Inside the Titans’ Decision to Move on From Mike Vrabel

The coaching carousel is spinning. So in this week’s Tuesday Notes, we’ll spin with it …

• We got our curveball on Tuesday with the Tennessee Titans firing of sixth-year coach Mike Vrabel.

Vrabel went 54–45 in Tennessee. He won the AFC South twice, made the playoffs three times, and got to the AFC title game in 2019—building a program with a verifiable identity that was, right through Sunday’s upset win over the Jacksonville Jaguars that cost the Jags the division, easy to decipher even for the most casual of football observers.

Obvious next question: Why would the Titans walk away from Vrabel?

Answering that question isn’t easy. Speculation that he could depart has run rampant over the last month in NFL circles. I don’t think this is about the relationship between he and first-year GM Ran Carthon, which to those in the building appeared to be fine, even as their 2023 season, which was a reset year from a roster standpoint and one with cornerstones Ryan Tannehill and Derrick Henry in contract years, circled the drain.

I think this is mostly about an owner—Amy Adams Strunk—with a reputation for being a bit impulsive and quick-triggered, searching for the right organizational structure, which has very clearly eluded her to this point.

History can tell the story.

In 2016, she hired Jon Robinson as GM and kept interim coach Mike Mularkey. Two winning seasons later, and after the team’s first playoff win in 14 years, Mularkey was fired after he took public exception with (what he thought was) the organization leaking word that his job status was in question. Strunk then hired Vrabel who shared New England Patriot roots with Robinson. Then, last December, with the team in first place at 7–5 and competing for a third straight AFC South title, she suddenly pulled the plug on Robinson.

Folks in the building thought that one was in pursuit of a more open, friendly and innovative workplace, an idea backed up by her decision to mine the forward-thinking 49ers to find her next GM in Carthon. And now, as she’s started to shape that vision of again pursuing the right structure, she’s built one that doesn’t quite fit the head coach she’s always said to have adored.

So to me, this isn’t about Vrabel or Carthon. It’s about Strunk. Vrabel likes the personnel part of his job, and came from places (Bill Belichick’s New England, Urban Meyer’s Ohio State Buckeyes, Bill O’Brien’s Houston Texans) where the head coach had a very strong voice, if not total control, in picking the players. It stands to reason that Vrabel expected a little more of that, and rightfully so, when Strunk did what she did last year. That would also explain, to be sure, why Vrabel might’ve been less of a fit in a more built-out front office.

In other words, a year ago when change happened—with the benefit of hindsight now—it sure looks like the coach and owner had very different visions on where things were going.

But for now, it does make the Titans look rudderless, and Strunk look like she’s going with whichever way the wind blows—having retained a head coach she really likes, and one who’s proven to be a top coach in the league, only to set her organization up in a way that didn’t fit him.

Where Vrabel played, you’re not collecting talent, you’re building a team.

Strunk would be wise to heed that with her next coach.

• The other question here: Why not trade Vrabel?

Another good, fair question. The answer, to me, is that the Rooney Rule makes it enormously difficult to do so with a sitting head coach.

Let’s say the Titans are trading Vrabel to the Patriots. In that scenario, New England would first have to interview two diverse candidates in-person. The problem is that, starting this year, you can’t do those sorts of interviews with guys currently employed by NFL teams until after the divisional round. So the Patriots would either have to interview two people like Marvin Lewis and Herm Edwards (which would invite a lot of scrutiny from the league) or wait until the fourth week of January.

So Tennessee wouldn’t be able to get going on its coaching search until then. And then, what about the Patriots? They still employ Bill Belichick. So they’d have to fire Belichick to conduct those interviews. And if they’re trying to trade Belichick, they’d be facing the same timeline issues that the Titans would be.

Again, I don’t think Tennessee did the right thing in firing Vrabel. But as far as doing it without seeking compensation first, I can see the benefit in just moving on, rather than dragging anything out.

• One last thing here, in case anyone is wondering how things had gone this week in Nashville—Vrabel and Carthon held exit meetings with players on Monday, and Vrabel and Strunk had their meeting one-on-one on Tuesday morning. My understanding is there was no real back-and-forth. Strunk gave Vrabel her decision and that was that.

I said on Twitter that “stunned” would be the right word to describe the feelings in the team facility. The reason why, I’d expect, will be reflected in the interest that comes from other teams in Vrabel. And that’s because he checks a lot of boxes as a head coach. He’s a former player, who can relate with just about everyone in the room. He’s a strong leader. He can coach all three phases and has expertise in the rules and situational football that allows for his players to weaponize those things against an opponent.

I’d bet Vrabel’s old team in New England will be interested, assuming Belichick is on his way out. I’d also bet the Pats won’t be the only one.

• The Panthers’ initial list for GM interviews is interesting, in that it includes more guys from the analytics/cap/operations side (five) than the scouting side (four), and it raises the possibility that Carolina, like Washington, is toying with straying from a traditional setup.

