pick. Jim Wyatt, do you think that Tennessee was surprised that LSU corner Christian Fulton was available at pick number 61? There's no doubt in my mind they were surprised. And I did a mock drive roundup and at least six to eight people had Christian Fulton going to the Titans with the 29th overall pick. So I think when you know you're not picking again until late in the second round after you go offensive tackle early, you're doing so no one you might not get him. I think he's gonna fit in well on this team. He can play inside, he can play outside. He's got a mentality that's gonna make him work hard to put himself in position to play early. I think it was a pleasant surprise that he was there. I think he was really good picking second round. Coach Mack, let's go deeper on Christian Fulton. Why does what he does and his skill set fit the Titans in 2020 for their needs in the secondary? Like he's played man to man and he's played zone both. He's sticky, he's got an easy back pedal but he's got a sudden transition. Transition is when you move from back to forward as a defensive back. He's long, he's got good timing at the catch point, getting the correct hand up into the basket. And then he's a very aware player in zone coverage. He's a really good fit for what they do. Jim Wyatt, the Titans fan base seems to be very excited about the addition of third round pick, Darrington Evans. He's the running back out of Appalachian State. Why was he such a good fit to back up number 22, Derek Henry? He's fast. I think he was clocked at 4-4-1 but ran in the mid-4-3s during a workout at Appalachian State. He can obviously get through the hole in a hurry. He can run away from people. He can catch the ball out of backfield. I think he's going to be good in pass protection. He also can do some things in the return game. The Titans also landed the merch. Laryl Merchison from North Carolina State. How can he help the Titans defensive line? Well, he's versatile. I think when you lose Austin Johnson, when you lose Jarrell Kasey, you need some not only depth and competition, but you need guys who can make plays. If you look at Merchison, he not only was effective at getting to the quarterback. He was also good as a run stop ready. I think he's capable of playing a number of different positions. He mentioned it right after he was picked. He's one of these high motor guys who plays with a lot of energy. One of these guys that coaches are going to love. I think I've heard Coach Mac Colger saying he reminds him a little bit of Tony Brown. And if you remember Tony Brown during his days with the Titans, who was from Chattanooga, was a favorite of Jim Washburn, then that should be music to your ears. That's exactly what this team needs. In the seventh round, the Titans add quarterback Cole McDonald from Hawaii and defensive back Chris Jackson from Marshall. Coach Mac, I think it's safe to say that John Robinson hit all of his targets with what he was trying to do in the 2020 draft. Well, he absolutely did. I think he did a great job. And again, when you're drafting in the seventh round, you're drafting traits. Let's look at the traits of the quarterback. The quarterback has all the athletic, regal-zits skills that you would want. He's a developmental quarterback. And that's what Pat O'Hara and Arthur Smith are going to do. They will have time to develop this quarterback. I mean, I was here with the Titans when we drafted two seventh round cornerbacks, one in 2006, one in 2008. Cortland Finnegan, Kerry Williams. Both of those guys had traits. They ran fast, both 4-3 plus guys. They had traits on film that you could see. That's exactly what they did with Chris Jackson. I talked to some scouts from some other teams that were there. They had a pro day, March 11th at their indoor facility. They're at Marshall. He ran 4-4-4, the 4-4-7, 36-inch vertical, 10-plus broad jump. This guy has traits and production. I love both seventh round picks because you're drafting for traits there. They nailed it on both of them. And plus, he traded the other seventh round pick for a number six next year, which gives him nine picks already in his pocket for the 2021 draft. The 2021 draft will be held April the 29th through May the 1st in Cleveland with some of it coming from Canton, Ohio. The 2021 draft, we hope, will get to be back on site. But the 2020 draft, the virtual draft special in its own right. Coach Dave McGinnis and the great Jim Wyatt, thank you for joining us on Titans All Access. Thank you, Mike. Good to see you guys. Appreciate you guys. We've got a lot more show coming up. We've got Ryan Tannehill on this show. We've got Kevin Byrd on this show. Lance Smith has a special Titans fan. But up next, Amy Wells is checking in with Jeffrey Simmons. Stay tuned. We're continuing to check in on our Titans family. And right now we are joined by big Jeff, Jeffrey Simmons, is here. Jeff, what have you been up to this off season? Well, I was out in Dallas training, training real hard, trying to get back in the groove everything, especially get to my goal. And my goal is to get back in the groove and feeling good