Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: Breaking down the HC candidates

Episode Date: January 17, 2018

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Welcome in to Locked on Titans. I am Jimmy Morris, joined as always by Terry Lambert. Terry, how are you tonight? Doing good. It was a nice catch-your-breath day for us. Yeah, yeah. No earth-shattering news like we had on Monday with Mike Morgan out. So today we'll kind of go through the different candidates that we have. At least some kind of concrete evidence that they are tied to this coaching search in some way um as of right now i think we have three interviews that have been repeated and then obviously there's some other names that are speculated but any anybody on the eagle staff or the patriot staff um which are kind of the other two places

that the titans will probably be looking. You can't have anything lined up with those guys because their teams are still playing. So we'll go through real quick and talk about the guys that we know are coming in and kind of give some of our thoughts on them. Before we do that, I remind you that Terry and I write for me at cityofmiracles.com covering the Titans for Edmonton, so you can check us out there. And we'll have all of the stuff as it comes out on this coaching search.

So stay plugged in there because we'll have that information up as soon as it becomes available before we get to a podcast. And then to stay up with the podcast, subscribe to Locked on Titans wherever you get podcasts. And Locked On is an entire network that covers all the NFL teams, NBA, and all that stuff. So if there's another team you want to listen to, an NBA team that you follow or whatever, you can check them out there. All right, so the first guy that was reported that was going to interview was Mike Vrabel. And he was supposed to interview on Wednesday.

Jason Wolf may be asking for a story tonight, but he said on Twitter earlier tonight that his interview has been pushed back to Thursday if you're not in the Middle Tennessee area. We got snow today, and everything shuts down around here when there's snow. So I don't know if it's a travel issue that he can't get here or whatever. But, you know, Vrabel is currently the Houston Texans defensive coordinator. So obviously not involved in a playoff series. Terry, give me kind of your quick thoughts on Mike Vrabel.

Are we sure he's got enough experience coaching? That's the first thing that I ask myself. You know, seven years ago he was a player in this league. So played forever, I think 13 or 14 years as a linebacker for the Chiefs, Patriots, and Steelers. And then he started his coaching career immediately at Ohio State. Worked at Urban Meyer, made the jump to Houston coaching linebackers. Took over for Romeo Cornell coaching that defense this season. So he's got one season of experience as a coordinator, and that's it.

He's a position coach from there. Obviously, all the experience in the world as a player, I'm just not sold he's seasoned enough. It just seems like things have happened really fast for him and that would scare me and especially with him being an offensive guy with how much stock John Robinson put into

maximizing Marks and Mariotta specifically in the press conference the other day. This one just doesn't really add up to me. Yeah, and I think that's the thing with him. He's older than some of these other guys we're going to talk about. He's 42 years old, but he hasn't been coaching that long. And mainly the other guys that have been mentioned so far have been in the coaching profession for a long time.

Started out as maybe even graduate assistants college jobs position job i mean you know that they've worked their way up not that it has to go that way right i mean we know that we can we can all cite examples of guys that jumped from a coach to a head coach um guys that were young and got a job and it worked out but you can also look at guys like a mike singletary or something that got that job and it was just a little bit too big for them starting out. So I'm with you. That would be my concern with Vrabel. Now, I was listening to John McClain on the radio today. John McClain writes for the Houston Chronicle, has forever.

He had a lot of good things to say about Mike Vrabel, talked about how he commands a room and all that kind of stuff. John Robinson talked about looking for a leader of men. So, you know, I think Vrabel would absolutely fit that. Again, we talked about last night the question that he's going to be asked and the most important question for any of these guys, especially these defensive guys, is going to be, who's your offensive coordinator?

What style of offense do you want to run? And so I don't know. I don't know what Vrabel's answer will be to that. I don't know of any, like, natural connections he has with any of these guys that are kind of, you know, the hot names as far as offensive coordinators are concerned. So that will be something that, you know, we won't find out probably unless Vrabel gets the job and then he hires an offensive coordinator. We won't know the name that he brought up in the interview or anything like that.

But that to me, I think outside of the experience thing, is the biggest question that I have is, you know, what are you going to bring as far as that's concerned and who does he know and how long, you know, with how long he's been in. So that would kind of be the other thing for me. Yeah, and, you know, with him not being in the league so long, there's not that offensive guy that you can draw the connection to. You can sit here and look back on coaching trees and say,

ah, this guy worked with this guy, this guy worked with this guy. There's no real connection quite yet with Vrabel. So it's just a guessing game at this point. So would an offensive coordinator, would a big-time offensive coordinator come work for Vrabel with his first head coaching job? I'm just not sure that they would, and that's a big concern going forward.

