It's hard to look past Mike Vrabel's 6-foot-4, 250-ish pound frame, the constant 5 o'clock shadow, and a bottom lip that usually hides some form of tobacco. As a former star at Ohio State and a 14-year NFL vet, the man is intimidating - that unnamed NFL GM from last off-season wasn't wrong. Run afoul of Vrabel, and he won't just turn a blind eye to it. But there's another side to this year's top coaching candidate worth exploring.
Several years ago, Ben Jones informed Vrabel, then his head coach in Tennessee, that he would have to tell the Titans center when it was time to hang it up. If someone let him, Jones knew he would keep trying to play long after the tread was off the tires. So when that day came, Vrabel called Jones into his office and informed him of the decision. But what came out of his mouth may surprise you.
"I'm doing this for your wife, your kids, and you 20 years down the line," Jones recalled in a phone call with me on Tuesday night. "He said, 'I love you like my own, but I cannot call your wife because you didn't get up that one play.' I respect him for that because many people in this game will run their guys into the ground and don't care about their wives and kids at home. He cares exponentially more than people would think."
That's not something you can see on the outside looking in, but there are countless stories like that from Vrabel's time in Nashville.
"100%, said Jones. "He always says, 'Just be open and honest with me. If you've got something going on with kids, like saying Jeff (Simmons) had something going on with his daughter, let him know, and he will work with you. I had sick kids, or a big appointment with my wife - something like that - he's like, 'Hey, we're gonna work around this.' As long as you communicate and treat us (the Titans) right, we'll treat you better than you ever imagined."
Now, plenty of good men have coached in the National Football League. But you won't last as a coordinator or head coach unless you succeed. The Titans had four straight winning seasons to start Vrabel's tenure, earning the number one seed in 2021 despite having to use the most players in a single season because of the staggering number of injuries that team suffered.
They also found some postseason success, advancing to the AFC title game in 2019. The Titans beat the Patriots in Foxborough to start that run, ending Tom Brady's time in New England, then won at Baltimore, and entered the fourth quarter in Kansas City down just four, 21-17, before losing the eventual Super Bowl champs, 35-24.
"He gave us a clear vision of what it took to win," said Jones. "Guys see it and believe it. That's what sets him apart. He knows how to take the upcoming game and give us goals that we can achieve each week."
Vrabel gave the team three markers to hit on offense and three on defense. Every. Single. Week.
"If we hit 'em, we won," admired Jones.
How did Vrabel find those edges? Preparation. He and his staff were relentless and not afraid to operate outside the margins. They asked his players to put forth that same effort. Jones recalls watching tape, having Vrabel sit beside him, asking him questions. Why did you make this call and set the protection a certain way? Why are you blocking that player in such a manner? As long as you could explain your process, the head coach was good with it.
Vrabel would also have his staff put together 30 or so penalty calls every week, then contact the head of officials and ask for them to explain. There was the Friday teaching tape - shown to the entire team and staff - showing important plays - game-winning or game-changing plays - from other games the week prior.
"It could be Hail Mary procedure or four-minute offense," Jones told me. "It could be, hey, these referees are calling pass interference when you do this, or hey, this is showing up on special teams. This is the new punt block trend. We saw everything the week before, so it wouldn't happen to us. So we're prepared for those situations where a lot of teams I've been on, you just worried about yourself and the game plan.
"We knew the scenario before it happened."
The Titans stumbled in Vrabel's final two seasons. They were 7-3 in 2022 before dropping their final seven games (although four were by five points or less). The offense never recovered from the trade of A.J. Brown - a player Vrabel had no desire to move - and the offensive line, once a pillar, crumbled with injuries to left tackle Taylor Lewan (he played 2 games) and Jones. Combine that with GM Jon Robinson's swing and miss on 2020 first-round tackle Isaiah Wilson, who played one game for the team that season and was out of football the next (Robinson, by the way, was fired before the 2022 season concluded). In some ways, Vrabel keeping that team competitive should be a feather in his cap, not a knock.
A year later, with GM Ran Carthon (who got fired yesterday) foisted upon him in an arranged marriage by owner Amy Adams Strunk (if you think you have it bad...), the Titans finished 6-11, transitioning from Ryan Tannehill mid-year to Will Levis. Yet they remained competitive. His firing caught everyone by surprise.
"I'm always going to be indebted to him," said Derrick Henry then. "He did his very best to put us in position to win every week.
"He did a lot of great things," Tannehill told Dianna Russini. "He was definitely one of the best, if not the best, head coach I played for as far as how we prepared as a team and how he educated the team on a weekly basis. Situationally, I always felt like we were really good, and game management, I felt like we were really good. That's where the head coach comes in. I don't know what their reasons were for letting him go."
Jones thinks that experience and what Vrabel did this year for Cleveland (worked with TEs, OL, the front office, and scouting) will only serve to make him better in his next stop. And don't worry about lines being blurred. The players will know exactly who Vrabel is and what he's about.
"What sets him apart from every other coach is he is a Head Coach (said with emphasis). He's not a defense coordinator; he's not an offensive coordinator. He is a leader of men," said Jones. "Everything runs through him in that building, and he has a heartbeat in the 'O' line room, the tight ends room - he spends time in every room where a lot of these coaches are calling plays or doing that, and they lose the heartbeat of the team because they're not spending much time with everybody. He won't do that, and I think that's what makes it special."