 So let me just kind of clear up some things here going forward, you know, will is gonna be our quarterback We think that's the best opportunity for our football team right now Ryan will progress through here this week I think and and hopeful to be a backup for us and prepare as a starter Welcome to the bet MGM studio and the Mike Vrabel show presented by seat geek I'm Mike Keith with the head coach and you saw Mike Vrabel's press conference from earlier today where he announced that Will Leavis is the Tennessee Titans starting quarterback After Pittsburgh you said we'll tell you something on Tuesday. You held to that Why was this the right day to announce Will Leavis as the starter? Well, I gave us the weekend to kind of think about some things and look at what we want to do going forward and You know who we want to do it with and also You know that early in the week and just so that we can you know Keep moving on and and keep progressing and find a way to prepare to to beat Tampa Bay in certain situations It's been held that information for maybe a competitive advantage Why did you decide against that and to go ahead and make the announcement public? Well, I just felt like for for everybody involved and so that we can move past it and you know just You know make it clean and you know again, I don't know. Yeah, I mean hold it and It's the decision I made Yeah, I mean it's hard to hold it in this day and time nobody's trying I mean we're just made a decision and went with it and felt like you know Hopefully now the the focus can be on our preparation and and how how do we find a way to win a game on the road? You had an extra day today. What did you guys get done on the practice field? Well try to get out get moving around I thought the conditioning was good. I thought Just some football movements individual stuff and then they were able to run a bunch of plays That hopefully can can jump start us here into the preparation tomorrow at Tampa Bay is the opponent this week Tomorrow the normal preparation week begins just as per usual Yeah, man, and we just were able to use today as you know getting a jump start on personnel And what we feel like are gonna be the keys and You know as many looks as they give us on defense it'll be Critical and then we'll have to tighten some things up on defense and special teams All right, the Mike Raebel six-pack presented by seat geek some of the best offensive plays from Thursday night in Pittsburgh Start off with a first in 23 at your own five 29 yards to Deandre hop. Yeah hop does a good job of getting inside the back or a wrapping in there behind them Well, well place ball good protection there in our own end zone They're putting that out in a spot where hop and love how he catches that out in front of his eyes You know those little things that that make me happy And then able to to get us a good gain in the middle of the field and try to get that drive started Deandre Hopkins four catches 60 yards in the ball game Nick Westbrook a Kine had just one catch in the ball game But it was a big one as it goes for 23 yards Yep third and long and these are critical and you know will is able to to fight off the little bit of the pressure and deliver the football there to Nick off his back foot so Would like to try to stay out of those situations But you know, it's a good job of finding Nick down there uncovered and you know He's able to secure to catch and keep the chains moving for us in the two games last week Kyle Phillips had seven catches for 92 yards including four for 68 at Pittsburgh Here's one for 24 yards at the end of the first half. Yeah, it does a nice job But just working his way down the seam and being available and you know, these are opportunities here that Happened really quick in two minute and again. He comes back later in this drive and and does some nice things as well but You know, it's good to see Kyle be able to continue to help us You know clean pocket and we're gonna be able to throw the football Protection overall for sacks on the night, but there were some good opportunities to throw their work And I mean, I think that you're gonna You know, they give give them a lot of credit, you know that for past Russian and you get in that two-minute mode Or you get into some some passing situations or Yeah, you hold the ball for a second whatever it may be But I felt like there were some good opportunities that you know We were able to progress through and find guys down the field All right Let's take a look at this screen pass which turned out to be an excellent play for the Titans Let us under pressure, but he finds Derek in yeah And I think sometimes those are the best screens are the ones that look like they're gonna be a sack and you get guys Russian Derek does a great job of securing that football Up in the air and you know, we're close, you know, and I hate to always say that but you know, we've gotten Derek Going and so we'll take our chances here and hopefully we're trying to finish on the second level and get those blocks that can that can spring them Close on a couple runs and then I'm confident that that those are gonna be home runs here soon So the completion to Henry for 23 later in the ballgame the Titans are backed up in a situation where the stadium was Absolutely going crazy coming out of a timeout big completion to trailing Berks to quiet him down Yeah, and you talk about the protection and there's an ability to get trailing all the way over on the other side For a nice game for an ex-play Backed up there in our own end zone, you know, you could see as long as we got a good clean pocket Trailing progresses all the way through clears the underneath coverage and will gives him something to catch How is trailing doing right now Mike? Well, he's still in protocol. So I would say that that's not great all in all again under the circumstances. I would say that he's doing okay, considering what what we all saw so Still working his way through protocol and you know, he'll take his time and his pace and however he responds He responds last play we're gonna show comes from the last drive of the ballgame for the Titans Seems like every catch Chris Moore makes is a big play. This one certainly was for 29 yards Yeah, and hopefully, you know, Chris will get some more opportunities this