Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: First thoughts on the Mike Vrabel hire

Episode Date: January 21, 2018

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Welcome in to a special edition of Locked On Titans. I'm Jimmy Morris, joined as always by Terry Lambert. Terry, how's it going? Doing good. What's going on with you? Well, not too much other than the Titans have hired a head coach. Mike Vrabel will be the next coach of your Tennessee Titans. So we're going to have some reaction to that. Before we get into all that, just remind you that Terry and I write for musicandmiracles.com. Just reminds you that Terry and I write for music and miracles.com. Come to the Titans for SB nation. So check that site out. We'll have a ton on this over the next days,

weeks as we get ready to head into the off season and all that stuff. So follow us there, subscribe to the Titan to, I mean, to the podcast locked on Titans, wherever you get your podcast. We're also on Spotify now, so you can listen to us there. So check that out.

A lot of cool stuff going on there. So that's kind of where we're coming from. And, again, the announcement by the Titans' Twitter account this afternoon that the team has hired Mike Vrabel as their next head coach. Terry, a couple things I'll kick to you and let you kind of give your opinion first. But I will say I was a little bit surprised uh at the the speed at which this happened because i i expected them to wait and at least try to talk to maybe a couple guys on the eagle staff a couple guys on the patriot staff um i wasn't really

expecting it to come down this weekend um but so give me your kind of your reaction to that and your reaction to mike vrabel as the as coach? Yeah, shocked at the timing for sure. I thought we were in for probably another week of interviews. So they only talked to three people. It sounds like they had their guy in mind. Vrabel was the first guy they talked to, and they went to Steve Wilks to kind of satisfy the Rooney rule. And then they talked to Matt LaFleur, who we'll get into a little bit later.

But it's clear to me that they wanted Vrabel, and unfortunately that means Josh McDaniels will end up in Indianapolis. So with Vrabel, it's interesting to see the reaction on Twitter, right, because you've got some people freaking out that the Titans hired a defensive guy, and apparently that means that they're just going to focus on the defense and score ten points a game. But I'm sure he's outlined an offensive hire, an offensive plan. I'm sure John Robinson knows the guys that they're going to go after.

But, you know, one phrase stands out above the rest here, leader of men. We heard that from John Robinson in the press here last week, Hands out above the rest here. Leader of men. We heard that from John Robinson in the press here last week. And that's what Vrabel is if you listen to anybody who's been around him. So you've got a CEO type here. You've got a strong defensive mind.

You've got everybody that knows him says he commands a room. So a little bit different than Mike Malarkey in that aspect to me. I don't know. I'm a little lukewarm i guess i i guess i need to see the offensive coordinator higher before i can go all in yeah and i mean that was the question that i said on twitter that's my but before i you know weigh in on or not weigh in but before i like make my mind up on this hire, I've got to know who that is because that's the key in all of this. And like you said, John Robinson is not dumb. I guarantee you that it's not like Mike Vrabel walked in and wowed John Robinson. And by the time he left, Robinson was like, oh, crap, I forgot to ask him about the offense.

I mean you know that that was the first question or at least a big part of the first part of the interview. Who's your offensive coordinator going to be? What kind of system is he going to run? What do you think of Marcus Mariota? What does he think of Marcus Mariota? And what do you envision for him going forward? I think those were all things that were asked of Mike Vrabel in the interview. And you said before we hopped on here that everybody in that building

right now knows who the titans office of coordinator is going to be and i agree with that i don't think that mike rebel could have landed this job without selling john robinson on who his office of coordinator is going to be now john robinson talked about maximizing talent that was the the big theme almost of his press conference you know after it was announced that mike malarkey wouldn't be back and so i i you know i think we just need to have faith in john robinson that um that that was a part of the equation and that it that it's going to be somebody that that will be excited about now i don't know initially because i mean okay so we can get into that they brought in matt lafleur for an interview now um he you know he interviewed

