By Dianna Russini, Joe Rexrode and Larry Holder
The Tennessee Titans fired coach Mike Vrabel after six seasons in Nashville, the team announced Tuesday.
“As the NFL continues to innovate and evolve, I believe the teams best positioned for sustained success will be those who empower an aligned and collaborative team across all football functions,” Titans owner Amy Adams Strunk said in a statement. “Last year, we began a shift in our approach to football leadership and made several changes to our personnel to advance that plan. As I continued to assess the state of our team, I arrived at the conclusion that the team would also benefit from the fresh approach and perspective of a new coaching staff.”
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Vrabel, 48, finished the 2023 season with a 6-11 record, his worst mark during his Titans tenure. It’s the second straight year Tennessee finished with a losing record and missed the postseason.
The former Super Bowl-winning New England Patriots linebacker found plenty of success during his first four seasons as the Titans’ coach. He went 41-24 in the regular season and 2-3 in the postseason from 2018 to 2021. But a 13-21 record over the last two seasons led to Vrabel’s departure.
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The Titans’ offense has fallen off the past two seasons with the unit ranking near the bottom of the league in yards and points. Tennessee has used Ryan Tannehill, Malik Willis and Will Levis as its starting quarterbacks during the last two years.
All-Pro running back Derrick Henry told The Athletic he was “shocked” to hear the news.
“Coach Vrabel is a leader of men. He is a great coach and teacher,” Henry said. “I know he will get another opportunity right away. I look forward to it.”
The franchise is now looking to hire its sixth coach since moving from Houston to Tennessee.
How surprising is this decision?
Vrabel impressed early in his tenure with the Titans as a first-time head coach in 2018, got them to the AFC title game the next season, won the AFC South the two seasons after that was named NFL Coach of the Year in 2021 for nabbing the AFC’s No. 1 seed despite injuries forcing the most players rostered in NFL history. He’s an effective combination of being brutally frank to his players and willing to listen and work with them, and that has worked well for him. But the Titans roster declined drastically in the past two seasons — for which he deserves some blame — and he has made some poor staff hires. The fans started to turn on him this season for the first time, amid 18 losses in 24 games, and that couldn’t have helped him. – Joe Rexrode, Titans beat writer
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What’s next for the Titans?
The most important consideration for the Titans now is finding a coach who can mesh with and develop Levis. Levis, a second-round pick out of Kentucky, impressed enough this season to make it clear he’s the guy moving forward, and he seemed to benefit from the coaching of offensive coordinator Tim Kelly and quarterbacks coach Charles London. Coaching upheaval typically doesn’t mesh well with quarterback development, but at least it’s only been a year in the league for Levis. One obvious connection here is Houston Texans offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik, who was with Titans general manager Ran Carthon in San Francisco and clearly has been effective in his one season with Texans rookie quarterback CJ Stroud. – Rexrode
Required reading
- Titans’ Derrick Henry era will continue in 2024 if they’re smart, but are they?
- Mike Vrabel rumors won’t go away, but Titans fans shouldn’t want him to go away
- Does NFL want ‘quirky’ Jim Harbaugh? ‘He’s won everywhere he’s been, but what comes with it?’
(Photo: Cooper Neill / Getty Images)