week But but again good opportunity right there going up catching the football and getting us a big big chunk there to Give us a chance there at the end. Chris Moore is just a guy who knows how to play football regardless of what you ask Yeah, and on a short week I mean he went home his wife had a baby came back and they're really proud of you know His ability to handle things away from here and his his family which is so so important to all of us And then coming back here being ready to go In Pittsburgh did have some good chunk plays offensively I know didn't finish the way you wanted on certain drives But those make driving the football easy when you could pick up or easier when you could pick up 25 21 23 yardage like that Yeah, I mean as long as we can continue to stay balanced and run the football I think those opportunities are going to be there um Down the field, you know being able to run the football and marry the the play pass game and Continue to try to move the football down the field When we have opportunities all right when we come back on the Mike Vrabel show presented by seat geek We go to the Vrabel straighter for what was Some kind of defensive play by zee's al shire. That's coming up next on the Mike Vrabel show stay with us Welcome back to the bed MGM studio the Mike Vrabel show presented by seat geek time to go to the Vrabel straighter Let's see what we got here this week, buddy. I want to show you this play We were looking at this over and over again a zee's al shire who's right here In the red shoes Can't miss them one of the top tacklers in the nfl. Yep, but on this play He does an unbelievable job covering the pass. Yeah Well, here we are in third and eight and and we know when we get into these settings situations You know, we've got to win, you know, our percentage has been really good here It's got to be better on third and three to six third and two to six We get that but this is an opportunity to let these four guys up front here rush Gonna mix in some zone coverage You know where we roll the corners up Safeties who go to the half field and we'll be able to play with a middle runner here So now he's got three receivers to his left. He's responsible for two and three if they were to go vertical Okay, so here let's take a look here at what we got and Making sure now we understand So as you work your way through so there's your there's your zone coverage, right? Guys are pass rushing. You see an inside pass rush game here Looking to chip ardent. Okay the corners rolled up playing with vision We're at the sticks and a zee's is getting ready now. You can see he's got depth He's got speed over here at three. So he does. He's got aust correct And so now as this thing works its way down the field Okay, what you've done what pittsburgh has done is they've tried to create levels Okay, they've got three different levels here and I'll try to get that explained here So now they've got a guy shorter the sticks a guy past the sticks And then they're trying to run a guy through the middle teams normally try to place him cover two Right in that down in distance and and you just got to be able to protect for the deep shot And what we've done here now is a zee's is running. He's not in phase. He can't look back for the football So he's trying to time this thing up and go through the pocket And that's what we talk about right here of going through the pocket Where the quarterback and the ball and excuse me where the ball is going to the hands Find the hands and he's going up through the pocket and you can see a tremendous play Tony we'll get a better view here. Now we we we do need a little bit of depth Okay, we needed to now do a better job of reading the quarterback here on the backside and getting involved Right, we need to play with better vision. Okay, so we're not leaving him out to dry But a fantastic job of running of getting into phase and I guarantee the receiver's eyes got big Austin eyes got big and that's when a zee's was able to match that hand and go through the pocket Is his trigger seeing Austin put his hands out? Is that when he knows he needs? Yeah, I mean when guys, you know, I mean are gonna able to get their eyes get big and that their hands get ready to go catch No, we're running like heck We're out of phase there right because at third and eight we're not normally looking there for that shot Okay, continue to get Jeff here. Again, we got to keep working on our ball our ball disruption Or trying to get that hand Up in the air. Okay, trying to get that hand to match the quarterback's throwing hand And try to get it up in the air to affect the throw. That's good stuff, coach When we come back epic western spotlight another pass rusher arden key Wired for sound at the team picture a few days ago. Wait till you see this Welcome back Each year generally in late october the entire squad gets together for the team picture that will be the photo record Of the 2023 tennessee titans. Well, that happened recently and it can be mass chaos at times No doubt about it. There's a lot going on So we decided to contribute to the chaos a little bit and put a microphone on outside linebacker arden key Who is a serious talker a serious stir it up guy? And seriously fun. It is this week's epic western spotlight Test the test of 32 32 32 Didn't that now you're trying to get smacked real cuz you're mic'd up. How about that? Hey, my mama won't like that I'm this girl book. It's all good. You're going right behind gordon. I'm right here. I know I'm right behind you Oh, come on through. This is scary, bro. That's a lot of weight on top Y'all looking good, boy What's that? Man of the hour the man of the present I'm good on that. I'm good. We're gonna go to the locker room. Oh, love Love a daughter D-line or be or be inside. We're next. We're next on god. We're next Don't worry We're next. No, you're not. We're next. No, you're not. Who next? Nah, bro, we're next. That's it. I bet you're not. I'm gonna show y'all how to put your foot down Oh, y'all y'all you need two clicks. We go. All right, let go y'all come on. Come on. I see y'all there I see y'all there. I'm the only one that ain't scared. I know who that who that man will probably be too too That was scared That's crazy. Y'all ready to go next let go. Hey, what time is it? Oh, that's