To that end, one thing that’s been rumored in these circles over the last week is that owner David Tepper is seriously considering the idea of pairing incumbent assistant GM Dan Morgan with one the ops side guys, be it Tampa’s Mike Greenberg, Kansas City’s Brandt Tilis, Philadelphia’s Alec Halaby, New Orleans’s Khai Harley or Baltimore’s Nick Matteo.

And the idea that such a setup would be considered is bolstered by the prominent role that ex-Chelsea FC executive Mike Forde is taking in the search—with the Panthers having retained Forde’s firm, Sportsology, to assist in finding a top executive and coach.

There’s also evidence that Carolina is very sensitive to perception that its job is not desirable, having checked in with candidates to try to make sure they’d accept interview requests before formally putting slips in. That explains, for one, why the team would be careful about putting in a slip for someone like Dallas Cowboys VP of player personnel Will McClay, who is comfortable in his job and has turned down requests in the past—even after the Panthers contacted Dallas, and effectively did what the slip would, in asking for him.

• McClay’s case is worth examining.

He’s without question one of the top candidates out there on the GM side, and has an incredible track record of filling the Cowboys roster on the high and low ends through free agency and the draft. He was also once a coach and has a good history of working with coaches through his time with Jason Garrett and Mike McCarthy.

At the same time, the Jones family has deployed him in a GM-type role and made it worth his while to stay. He’s lived in Dallas for a long time, and he and his family are comfortable there. That’s allowed for him to be picky about opportunities that have come his way.

I believe McClay will eventually leave to take his shot and be a fantastic GM. But at this point, especially with owners who are sensitive to the idea that their jobs might, again, not be the most desirable (and a lot of jobs like that exist on the market, otherwise they wouldn’t be open) ones out there, there can be this fear of being shot down. Which is why an owner might just call another owner and put a request in personally, rather than submitting a slip formally that winds up going to the league.

• The Commanders’ search for a president of football operations is underway, and the first piece of it started on Tuesday with Chiefs assistant GM Mike Borgonzi, Browns assistant GM Glenn Cook and 49ers assistant GM Adam Peters interviewing with owner Josh Harris and consultants Rick Spielman and Bob Myers in Miami.

Whoever gets that job will be a part of filling out the rest of the org chart, with the likelihood being it’ll be like some basketball or baseball clubs, where the president of operations oversees the general manager and head coach (or manager, in baseball). And this sort of setup has existed, to a degree, before, with ex-coaches like Bill Parcells in Miami, Mike Holmgren in Cleveland and Tom Coughlin in Jacksonville captaining such structures.

The difference this time around, based on the interview list, is that the Commanders probably see the top role as a lot less of an emeritus type of role than the Dolphins, Browns or Jaguars did. But the general idea with those was that you’d have an over-the-top guy tying everything together, and I think, for the Commanders, it’ll be a more involved, younger guy doing some of the same things.

• The Los Angeles Chargers put out a lot of slips on Monday and Tuesday, seemingly casting a wide net—as they have said they would—in their searches for both a head coach and a GM.

It makes sense to do that quickly, because it allows the Chargers to information-gather a lot of different ideas from a lot of different organizations, and consider a lot of different concepts in an effort to—to borrow their word—reimagine their football operation. But it also allows for the team to satisfy the rules about searching for a head coach if the plan is to go big-game hunting.

And you might have noticed a certain coach whose season ended on Monday night is now available.

• The Broncos brass spoke publicly to wrap the season up on Tuesday, and that meant answering questions on Russell Wilson’s future—which isn’t likely to be in Denver much longer. Here’s what Sean Payton said: “I told him, ‘Look, I don’t think it’s going to be a long, drawn-out process, but it hasn't been decided relative to what our plans are.’ As soon as we know something, certainly, he would be the first to know.”

Wilson really doesn’t have to do anything, and he’ll become a free agent. Which, based on how the last month was received by his camp (the word “disrespect” was used pretty liberally) is the result he’d want, and the one that Denver has already put in motion.

The reason why? Because if Denver keeps him on the roster into the fifth day of the league year in mid-March, then his $37 million injury guarantee for 2025 vests, becoming fully guaranteed. And the whole ask on Halloween, from the team to Wilson, was to push that date back. So, the call has been made to pay the $39 million he’s owed (minus offsets) for 2024 and get out of the deal, rather than be responsible for $76 million the next two years.

• T.J. Watt’s absence for this weekend is a big one. But as the tougher ones go, I wouldn’t underrate what losing Andrew Van Ginkel will mean for the Dolphins, either. Already without Jaelan Phillips and Bradley Chubb, having to face Patrick Mahomes while missing another edge rusher is not ideal. (As if going into Kansas City with a forecast calling for temps to drop below zero won’t be difficult enough for a team from Florida.)

• Still waiting for the white smoke to emerge from the chapel in Foxboro.