for the head coaching job is there a thing where you know they talked to him and said look we're going to hire mike vrabel um you know we're excited about him whatever would you be willing to come here and be the offensive coordinator now a couple things with that one that would be kind of a weird deal when when he was coming to interview for the head coach head coaching position so i don't know if that happened or not to you know you might ask yourself the question well he's the offensive coordinator for the Rams why would he want to come here well he is Sean McVay's offensive coordinator Sean McVay is designing the offense Sean McVay is calling the plays so as long as LeFleur works for McVay he's it's always going to be McVay's offense McVay's

always going to be the one that gets the credit um he's never LeFleur's never going to be McVay's offense. McVay's always going to be the one that gets the credit. LaFleur's never going to get the call plays. So that would be, I'm assuming, an enticing deal to be the guy that could coordinate the offense, call the plays and all that stuff. And, you know, maybe this is a little bit too much of a leave at this point. We really don't know. But, you know, Vrabel is obviously a defensive guy. You know, he may be willing to bring a guy in like LaFleur and say look the offense is you do what

you want with it obviously he'd still have say in it and all that kind of stuff but you know kind of a head coach offense type deal would he be willing to bring it bring LaFleur and let him do that I don't know I don't have any this is all speculation on our part at this point because there's no obvious connection between Vrabel and LaFleur. I don't know if they have any type of relationship. I have no idea who it would be. Some people on Twitter have been suggesting that Vrabel could bring Sean Ryan, who is currently the Texans QB coach. I think I would hate that.

I don't know. I'm not sure if i should or not but you would it would be a really hard sell to get me excited about the guy that was the texans qb coach now you know i think he's only been there for a couple years he did you know deshaun watson absolutely torched the league while he was healthy but i have a hard time believing that sean ryan was the guy that vrabel came in and sold John Robinson on. Yeah, and Ryan was the receivers coach in 2016, got moved over to quarterbacks coach in 2017. So he's only worked with Deshaun Watson, who was spectacular.

But, you know, we don't know a lot about that guy. Back to LeFleur, it could be, like you were saying, the head coach of the offense or something like that. I just kind of have an idea in my head. You know, you interview Vrabel first and you bring LeFleur in next or second after that. Maybe it's something where Amy and John Robinson wanted to talk to LeFleur about the offense.

Maybe Vrabel pitched him as a potential candidate. I don't know. But that's where the connection is. Like you said, there's no connection to them in the coaching tree world. We just know they were both interviewed for the head coaching job. So outside of that, who are some names that we're watching? I've got Jim Bob Cooter. We've got Morton from the Jets.

And who else? Sean Ryan, you've already mentioned. Well, I mean, DeFilippo. Again, we don't know if there's any kind of tie there, but he's just the quarterback's coach in Philadelphia. So it would obviously be a promotion for him. And, again, I don't have any idea if there's any connection there or anything like that. But, I mean, he's a guy that would be on a short list of guys that could potentially

be in play. Yeah, so what you can't do is you can't go hire Terry Hrabisky. I remember when Hrabisky got hired, that was so just out of left field. That whole coaching search was such a sham. And then to hire Terry Hrabisky and hand him Marcus Mariota, one of the most exciting young quarterbacks in the league. It was a kick in the gut. So I'm

sure John Robinson has gotten an outline, detailed plan from Vrabel. I'm sure Robinson is all for it. I'm sure Amy is all with it. I would expect that in the coming days. Maybe announcing here gives the Titans

access to some assistants that maybe they couldn't have had that are still, because of guys that are going to be hired that are still coaching today. You've got New York hiring Pat Shermer, who's still coaching, and you've got Indy hiring Josh McDaniels. Maybe that unlocks some more assistance.

Well, yeah, and a lot of those conversations take place at Senior Bowl, right? I mean, everybody's down there. And so this gives Vrabel that week to be there and talk to guys or be there to just, you know, evaluate. So, I mean, I think there is some value in that. You know, I was reading something that Kaharski wrote earlier about how he is surprised by the speed of the hire, not by the hire itself. And he's been real big.

And, I mean, I don't think this is the worst idea in the world on bringing guys in and just, like, you bring in a DiFilippo and you say, okay, what would you do with a Titans offense? And you listen to him and you take notes and then you can, like you can see if you want to incorporate some of that stuff in your offense. You do the same thing with the Jocko Nails, whatever it may be. And I don't think that's the worst thing in the world. But if this is their guy and they're ready to go, then by all means go do it. I mean, I don't have a problem with them.