without the brace on. That was going great. I was doing, I was lifting. I was doing rehab on the side, stuff that keep my knee stronger and get it stronger, I should say. But without the craziest things going on with the coronavirus, said I had to come back to Nashville. So I'm back in Nashville right now. I'm just been, I'm sure everyone heard that. I'm back working out with Frank and Ty, just trying to stay on top of my knee and make sure it's ready for the season. Roughly a year ago you were getting ready for draft weekend. With a lot of questions, you end up being picked in the first round by the Tennessee Titans. Have you taken a moment to reflect on this past year and how maybe crazy it's been or how different things are for you now? Well, yeah, for sure. Especially around this time, I was thinking about it the other day that around this time last year, I was getting ready for this time. I know a lot of guys, especially with everything going on, a lot of people stressing. They don't know what's going on. But at the same time, I knew it was a draft coming up. I knew that I got a possibility of getting drafted. But at the same time, I was still stressed out. I was thinking like, I don't know what's going to happen. I had an injury, everything going on right now. So at the same time, I'm thankful. I look back over the time, especially with the injury. I came a long way. Just look at the, I was looking at a picture of the day just my scars and all that. Like I said, it's been a journey, you know. And like I said, I'm just grateful for being in this situation. Did I hear a rumor that you got a puppy this off season? Yeah, I did. I'm an American bulldog. You know, he read a hyper too. Really? What's his name? Teague. Oh, yes. Why a bulldog? For one, I'm a bulldog till the day I die. You know, Mr. Stake. And two, I fell in love without a bulldog and Mr. Stake, the puppy jacket. And I was like, man, I gotta have one. And you know, like I said, my love for dogs. I haven't had another dog as well. He's a chill and older, a friendship. I ain't Lola. But like I said, I'm always one of the bulldogs. So, you know, I went with it and, you know, I've been loving these real hyper, you know. You don't mind trying to nibble on your feet a lot. Well, I'm sure he's glad that you're home a lot as we are. It was so good to check in with you. It was great to see you. Hopefully we'll see you soon. Yeah, hopefully, going great, like I said. It's going to be a good season, you know. Whenever that time comes, you know, I feel like we're going to have another great season. Hopefully, you know, we make a path that's the least stomp we've had last year. I'm excited for it. We got a great team, great coaches, so it's going to be good. Jeffrey, thank you so much for taking some time with us. No problem. Tighten up. Hi, it's Taylor. I'm John Robinson's daughter. And today, I give you an inside look at what draft night looks like at our house this year. Here we go. Here is one, two. Here. Here is our daily inspiration. We're ready. Dad, what are your thoughts after round one? Got the big tackle from Georgia. Mr. Isaiah Wilson met with him at the combine. A couple good FaceTime calls with him. And six, six, three, 50. Amy Wells and I are joined now by Lance Smith. Lance, great job on the virtual draft party last week. You know, it was a blast, and I appreciate it, but it's so funny because you guys delivered this dynamic half-hour show, breaking down everything. So I felt really like prep football-wise. So great job to y'all. I mean, I don't know how you do all that and keep it straight. Honestly, what a week it was. Well, that's why we have Coach Mack. That's why he was on earlier in this show because he knows everything. Now, speaking of knowing everything, I think your Titans guest this week, your super fan, she may know everything about the Titans. She might, she might. She's been bleeding two-tone blue for a long time. Huge fan, and I wanted to catch up with her. Also, I found out that her husband is on the front lines of this COVID virus in his medical background. He's a vet. So right now, here is my interview. She got fan-zoned. Join now by another great fan I've met along the way. Donna Haynes, you've been fan-zoned. How are you? I'm doing great, Lance. How about you? Doing as well as can be, you know, all locked down and locked in. Now, I want to talk to you about a lot of things, but your husband is on the front lines of this thing. What does he do? Correct. So he is a military veteran and he actually works in a local emergency room. And he has definitely been on the front lines, for sure. Yeah, I saw a pic that you posted online of him in his full gear, face mask, the whole nine yards. We kind of have a DIY decontamination unit in our garage. So we kind of have a whole, you know, we have a whole set up for when he comes home from work and hopefully to keep everybody safe. Well, on behalf of everybody watching, thank you for what you do for what your family does. Thank him for us. That is incredible. All right, well, let's talk about this fandom. You are quite the Titans fan. How