Heading into his first season as the Titans’ offensive coordinator, Dowell Loggains sees something he wants to change: Quarterback Jake Locker’s use of a wristband.
The man Loggains replaced as offensive coordinator, Chris Palmer, liked Locker to wear a wristband with all of the Titans’ plays, so that all Palmer had to do was call out a number and Locker would call the play that corresponded to that number on his wristband. But Loggains doesn’t want Locker relying on a wristband. Loggains thinks quarterbacks sometimes use the wristband as a crutch, and so Loggains will call in the full play to Locker instead and expect him to know it without seeing it written on his wrist.
“My thing with the wristband is I believe the quarterback should know the gameplan well enough,” Loggains told the Nashville City Paper. “If the headset goes out, then he should be able to call the game. . . . We’ll use a wristband for emergencies only, but we won’t call the plays in like we used to that way.”
Wristbands have been a controversial subject at times, especially during Donovan McNabb’s season in Washington, where a hullabaloo arose over a story that McNabb was refusing the coaches’ request to wear a wristband because he thought it would look like he didn’t know the offense. In Tennessee, appearances aren’t the concern, but potential over-reliance on a wristband is.
Titans head coach Mike Munchak said that when he was an offensive lineman, he thought quarterbacks could command the huddle better if they weren’t looking down at their wrists.
“We’ve done it both ways, but I think it’s kind of nice sometimes, especially as an offensive lineman, when the quarterback is looking you in the eye telling you what we’re going to do,” Munchak said. “He’s calling the play, he’s looking at you, he’s making plays, you’re getting eye contact.”
That’s what the Titans will get in the huddle from Locker this year.