Tennessee Titans hire Dean Pees as defensive coordinator
Mike Vrabel and the Tennessee TItans have persuaded former Baltimore Ravens defensive coordinator Dean Pees to come out of retirement and join the staff.
As Tennessee Titans fans grew more impatient and national media vitriol suggested that new Titans head coach Mike Vrabel was unfit for his position, the coordinator floodgates opened on Monday night when the Titans persuaded former Baltimore Ravens DC Dean Pees to come out of a brief retirement to hold the same position in Nashville.
Pees is a true veteran when it comes to defensive coaching. He coached a variety of different position groups and coordinated a few defenses in college from 1979 to 1997, including at Notre Dame and Michigan State. He then was the head coach for Kent State from 1998 to 2003.
The Ohio native used his managerial position to springboard himself into the NFL, getting a job on Bill Belichick’s staff as a linebackers coach on the New England Patriots, where he specifically coached Vrabel, who was a star linebacker for New England at the time. Pees was promoted to defensive coordinator, a position he held for four seasons, including the 16-0 squad that somehow lost to the New York Giants in the Super Bowl despite giving up just 17 points.
Pees did not return when his contract expired after the 2009 season and joined the Baltimore Ravens as a linebackers coach. Following the same path he did in New England, Pees was promoted to DC after two seasons of coaching the linebacker position.
Pees enjoyed a ton of success as the Ravens’ head of defense from 2012 to 2017, as he won the Super Bowl in his first year as DC. Pees’ defensive units ranked top 10 in DVOA in four of the last five seasons. In 2017, his defense forced a league-leading 34 turnovers and scored six defensive touchdowns.
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He schemes up an aggressive defense, though he tends to get softer as games go on and situations become more delicate. It’ll be interesting to see how much input the defensive-minded Vrabel has on play-calling and decision-making late in games. I would expect Vrabel to have a lot of influence, as he wasn’t brought in just to be a “leader of men”.
With the defensive coordinator position now locked in, the big remaining domino to fall will be the offensive coordinator role. Interviewee Brian Callahan never seemed like a top priority for the Titans. Ryan Day did, but he stayed at Ohio State. The most intriguing name is, of course, John DeFilippo, who can’t be interviewed until the Super Bowl is over. All signs point to Vrabel and Jon Robinson being patient for a reason, and the job still being open while DeFilippo has to wait to be an option seems too good to be true. Let’s hope it’s not.