So I don't know. Vrabel, a name that everybody recognizes, and for that reason he's probably going to drop some excitement. But when you dig deeper, for me, there's a lot more concern there. Man, I was really hoping that, because, you know, Vrabel's first coaching job was at 08, linebackers and D-line. He coached there. I was really hoping that he coached under Greg Sciano

so we could get some Greg Sciano D.C. rumors going. Please don't. But he didn't. So there goes that. Anyway, so, yeah, that's kind of where we are. You know, I don't know. I would be surprised if he got the job. You know, Albert Breer has said that he's the leader right now.

I don't understand how you could really have a leader when you haven't had an interview yet. You know, again, a natural connection. He and John Robinson were together. Vrabel was a player while John Robinson was in the front office in New England. And Breer's plugged into that because he covered the Patriots back then. So, you know, from that standpoint, you understand the connection. But I will be surprised if it's Vrabel. Not shocked necessarily, but I would be surprised a little bit if it's him.

So that's kind of where we are on him. The next guy that we saw reports on was Steve Wilks, the defensive coordinator of the Carolina Panthers. He's a guy that has been coaching for a long time, was a defensive coordinator at a college all the way back in 1995, and then has worked his way up through the college ranks and has been in the NFL every year since 2006 when he broke in as the defensive backs coach for the Bears.

Spent most of his career as a defensive backs coach, became the assistant head coach and defensive backs in Carolina in 2015, and then got the defensive coordinator job in 17 when Sean McDermott left to go be the head coach of the Bills. I think the interesting thing with him is that we've seen reports that he is tied to john di filippo uh again i hope i'm saying his name right um the the quarterback's coach with the eagles that is that is a hot name uh in in some circles in this cycle a guy that you know is a high energy guy being di filippo so I think, again, the question is defensive guy.

We know that John Robbins is not eliminating guys just because they're defensive minds, but it is going to be very important who they say they're going to bring as their OC. And if he says he can deliver DeFilippo, and again, DeFilippo is in the mix in Arizona. Rumor is he's going to get a second interview out there for the head coaching job. So I don't know that he would, you know, he's going to take off his job or whatever. But, anyway, I think that's probably the biggest thing of interest

that comes with Steve Wilks. Yeah, and for me it's bringing back the 4-3 defense. So that would be a big change. It's something we hadn't seen in several years. And I still think the personnel would match up well with that. It would probably benefit Jarrell Casey a little bit. It would bring Arakpo down, put his hand in the dirt, and Derek Morgan too.

So that's an interesting little tidbit to think about with Wilks. But, yeah, like you said, it's all about the offense, and it's going to be about with wilks but yeah like you said it's all about the offense and it's going to be about the offense with any of these guys but um he he's got a little he's got a little more uh leadership than than brable does coaching wise obviously brable had plenty as a player uh but he's been a coach forever uh going back to all back to 1995 and it was college days. So held the assistant head coach title with Ron Rivera in the Carolina Panthers. Very successful organization on the football field.

So that part to me is intriguing. You talk to people that know him. You hear them talk about him, and they say he commands a room. There's a presence about him and and players love playing for him so um i guess you could you could probably say that about any candidate out there if you ask the right people but um yeah he's not the worst candidate to me i would probably prefer him over vrabel just simply based on experience yeah absolutely I think um maybe we'll we're gonna talk about four guys now maybe we'll kind of rank them uh how we feel about them at the end but yeah

I agree with that Vrabel is actually fourth for me on this list um but again I don't know you know all the particulars there uh yeah the the four three thing is interesting um because that's what the Titans were for so many years uh, I guess, was it Jerry Gray? No, it wasn't Jerry Gray. Who brought the 3-4 in? I'm drawing a blank. Shouldn't ask that question. I can picture him in my mind.

But anyway, we'll circle back to that. Does Kevin Dodd become relevant if they go to a 4-3? No, stop. I threw in the towel with Kevin Dodd during training camp this year. Nah, man. He's going to save Kevin Dodd's career. Steve Wilks is. Yeah, but no, that would be an interesting thing.

And like you said, I don't think the personnel is so far away from, you know, to where it would be a problem for them to switch back there. So that would be an interesting piece with him. Again, who's your offensive coordinator? Yeah, and then it would be, I mean, you're still talking about a pretty significant jump, a guy that's been a coordinator for, that's only been a coordinator for one year.

