On the night of the first round of the 2022 NFL draft, the Tennessee Titans decided who they wanted to be. Then-GM Jon Robinson traded standout receiver A.J. Brown to the Eagles in return for the 18th pick, after the team had lowballed him in contract talks and failed to reach an agreement. The Titans subsequently used that pick to choose Brown’s replacement, Treylon Burks. The move represented a high-profile example of Tennessee’s offseason attitude. The Titans, who also received a third-round pick in the Brown deal, were coming off a season in which they were the AFC’s top seed, but instead of attempting to retain the core of that team and remain competitive for as long as possible, the Titans decided to get younger and cheaper at key positions.
This was, in most cases, an act of responsible teamwork. The 2021 Titans had not performed as well as their 12-5 record suggested, and key players such as quarterback Ryan Tannehill and running back Derrick Henry were only getting older. Good GMing frequently entails putting up with some short-term discomfort in exchange for long-term gains. It’s called rebuilding.
The only problem was that head coach Mike Vrabel did not appear to be on board with the strategy. And now he’s gone.
On Tuesday, Titans owner Amy Adams Strunk fired Vrabel, becoming the first significant surprise on the 2024 NFL coaching carousel. Based on Vrabel’s job performance, the move is difficult to understand—he had a 56-48 record in six seasons in Tennessee and three playoff berths. His teams were known for being tough, physical, and exceeding expectations. He’d helped revive Tannehill’s career. His only two losing seasons—albeit, the latter two—coincided with terrible injury luck. His teams were excellent enough to justify adding receiver DeAndre Hopkins before the season.
He postponed the rebuild as long as feasible. However, given on the Titans’ recent decision-making and rhetoric on Tuesday, it appears that it eventually became Vrabel or the rebuild. And the reconstruction triumphed.
Strunk spent a significant amount of time in her statement announcing the firing discussing the Titans’ organizational hierarchy, in addition to thanking Vrabel for his work and wishing him well.
“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,” the statement went on to say. “Last year, we initiated a transition in our approach to football leadership and made significant personnel changes to support that strategy. As I proceeded to examine our team’s situation, I came to the decision that the club would benefit from the new coaching staff’s fresh approach and perspective.”
Reading between the lines, Strunk’s “shift in our approach to football leadership” refers to Robinson’s firing and the subsequent employment of Ran Carthon, the 49ers’ former director of player personnel. Robinson’s firing was similarly unexpected; it occurred in December 2022, while the Titans were winning their division. It appeared, in part, to be a referendum on the Brown trade. Two days before, the Titans fell 35-10 at Philadelphia, with Brown scoring two touchdowns against his former team. Firing Robinson also promoted Vrabel, who had been visibly furious on draft night when the Brown deal was announced and had apparently argued with Robinson over other roster selections.If Vrabel believed that the Titans should focus on competing rather than rebuilding, Brown’s performance in Philadelphia and the Titans’ winning record at the time reinforced this.
However, once Robinson was fired, the Titans lost all of their remaining games that season. Last offseason’s messaging was somewhat mixed—the Titans avoided dealing guys like Tannehill, Henry, and defensive end Denico Autry while adding Hopkins—but by late October, they were in sell mode, shipping safety Kevin Byard to the Eagles before of the trade deadline. Tennessee finished 6-11, and Vrabel is 6-18 since the season-ending losing streak in 2022.
Carthon is now the Titans’ most senior football player, as the team prepares for the offseason with the fourth-largest salary cap room of any NFL team. It’s also the offseason when they’ll likely part ways with Henry, the franchise’s face for the past eight years, and begin determining whether 2023 second-round pick quarterback Will Levis can be a long-term starter. Carthon, who is now in his second year as chief executive, will oversee a huge organizational reset. Not to mention the head-coaching search he’s now assisting with.
As a free agent coach, Vrabel quickly becomes one of the most sought-after names in a cycle that already includes Bill Belichick and Jim Harbaugh. Do the Chargers want Harbaugh-style program building and discipline at a bit lower cost? Vrabel. Do the Patriots want a harsh coach who can be an extension of the Belichick era while also bringing new ideas, connecting well with players, and having more experience than Jerod Mayo? Vrabel. Do the Titans want a leader who has a track record of accomplishing more with less? Vra—oh, yes.
And that’s where the problem lies. Vrabel is unquestionably a good coach, but if you want to make an argument, look at how much damage control the Titans are doing after being widely chastised for firing Vrabel rather than trading him, with the assumption that other teams would be interested in Vrabel and they could have gotten something in exchange. The Titans explained that it was too “complicated” to hash out contract issues and gain Vrabel’s buy-in to permit a trade, thus the delay would have prohibited them from moving swiftly in a coaching search.
The Titans obviously need to rebuild this summer, and if Strunk and Carthon were confident they couldn’t go through the process with Vrabel, the choice makes sense. It’s a shame, since a group of young players looking for growth and a sense of team identity could do much worse than have Mike Vrabel as their coach. But in the end, it came down to him or the rebuild, and the reconstruction triumphed.