long have you been a fan since they came to town? What's your story? What's your backstory of being a fan? 1999 was actually the first year that I really just became this, just took over. I mean, I love football obviously before that, but never like that. Your office area, you've got all the gadgets and gizmos of Titans, all two-tone blue. How much stuff do you think you own all together if you could put a number on it? How many items? Oh my goodness, a number? I would not even want to venture a guess. Not near as much as some might think, but I mean, it's everywhere in my house. I mean, the refrigerator, the garage, whether it's a towel, whether it's, I mean, you name it, it's got a Titan logo on it. I guarantee you. We love all the Titans gear. I love that you have all that stuff. Does anyone else in the family, I mean, other Titans fans too, but does anyone else in the family ever say, okay, Mom, that's, we're good, we got enough? Well, let me just say that before I became a season ticket member, every Sunday it's a family affair. We always got around the TV if we weren't at games to watch. And I'm just going to tell you that because I scream so loud and get so crazy, my kids actually run into their room and they shut the door or they leave the house because they can't take it. I love it. Mom's the wild one. Mom's the wild one. They're like, oh my gosh, mom's watching football again. So yeah, that's what they get. As far as Titans memories go though, do you have one that really stands out? That Philadelphia overtime win against the Eagles, in the stands, I was up in the 300s. I thought, this is what this stadium used to feel like. It was wild, it was electric. I mean, what an epic comeback. And then for Corey Davis to catch that touchdown, it was just incredible. And then I actually became a season ticket member the next year because I thought this feeling right here and being there, I never wanted to miss that again. I love that. I love that so much. All right, well, Donna, thank you for talking with me, for hanging out. Thank you for being a fan and for bringing what you bring to our fandom. I can't wait to see you in Nissan Stadium in our next home game. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. It was a pleasure. Thank you for having me. Donna Haynes, thanks so much. Thanks, stay safe and tighten up. Lance, I don't know where you're finding all of these Titans fans, but keep it coming. I'm loving getting to know all these people. I love it too. They're out there. They're ready for the season. So good to see you, Lance, as always. Now guys, we have a lot more Titans information coming up on Titans All Access, including Titans General Manager John Robinson and his appearance on the OTP. Stick around. Dad, what does that one mean? So this is the composite picks and I'm looking at those. It's rounds two through seven, all the picks that are left and what they have with every single team, what they have. And I have another thing over here that the draft pick calculator when it comes to making a trade, I'll take those picks and they get assigned a value and I'll determine the value of the trade and if we want to make it or not. Okay. Welcome back to Titans All Access. Amy Wells and I are proud to host this show and the official Titans podcast. Better note is the OTP, which you can download every week by going to tenacetitans.com slash podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. And what about John Robinson making his second appearance on the OTP in 11 days? He was on April 17th with Titans season ticket members and he was on this past Tuesday, April 28th again to recap the draft. Amy, pretty special to have the GM twice in 11 days. Absolutely. I'm a little concerned that he's going to want to be a permanent co-host and we might have to negotiate that a little bit with him, but it was so good to have him on the show to recap the Titans draft. And he had a lot to say about the newest members of the Tennessee Titans. Now your daughters did blow up the internet with their performance through the draft, but you had a picture when you were with us last time that blew up the internet. You and the eight pound bag of M&Ms did the eight pound bag of M&Ms make it through the entire weekend? Is there anything left? Can we get an update? So funny story, I did take the bag and I put them in a bowl, night one in the books, I'm closing everything up and I go down to our kitchen and I noticed one of our dogs is missing, our young one Dexter. Oh no. I go back to find Dexter beside the M&M bowl and he's going... Oh no. Oh, he's alive, he's fine. What was it like drafting from your office space rather than in person in the war room? I would say probably two weeks out I was a little apprehensive, but the more we got closer to the draft and with all of the mock drafts scenarios that kind of we ran through, I felt really comfortable. We were able to communicate with teams if there were any potential trade opportunities there. I thought the NFL did an outstanding job of pulling it all together. Shout out to our IT staff or OP staff and our video staff for all