There's no reason to bring in three more guys, what they said, your time and their time, quite honestly, if you're not going to hire them. with them you know i there's no reason to bring in three more guys uh you know it won't be your time and their time quite honestly uh if if you're not going to hire them so yeah i mean that's the thing with me i mean i'm not this i i would have been more excited i think if it would have been an offensive guy that they hired just because i feel like sitting here right now we would have some idea of what the offense was going to be like um and so I mean I think that would be that would be more exciting but I don't know that it really makes that big of a difference like you said it's not like they're going to try

to you know win games 10 to 3 um you know John Robinson knows enough to know that that's not you got a quarterback quarterback like Marcus Mariota that's that's a dumb thing to do um you know this this staff didn't didn't really understand that, but the next one will. Like you said with Terry Rubisky, I mean I just remember like when it was announced that he was hired, I didn't really know who he was. And then went in like Wikipedia or whatever, and like the last time he was a coordinator, he was like Marcus Allen's coordinator with the Raiders or something. Bo Jackson. Bo Jackson. Bo Jackson, that's right. 1989, something like that.

It was just the most ridiculous thing. It's not going to be something like that. It's going to be a guy that is going to be, I wouldn't imagine would be a retread. It would be a guy that has been coordinating and is going to come in here with something besides a bunch of condensed formations. So we can be excited about that. You know, and I mean, his defensive coordinator, that'll be an interesting hire, too. You know, they ran, we were talking about this earlier, I mean, they ran mainly 3-4, the Texans did. So you would assume that they would stick with that.

And that's, you know, what the Titans personnel has been built over the last few years to run. But, you know, I don't have any idea. I mean, there's I don't even know who is on the staff with him in Houston. I mean, that seems like the most likely place that he would that he would pull that from. I mean, and I mean, I guess Dick LeBeau staying is not completely out of the question, but a guy like Vrabel being a head coach for the first time, you know, with LeBeau and that, you know, just his status and everything, I wouldn't be surprised if Vrabel kind of wants to go in a different direction. Yeah, they run the same base formation, 3-4,

so nothing's going to change personnel-wise. You know, you're not going to see, like we kind of discussed, talking about some free agency and some draft needs, you're not going to see suddenly them need to go get a hand in the dirt pass rusher. You're still going to be drafting these outside linebackers to rush off the edge. So that's good because that's what this roster's been built to do. And, you know, I don't know. I guess I'll take the opposite stance there.

Dicklebo is 80-something years old. I guess he's an asset to me because he's not really a guy that wants attention. You know, he's not really a guy that's going to be coming for your job. He just comes to work and does his job every day. to be coming for your job. He just comes to work and does his job every day. Someone reported that he put in 16 hours the day after the Titans lost to the Patriots and he was in the film room. So that kind of speaks to the kind of person, the kind of coach he is. It wouldn't surprise me to see him stick around, but like you said, there's probably a guy in Houston that he's going to consider a guy that worked under him, a linebackers coach a secondary coach someone like that it's too early to really say uh but you know at the same time

it's going to be his defense he's going to have his handprints all over it uh and like i said it's three four defense they're really multiple uh they've got some big pieces down there that they were missing so if you're going to espn right and looking at stats and seeing how bad this defense was, keep in mind they were missing J.J. Watt. Clowney was banged up from time to time. So that was a defense that really took some hits, some injuries, but they've been pretty good the past five years. So from a defensive standpoint, it's fantastic. We get caught up in talking about offense,

but at the same time, defense wins championships. You've got to be able to stop people. So I'm excited about that aspect for sure. Yeah, that's the thing. I reached out to a couple of Texas people when it was initially announced that Dave Vrabel was going to be interviewing. when it was initially announced that Dave Vrabel was going to be interviewing. And, you know, it kind of said, look, I mean, it's hard to judge him based off of this one year just because, like you said, I mean, they lost J.J. Watt and Winnie Merciless in the same game.