But again, you've got to take a chance on somebody. So, you know, he's an interesting guy again who can you bring offensively uh all right so that's that's the first two names that were linked we're going to talk about two more uh coming up here in just a minute okay so the next name that we saw reported i guess guess it was on Monday night, is Matt LaFleur. Again, we've got some weird names. We were talking about that before we came on here in this cycle. So hopefully I'm saying that one correctly as well. But LaFleur is currently – I'm going to trip over that all night –

currently the offensive coordinator of the Rams. And so an interesting deal there has been there for one year was the falcons quarterbacks coach uh in 2015 2016 and then was with notre dame the year before that he's kind of he's kind of around a little bit um between college and and the professional levels um you know the the thing the question with him is he doesn't call plays for the rams you know sean mcveigh is the play caller there so you know what what's his philosophy i mean you would assume it's the same as mcveigh i mean i think you know he gets uh some credit

for what jared goff did this year the the turnaround that he made but how much of the system that they're running there is McVay. And again, we're going to have concerns on any of these guys, questions, concerns, however you want to put that on any of these guys because we don't know when they've never done it before. But I don't know. I got a little pause with him just because I just wonder what his system is when he's not with McVay. I've got a ton of pause.

He doesn't call the plays like you said. I just worry about chasing trends. Everybody is trying to find the next Sean McVay, and I just worry about jumping to the closest thing to Sean McVay because everyone's not going to be that. So you talk about what does John Robinson want? He wants a leader of men. Well, I'm not sure about LeFleur.

We just don't know. He's 38 years old. That's still super young. It really came from the Kyle Shanahan tree more than the McVay tree. He worked with him in Atlanta and in Houston and in Washington. So that part of it is interesting. And I think a lot of him think he's on his way to putting together

a pretty good franchise over there in San Francisco. But there's just no guarantee that LeFleur is going to be that guy to follow in the footsteps. So I don't know, am I crazy? It just seems like the whole league is wanting to find that next guy, and it just seems like LaFleur is being forced into that. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And like you said, you see these trends.

Whoever the hot hot was from the year before, if it works out, then everybody's trying to find the next whoever. We see that all the time. I have similar concerns. Like you said, Kyle Shanahan looks like he's in a position to have a nice run with 49ers. Now that they've got Jimmy Garoppolo, you saw the struggles that the Falcons offense had at times this year with Shanahan not being there calling the plays.

Who is Kyle Shanahan's coordinator? I looked him up the other day, and it was a name that I had never heard. I'm not sure he calls the plays either. Yeah, well, my question is, why didn't Shanahan, why didn't LeFleur go with Shanahan to San Francisco? That's a good question. I don't know, but it just seems like it would be an obvious choice for Shanahan. But I don't know what the deal is there.

Like I said, he was the quarterback's coach, I guess, under Shanahan in Atlanta. Curtis Modkins is the 49ers offensive coordinator. I've never heard that name before. Right. But, yeah, because I think Shanahan calls the plays there. So, anyway, I don't know what the answer to that question is, but just kind of interesting that he had kind of followed Shanahan around, was with him with the Texans and the Redskins and the Falcons.

I mean, you know, a guy that had, you know, had been with him, but didn't take him as his OC. I don't know. That may or may not mean anything. But, yeah, I mean, had been with him, but that he didn't take him as his OC. I don't know. That may or may not mean anything. But, yeah, I mean, I'm with you. Let's not – and he may come in and have a great interview and have, you know, great answers to all the questions and have an offense that he has tailored to Marcus Mariota

and, you know, may come and knock it out. Who knows? But I don't know. There's a lot of questions to me surrounding him. And, again, if you're going to hire an offensive guy, I'd like to have a guy that's called plays before. But that guy may not be there. You know, we're on guy number three here at this point,

and none of them have called plays. We're going to talk about john d filipo in a minute he doesn't call plays in philadelphia um and i mean of the names that have been linked here at this point the only person that that calls plays is josh mcdaniels right i mean and we don't know you know now that it seems like everybody is a foregone conclusion that he's going to the colts which you still have paws on but um you know know, so, I mean, again, you're going to have questions with any of these guys. But I would need to know more about LeFleur before I would be just necessarily that excited that he was going to be here.

And the last guy that we'll talk about tonight is Jody Filippo, who is the quarterback's coach for the Eagles currently. So they've done a good job there with Carson Wentz, obviously before he went down with the injury. Again, it's a big jump to go from being the quarterback's coach to being a head coach. So you would have questions there. But just go Google this guy.

Go watch some videos of him and him on offense and the drills and stuff that he does with Carson Wentz. He's a young, energetic guy. I think he could command a room. I think he could fall into that category as a leader of men. And I don't know, just something about watching him just gets me excited. Yeah, he's a little different than Matt LeFleur. He's been an offensive coordinator.

