BREAKING NEWS: Titans Fire Head Coach Mike Vrabel | The Insiders
Welcome inside with The Insiders alongside Mike Garafolo and Judy Battista. I am Tom Pelissero. We are four days out from Super Wild Card Weekend. We will preview all those games. We will get to a variety of injury updates, impact those games, but let’s start this show with some breaking news where we spent a lot of time over the past couple of days. Another coaching change in the NFL this time it is the Titans who have fired coach Mike Vrabel after six seasons in Tennessee. Vrabel, long regarded as one of the top coaches in the NFL.
At one point, he led the Titans to three consecutive playoff berths. But since the middle of last season, the Titans have lost 18 out of 24 games. There was uncertainty over the past couple of days, Vrabel told both his staff and his players he would let them know once there was something to know. I’m told Vrabel did meet with his staff this morning and delivered the news. The Titans have decided to move on, specifically their controlling owner, Amy Adams. Strunk has decided to move on, saying in part in a statement as I continue to assess
the state of our team, I arrived at the conclusion that the team would benefit from the fresh approach and perspective of a new coaching staff, Strunk also
who was hired last year after John Robinson’s firing. There were always a bunch of breadcrumbs here that things were not lined up in terms of where they wanted to go. There was going to be a meeting this week. It happened earlier today. Mike. Mike Vrabel is out. You would certainly anticipate he’s going to have a lot of interest. And one of those spots should be pretty obvious. And a lot of the NFL landscape is surprised and I know that the Titans locker room is surprised. And I’m going to go back to something that Judy said
yesterday. We were breaking this down, and it may have been about the Titans, or it may have been about somebody, another team. But the point we were making was, boy, that locker room is really behind Mike Vrabel. He’s got a lot of support there. And Judy goes in the end, that doesn’t really always matter because the ownership will make the decision that they decide is the best decision moving forward. And clearly this decision was made by ownership and not by the locker room, because he did have that support there. So this does send ripple effects.
It’s not just about what’s going to happen in Tennessee. Ran Carthon got that job as general manager last year, and anytime a GM comes in, no matter how good or successful the head coach has been, if there’s a little bit of a crack now for a change, and the GM to get the chance to hire his own person in a lot of times that’s what’s happening or that’s what’s happening, and that’s what’s happening in this case, Judy. So there is the ripple effect of what could potentially happen in New England now that Robert Kraft will
know that Mike Vrabel is available. Also, Adam Peters, who’s a hot general manager candidate, was with Vrabel in New England. So perhaps he becomes a candidate for wherever Peters lands. This one is going to have a widespread ripple effect for sure. Well, first of all, let’s go. Big picture. Mike Vrabel will draw interest from multiple franchises. He is a very well regarded head coach the last two seasons notwithstanding, adding they obviously didn’t get the results , but they made three playoff appearances in Tennessee. He’s regarded, as you said, he has the locker room support really
smart, really innovative. So he will have interest in other places. But certainly we have been watching New England anyway. That is the most intriguing situation in the NFL right now. And this makes it even more intriguing because as the Patriots and Bill Belichick sort of work through what they’re going to do here is Mike Vrabel now. And he is a favorite son of the New England Patriots. They put him in the Patriots Hall of Fame during the season. He was on a Titans bye week. And after the ceremony he watched the game from Robert Kraft’s
suite, which provided this sort of striking visual. A head coach who was not his own head coach, sitting next to an owner during an NFL game and one of the comments that Vrabel made, uh, during that ceremony, he told fans, enjoy this because it’s not this way. Everywhere which at the time I remember reading that remark and thinking, hmm, that sounds like a shot at his own organization. Um, he is really well regarded by the Patriots organization. It’s certainly something to keep an eye on. We’ll talk more about Belichick. Certainly. We don’t know yet what’s
going to happen there. Belichick could stay. But certainly if there is movement in New England you have to have Vrabel on the radar. Well I’ve been told Bill Belichick and Robert Kraft did spend time together at a at length on Monday to discuss how they’re going to navigate the path forward here. Still too soon to say exactly where this ends in New England, especially when you also take into account Bill Belichick’s comments from yesterday making a point with reporters to say that he is under contract, that he’s continued to do things the way that he
always has. He was asked about potentially ceding personnel control and said, I’m for whatever is best for the organization. One read on that Judy would be this is Bill Belichick’s way of saying, hey, if I’m not the coach here, don’t ask me questions about it. This is going to be a Robert Kraft decision. You would anticipate those those those conversations are going to continue here. Mike Vrabel suddenly becoming a coaching free agent is notable here because not only is he close still with Robert Kraft, Mike Vrabel is also well respected by Bill Belichick. A lot
of different moving parts here at a time. We now have six head coaching vacancies and still maybe more to come. Yeah, I think the initial read of Belichick’s comments are he wants to stay. That is his preference would be to stay even if it requires changes in his role to fix things in New England. But but you’re absolutely right. The subtext there is also, if I’m not going to be the New England Patriots head coach, it’s going to be Robert Kraft that breaks up the band, not me. I am not walking away from this job.
So we will see how those conversations develop. But you would be naive to not realize that Vrabel’s availability now has to be in the back of everybody’s mind. Does it ultimately influence the decision in New England? Who knows? But certainly the availability of someone that they like and respect and have long successful experience with. Um, maybe makes a change there? Uh, less difficult to make. Uh, the fact that there was at least one day of conversation here and we expected this. We didn’t think that there was going to be a quick decision in New England
means that Robert Kraft is at least, uh, entertaining. The idea of continuing with Bill Belichick. And we talked actually earlier today before the news of Mike Vrabel, uh, getting let go. And we said one of the things that Robert Kraft is surely considering in his own mind is, am I going to fire this great coach. Here to bring in who who might be better than Bill Belichick? Well, now he’s got another option. And I know that he had talked about Jerod Mayo as a potential successor in New England, which started our whole thought that this
was a make or break year for Belichick when Kraft said that, uh, back in March. But this is surely Robert Kraft looking out and saying, well, he hasn’t lost the locker room. They’re still playing hard for him. They’re still playing smart and disciplined and everything that Bill Belichick wants his Patriots team to do. If we just get the quarterback and we get that side of the ball right, maybe we can get this thing moving back in the right direction quickly. These are all the things that Robert Kraft is going to have to consider. And now
on top of that, Mike Vrabel’s availability, see if I could just add one more thing. I was up in New England a few weeks ago when they played the Chiefs. They lost that game, but the team was playing hard. And one thing as you’re watching it was who would Robert Kraft and Jonathan Kraft trust? More than Bill Belichick to rebuild that team? Because they’ve got some work to do, but they don’t have work to do on the defensive side of the ball. They’ve got work to do on the roster and on the offensive side of
the ball. And who is it out there that that you tru