right. It's in my time. It's time to go. Oh, let's go We met click click click on Yeah We out we out is an epic western spotlight that made my night. I didn't know hard and I didn't know Arden was mic'd up It was perfect Did he ever stop talking? No, and so it was perfect like he was trying to jump in there. They didn't have their group ready I was trying to organize everything to get these guys out of here as quickly as possible and start to walk through I didn't know he was mic'd up. It just made it perfect that he wanted to keep going next and I was like I got this handled trust me. Do you have to do that with him a lot? Mostly? Yeah most days But you like that don't you? No, he's great. I love his spirit. He's got great spirit, great energy It's been uh been fun to coach and as you want to see him come on over the last Eight nine games. What do you want to see from Arden key? Well, I want to see everybody on defense make the plays They're supposed to make be prepared Play relentless affect the quarterback tackle the guy when when they hand it off You know affect the quarterback we we got to get back to doing that and that that creates turnovers You know that the effect of the quarterback creates turnovers when we come back kids ask coach rabble That's next on the mic rabble show presented by seat geek stay with us the mic rabble show presented by Seat geek continues And it is time now for the best part of the show for really the best part of the show Kids ask coach rabble. Let's meet claudia Come on claudia. Here we go claudia Got our music Miss claudia, and i am a my question is what is the hardest part tighten up claudia Well, I think the hardest part of being a coach uh outside of losing, you know, I mean it's it's it's tough every time you lose it It affects you But but I also you know the toughest part is just I think We're probably the the time away, you know the time that's that's invested here Away from from your family, but you know, we all know what we sign up for and we love every second of it But certainly losing would be number one and then you know the time away During the season. What's the best part? Well outside of winning watching players improve and develop and Take advantage opportunities when you work with a player and you see them develop You know winning will be the ultimate after that it's it's watching players develop and improve and Having them help the team. It's it's like being a teacher, isn't it? Well, it is being a teacher. It's it's being a teacher and then also A lot of different hats right you got to make a connection you got to figure out what what these guys need and when they need it Uh, and they learn differently. They respond differently. And so it's it's different challenges That part of the challenge is something you really enjoy finding that button to push Yeah, and again, there's things that we believe in And there's also things that You know are are negotiable But there's also some things that that are non-negotiable that we believe you have to be able to do to win football games The Nissan keys are next. How do the titans go beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on sunday? Find out when the mike variable show continues presented by seat geek Inside the bet mgm studio the mike variable show presented by seat geek continues with our nissan keys to success I like number one create negative plays defensively not enough for those in pittsburgh, right? No, not enough And again allowed them to to stay in third manageable And continue to to drive the football we gave up, you know four double digit drives Those x plays allow you to create third and long which sends the opportunities to to rush an opportunity to make plays on the football And get off the field on third down So it all starts, uh, hopefully on early downs and our ability to to create negative plays and hopefully we can do that Um In in the play action game this big play action team. Oh interesting Okay, didn't realize that they they do that as much as you do even they do they max it up and they'll throw Shots and overs to to evans and godwin and you know, that's something that they've created x plays on All right, let's take a look now at key number two, which is stay efficient offensively on early downs Well, we know how you know the pressure that these guys can bring on third down they've um You know when teams have been able to stay ahead in the chains third and one two three They've been able to extend drives statistically But when you get into the third and eight plus You know, that's where the the four strong the four weak the different pressures the double edge pressures They're bringing a corner and the nickel and bringing guys from everywhere. And so makes it difficult When you live in those down in distances and the safety wind field is a good blitzer He's all he's caused fumbles. He's caused three fumbles. He's got recovery. So They they bring guys from everywhere david's excellent blitzer and so is um White and and it's just then they can bring just the four down guys. All right key number three Talking about special teams creating field position and momentum. Yeah, I feel like we're close here There were some good opportunities the other day You know, I thought the return By taje and the return to kickoff return unit was was great more of that at the penalty and we're able to get the ball out to midfield Um, we got to hit a punt return and we got to keep covering these punts and flip the field two good punters going this week and You know, two the ball is is going to be in the air quite quite long If we can make them punt and if you know, if we have to punt offensively So these are two good punters. You worried that it's going to be nearly 90 degrees down there. Uh, worried I don't I mean it's going to be hot for everybody We'll just have to see how the we handle the weather and rotate guys if we have to all right Well, good stuff. We look forward to seeing you down there Titans in the bucks this sunday kickoff set for 1202 We're on the air on titans radio including here in nashville and 1045 the zone at 11 a.m With titans countdown. That's ret bryan's show. We look forward to hearing him and look forward to having you join us For titans bucks this sunday. Thanks for being with us. Good night everybody