The Irreconcilable Differences Between Mike Vrabel and the Tennessee Titans
Why did the Titans part ways with one of the most respected and accomplished coaches in the league?
Simply put, the job of any leader in an organization is to establish a vision of what you're trying to do, instill a culture of working collectively towards that vision, and motivate the personnel at your disposal to work towards the desired vision and culture.
On its face, the Tennessee Titans seemingly had that with (now former) head coach Mike Vrabel. From 2018 to 2021, the Titans finished with four straight winning records at the end of the season. The 2019 edition of the Titans famously dismissed Tom Brady and the New England Patriots from the playoffs, and then followed that up by doing the same to the 2019 league MVP in Lamar Jackson and his Baltimore Ravens.
Though Tennessee eventually lost in the AFC Championship game the following week, it seemed like Vrabel was fully in his coaching bag from then onwards, going 23-10 over the following two regular seasons and leading the Titans to back-to-back AFC South division titles.
But for a myriad of reasons (many of which were outlined in the excellent reporting by Dianna Russini of TheAthletic), whatever Vrabel’s vision was started to vary from whatever the rest of the organization around him was envisioning.
These types of shifts rarely happen overnight, and much of what happened in 2022 – headlined by the trade of AJ Brown (which Vrabel was emphatically against from all accounts) – caused Titans team owner Amy Adams Strunk to have serious doubts about the direction of the franchise. General Manager Jon Robinson – who both took the fall for trading Brown and followed that up by the increasingly disastrous move of drafting Treylon Burks as his replacement – was fired in early December of that year. Two weeks before Robinson’s dismissal, the Titans had a 7-3 record. Five weeks after Robinson’s dismissal, the Titans had a 7-10 record.
After Adams Strunk hired Ran Carthon as Robinson’s replacement, the arranged marriage between Carthon and Vrabel never seemed to get the necessary traction needed for the partnership to work— largely because neither could align on who really wore the pants in the relationship. Vrabel was the guy who took the Titans to four-straight winning seasons and the doorstep of the Super Bowl. Carthon was the guy whom the owner hand-picked to clean up the recent messes that were made with the roster, and to bolster a roster that was seemingly faltering under Vrabel.
As anyone who’s been in a dysfunctional business will tell you, such dissension at the very top ranks never leads to anything good. Wherever or however you want to assign the blame, the fact is the same: since Halloween of 2022, the Titans are 8-19. They’re 4-10 in that stretch in games decided by 7 points or less.
Proponents of Vrabel – and many of the fans in Tennessee – will pound the table when saying no coach got more out of less than Vrabel; not even Mike Tomlin. But league observers point to the fact that Vrabel did have his shortcomings, including back-to-back one-and-done playoff appearances after said AFC Championship run in 2019, and the lack of a plan to evolve the team from its “run the shit out of Derrick Henry and play good defense” modus operandi.
Nearly everyone agrees, though, that it shouldn’t (or won’t) be long before Vrabel lands on his feet elsewhere, in a head coaching capacity. One could argue he’s best overall candidate available on the market in this cycle.
But there’s a lesson to be learned here for sure: a good organization does whatever it takes to not only keep that employee both empowered and happy, but also to simply get out of their way.
And it’s just as important for a good employee to do the same. ■