He was with the Browns in 2015. I think Mike Benton got one year, and he was a part of that staff. So I'm not going to hold any part of being a part of the Browns against anybody at this point because they can't hold a coach. And then he bounced back with the Eagles, and obviously the work with Carson Wentz is something that the entire NFL is all about. He's going to get a job somewhere, calling plays at least, I would guess. So you talk about being ahead of the curve

and getting a guy that's hitting while the flame is hot. This is another McVay type with a little more experience than LeFleur. So I'm a fan. Like you said, go look him up. He brings energy. There's a lot more out on YouTube and stuff on him than LeFleur. He worked with Mike McIntyre at San Jose State, coaching David Fales,

and really had a big hand in turning that program around and springboarding McIntyre's career. So, honestly, I know I kind of sound a little hypocritical for liking DeFilippo over LeFleur, but that's kind of where I'm at right now. There's just not a lot of guys that really get my blood pumping, that really say, hey, I've got to have this guy. This guy might be one of them for me.

The more I dig in, the more I like him. Yeah, and one thing we should note on DeFilippo as well is he's expected to get a second interview with the arizona cardinals whenever the eagles are done so he interviewed with the bears apparently was impressive there they ultimately went with uh matt nagy who was the chief's offensive coordinator um but you know that he went out interviewed with the cardinals i guess during the eagles bye week and then is

expected to get a second interview there whenever he's available to do that. So, you know, like you said, there's the same questions there. Mike is the offensive coordinator with the Eagles. People that have followed the Titans franchise for a while remember him as the guy that led the comeback for the Bills. You know, that was a really long time ago. But anyway, I guess there's been some mention of Frank Reich being a possibility here. I don't know about that, but we'll see how all that plays out. But I don't know, just a young, energetic guy, a guy that's going to come in and bring something different than what we've had here.

going to come in and bring something different than than what we've had here and you know again they're going to they're going to be looking i mean i think that if you're if you're coming in to interview for this job you're going to come in with a plan of here is mario's offense here is what we're going to do to maximize you know his skill set john john robinson talked a lot about that in his press conference on monday so you know any of these guys any of these guys are going to obviously do their homework and look into that but you know just the development of a carson way you know he's got that now it's obviously a group effort there but you know he's his quarterback's coach and uh i don't know just it'd be fun to have a have a guy like that um who would just just be different and you'd think some tempo and that

kind of stuff and that's just what we're what we're what we as fans are wanting to see now john robinson has a lot more to consider like if the guy if whoever they end up ultimately higher stands up at the at the first press conference and says you know what we're gonna run a lot of no huddle next year. We're going to try to raise the tempo of this offense. We're going to run a lot of plays every game. I'm going to be all in. That's why John Robinson

is the GM and I'm not because there's a lot more to consider than that. Dee Filippo seems like the type of guy that would come in with some type of plan like that. Like I said, I would be way over the top just for something like that. There's one guy I would add to this list. And, you know, maybe I'm nuts, but Jim Schwartz, to me,

it seems like he could do a lot worse than Schwartz at this point. He was pretty good in Detroit. The Tennessee ties are obvious uh obviously you've got the the offensive staff questions that he would have to answer like with any defensive coach but i don't think i was pretty detroit uh and and then you know maybe you maybe you get a little bit better roster here in nashville and you know we think john robbins is pretty good and going places i think that's a guy that could do some damage with the right offensive staff and you know there's just I'm not really

impressed with this crop of candidates so Jim Schwartz would be the near near the top of my list yeah he's a guy that's interesting because you know like like you said, there were ups and downs with him in Detroit. But, again, we talked last night about how you've got to be willing to give a guy a second chance. You know, I hate these guys that get retreaded over and over and over, like third, fourth time offensive coordinators. I don't want to get into that cycle. But Jim Schwartz has done a great job with that eagles defense you know he i mean you know he knows football you just if you listen to the guy talk i mean he's a he's like a genius

um another guy that would that would bring back for three um which would be i don't know that's just that's what we grew up on here with the titans and so it just seems like that might not be the worst idea. But anyway, yeah, he's a guy that would be interesting, like you said. But could he bring DiFilippo with him? They're on the same staff. So I have no idea what their relationship is like, but is that a guy that would be willing to come with him? I mean, Liz, i have concerns with with d filipo and this is obviously like way down the road but um if he comes let's say it's jim

schwarz and steve wilson whoever comes in brings d filipo as as the offensive coordinator if they have a really good year he's probably going to be a head coach d filipo somewhere else the next year you know but hey how cool would it be to have somebody from the Titans staff that is, you know, sought after to become a head coach? When was the last time that happened, Jim Schwartz? I guess. Yeah, I mean, I think it was when Schwartz went to the Lions. You know, he was here under Jeff Fisher.

