NASHVILLE, Tenn. – When Jon Robinson led the Titans decision to fire Mike Mularkey after a playoff season in 2016, his primary attraction to Mike Vrabel was Vrabel’s ability to lead.
“Obviously I hadn't worked with him from a coaching standpoint, I had really observed him as a player in the way that he conducted himself as a leader on those teams in New England,” Robinson said. “Certainly, I watched his coaching career from afar, you know, when he was at Ohio State and with the Texans. I knew that the leadership was going to be something. He just a natural leader.”
After two years working with Vrabel, I wondered if Vrabel has delivered something different and/or something more than Robinson expected when he chose him as Mularkey’s replacement.
“I think that he has been knew he was a hands-on coach but been even more hands on,” Robinson said. “And he loves football so much he spends as much time on the offensive side and in the kicking game as he does on defense. A lot of times when you got a defensive player who's been a defensive coach you expect him to spend most of his time on the defense.
“Well, he had Dean (Pees) he's entrusted some coaching staff on the defensive side. And he spent a lot of time on offense and special teams and now that that side is going good, you know, he just kind of bounces around and he's been really, really more hands on than I expected him to be.”
A bit too often when things when things have been off-course at quarterback or kicker Vrabel’s talked about how he didn’t play quarterback or kicker. He needs to be expert at everything as a head coach and have the capacity to rub off on everyone in similar fashion.
Vrabel's expertise at linebacker has had a big bearing on the likes of Rashaan Evans, Jayon Brown and Kamalei Correa and it’s why the Titans felt comfortable taking a one-year $9.5 million flier on Vic Beasley.
Vrabel’s hands-on coaching has also influenced other players at positions beyond linebacker -- with defensive linemen and on the opposite side of the ball with offensive linemen and tight ends who he would have worked against just 10 years ago.
It's not something we see very often elsewhere, and it set the coach apart more than Robinson even imagined it would when he hired him.
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