that they did. You needed a tackle boom. You needed a corner boom. You needed a running back boom. You needed a versatile defensive lineman boom. I like the player skill set on the field but I like them as people even more. They're great guys and they're gonna fit in well with this football team and they're gonna help us win games on Sundays. What are our free agent priorities post draft? Right now you're trying to look at the roster and see where players may fit. Are the depth players? Are the guys that you think can come in and compete through camp? Are you a little lean at one position group? You know you're gonna need bodies or guys to compete at the position to get through the practices and see what they've got. So there's a couple of different positions that we're looking at and kind of combing through the guys that A didn't get drafted, that haven't signed rookie free agent deals yet. Who are the veteran guys that are out there? What's the cost of those players? You know as well as the Monday and the Tuesday and the Wednesday after the draft there's usually kind of a purge a little bit of the roster where teams will release players. Are there players that we would consider claiming to add to our football team to help bolster the depth of the team? I think the draft really did a great job of reminding people the plan is to play football this fall. Yeah, that's exactly right. We're meeting with our players virtually. They're on Zoom calls now going through the offense, defense and special teams. They're doing installation stuff. We've got a group of guys back here in Nashville who are rehabbing, you know who may have had a clean up surgery here or they're coming off an injury at the end of the season last year. They're working with our trainers and our strength coaches and getting strong and just waiting to say, say let's go play. This is a virtual edition of Titans All Access. Amy Wells and I are not able to go to St. Thomas Sports Park because it's now closed and it's the same for Titans players but they have started the virtual off season program. Earlier this week, Ryan Tannehill, Titans quarterback and Kevin Byrd, Titans safety talked with the media about the challenges of a virtual off season. It's weird not being able to be in the building and spend the time around the coaching staff and the guys really missing that aspect right now. I always look forward to getting back from the building and spending time around the guys and just coming together. I think it's something we're all getting used to as far as, you know, we're in the middle of meetings and like, you know, somebody's may have a TV on low or something that's causing like static in the back or you know, stuff like that, we're working cakes out. You know, we did a test meeting last week. I did with the guys just to make sure that everyone had an account set up and I knew how to kind of navigate the program and then, you know, once we kind of jumped into it this week and we figured out pretty quickly, it works best if, you know, everyone stays on mute and eliminates all the background noise. And if you want to speak, we can unmute and speak. I mean, obviously we can't actually be in the room together, but you know, we're still cracking jokes and stuff like that. It's almost like we're all in the meet room. So that has been fun. Now we know that Kevin Byrd is constantly trying to improve himself, both on and off the field, but he says he's using the virtual off season to challenge himself by expanding his football knowledge. One way that I'm trying to better my game is trying to look at things from a coach's perspective a little bit. Like I want to learn, I want to kind of learn as much as the coaches know, you know what I'm saying? I want to learn about, you know, I want to really dive into the playbook, because some things I think when you're first learning how to play a position, you're like how to play defense, you're kind of just trying to learn the plays, memorize those type of deals. Now I'm really trying to study names of rock combinations. I'm trying to learn, you know, as much about football as I possibly can, because I'm not on the field right now. Everything is mental, everything is just a medium. While all of this virtual communication is a little strange, Ryan Tannhill thinks that when they're able to get back on the field, now it's going to help him communicate with all of his teammates. I think it all starts with communication, you know, just being able to communicate with guys, build that relationship. And then when we are on a Zoom call, when we are talking football, then I'm able to just really voice my vision for a play, voice my opinion on the play, how I like guys to run the route and just be clear so that we're all on the same page. Probably makes a lot of people feel better, Amy, to see that NFL players are having a lot of the same challenges at their job as most of us have at our job right now. Professional athletes, they're just like us. They're just like us. Well put, Amy. For Amy Wells, I might keep thanking you for watching Titans All Access and we'll see you next time.