So, you know, going from, you know, Mikearkey saying that he he liked that he had guys on his staff that didn't have aspirations to become head coaches um to go on to you know getting a more young dynamic staff with some up-and-comers i mean that would be really fun to see but yes i mean that that would be like you said that would be a question with schwartz and i wonder you know i mean i don't think he i don't think they had any issues with him when he was here before. Like I said, he didn't he didn't even leave. He left before Fisher did. So he left to be a head coach. He didn't leave. I'm not sure. Turnover and all that stuff. So, yeah, yeah. I mean, that'd be an interesting name. And like I said, I've always liked him.

I don't I don't know. I'm sure there will be a couple other names that will pop up as we go throughout this there may be a name or two on the Patriots staff that we don't know about that ends up getting a call just because it's somebody that John Robinson knows but you know it's at least a good crop

of candidates and it's at least a legitimate coaching search that we didn't get last time with Mike Malarkey they were going to hire him from the beginning the guys that they brought in outside of him were completely uninspiring so it's just fun to be able to cover something that's going to be like a legitimate coaching search did we mention that munchak is getting a second interview with arizona we did not yeah well there you go. Mike Munchak and DeFilippo. It sounds like it's down to those two guys for Arizona.

So, obviously, we're pulling for Munch here to get that second go-around so DeFilippo can come back potentially in an interview with the Titans in some capacity. But, man, you sold me on Jim Schwartz and DeFilippo. I hope that's the package deal. That's kind of what I'm rooting for now. Ray Horton was the guy that brought the 3-4 to the Titans. That's right.

Yeah, sorry. That was actually bugging me. Anyway, yeah. And, again, I don't have any idea what their relationship is like with Schwartz and Dee Filippa. I don't know any of that stuff. But they're on the staff together. He's a hot name. That would still be a promotion for him because he's a quarterback's coach not an offensive coordinator so anyway it's something that's

interesting to watch so uh but if you are if you're a fan of any of those eagles guys uh whether it be d filippo schwartz even frank reich um you need to be cheering for the vikings on some because you want the eagles out so that those guys can get interviewing. I mean, we want the guy here as soon as possible. That's the biggest thing at this point because you've got, what, East-West Shrine games this weekend, Senior Bowls the next weekend. I mean, so you've got these things that are moving, and so you would like to have your staff at least somewhat in place,

and the head coaches can have those conversations with guys at those games and that kind of stuff. So, I mean, that's the biggest thing, that if you're rooting for one of those guys, you want those teams eliminated as soon as possible. Yeah, and speaking of drafts, I don't think we mentioned that the Titans hold the 25th pick in the 2018 draft, so that's as far down as they've been since they took Kenny Britt 30th overall in 2009.

It's been a while. They held the 18th pick last year, but they also held the 5th pick after that Rams trade. So it's going to be different. We always had this really strong idea of which way they were going to go. But after about pick 15, the draft is just – it just gets wild. So that's going to be wide open. We're not going to have – I'm sure we'll have some sort of clue, but we could get some serious wild cards here.

Yeah, that'll be fun. And in every mock draft, I think that we're going to see between now and then is going to have the Titans picking an edge player. But again, if they do bring in a 4-3 guy, then it'll completely change everything. So, you know, I mean, mock drafts are not worth anything anyway, but we'll love them. We talk about them. I mean, I enjoy looking at them.

But we won't really have any clue how that's going to go. I mean, obviously, John Robinson's going to be the guy making the selection. And, I mean, he was that with Malarkey, and he's going to be that with whoever's hired next. But, you know, obviously, personnel needs will change if they do make that switch. So, yeah, that'll be something interesting to watch. All right, anything else tonight that we need to cover? I think that covers it. All right, so that'll do it for tonight.

Like I said, we'll continue to monitor any news that comes out here. And then I don't know if we're – it sounds like Vrabel's interview got pushed back. Like I said, I don't know if it's because of the weather or whatever. So we'll see if we get anything from that. I'm assuming that we're not going to hear anything after those initial interviews. But if they end up bringing a guy back for a second interview or whatever, we'll obviously talk about that as it comes. So stay tuned.

Again, stay tuned to musicofmiracles.com because we'll have the most up-to-date information there. And then we'll be doing the podcast at least three, four times a week. So check that out as well. Subscribe to it. Follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmorrismcm, and Terry is at tlimbertfb. And thanks for listening to Locked on Titans,

and we will talk to you again tomorrow.