And that was pretty early on in the season. And so I was reading through something. I think it was on prideofdetroit.com, which is the SB Nation site for the Lions. They had done an interview with somebody probably from the Texans SB Nation site. And, you know, asking like kind of Vrabel's, I guess, defensive philosophy and like, you know, where the struggles had been this year. And it said something along the lines of basically like on third downs, you know, they asked like what's his approach on third downs.

And he said like they like to get after the quarterback and, you you know bring pressure and stuff and you know he's still he was still trying to do that this year but their secondary was so bad that you know they even when they got pressure they would still give up big plays because the guys couldn't cover so i mean i you know again being a head coach and being the defensive coordinator are two really different things um and so you know odds are he won't be running the defense next year. So we'll keep an eye on that. I mean, I've been reading through the Texans' coaching staff, and there's not really a name that jumps out at me on the defensive side of the ball,

but that's not really anything that's surprising. You hear less about, you know, the position coaches on defense than you do offensive guys. So, yeah, we'll keep an eye on that. about the position coaches on defense than you do offensive guys. So, yeah, we'll keep an eye on that. And like I said, I don't think Dick LeBeau is out of the realm of possibilities. It'll be interesting to see. And, yeah, they said after they announced that Malarkey was gone,

the assistant coaches were still under contract. A lot of them had left because Malarkey had given them the week off or whatever. But, yeah, LeBeau was still in the building. So, I so i mean says a little something about him and he just he wants a coach so that's awesome but anyway so obviously we will um you know just just follow this along as it goes and uh there's the time supposed to have a press conference on monday and i don't know that we'll get an announcement on an offensive coordinator before then or then, or if it'll be a little bit down the road. And again, it depends on who it is.

If it's somebody that's on the Eagles staff, I mean, if it's a DiFilippo, which I may not, again, have no idea. But if they win Sunday, we're actually recording this Saturday night, if they win Sunday, then you wouldn't be able to bring him in until after the Super Bowl. So all those things will be in play, but we'll keep you up to date on all that stuff as it comes. Terry, anything else before we hop off tonight? No, it's just really hard to trace potential assistants

because the dude was playing football in the NFL eight years ago. He hasn't been doing this long. He took a job with Ohio State, defensive line, linebackers, and then he ended up with Houston. So it's really a shot in the dark on our end. It's all speculation.

But, you know, like you said, we need the Eagles to lose, and we'll kind of see where we're at offensive coordinator-wise. Yeah, and again, you know, John Robinson, one of the guys that's going to come in and be a leader, and by all accounts, that's Vrabel. And he's going to bring energy to this franchise, something that this franchise needs. And so I'm excited.

Yeah, there's a lot of unknowns. He said he hadn't been coaching for very long. But we'll kind of see it play out. And, again, you know, like you said, I don't know. I'm not sure how excited I am about it just yet. But I'm absolutely more excited about it than I was Mike Malarkey. Oh, yeah. So we got that going for us.

It's a clean slate. You know, it's a new guy, and you don't – there's so many unknowns, but that's fun in this scenario. So, anyway, like I said, we'll keep you up to date on all of that. Terry said he's going to reach out to the guys that do Locked on Texans. We'll try to get them on next week and get some of their thoughts on Vrabel and what they think he'll bring to this franchise. But, hey, it's exciting.

It's the start of the new era of Titans football, and we know that there's a lot there to work with. I mean, obviously coming off of a season where they made the playoffs, won a playoff game. So there's a base there for success and they've got a foundation so hopefully variable is the guy that can come in and get it over the top so um anyway like i said stay with us uh check out museummiracles.com we'll have a lot more on this as the days go along and then we'll be back early in the week uh not sure what

day exactly yet we'll just kind of play it by ear as news breaks but we did want to go ahead and kind of jump on tonight get get the initial reaction to the hire We'll just kind of play it by ear as news breaks. But we did want to go ahead and kind of jump on tonight, get the initial reaction to the hire, and then kind of go from there. So, like I said at the beginning, check out the site. Follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmorrismcm. Terry is at tlambertfb. Subscribe to the podcast Locked on Titans

on iTunes, and then you can listen on Spotify now as well. So for Terry, this is Jimmy saying thanks for listening to Locked on Titans, and we will talk to you later this week.