Tennessee Titans defensive coordinator Dean Pees announces retirement

FOXBOROUGH, MA - 2009: Deen Pees of the New England Patriots poses for his 2009 NFL headshot at photo day in Foxborough, Massachusetts. (Photo by NFL Photos)
FOXBOROUGH, MA - 2009: Deen Pees of the New England Patriots poses for his 2009 NFL headshot at photo day in Foxborough, Massachusetts. (Photo by NFL Photos) /
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Tennessee Titans defensive coordinator Dean Pees retires.

Tennessee Titans defensive coordinator Dean Pees announced today that he was going to go back into retirement after two years in Nashville.

For whatever faults Pees had this year, the fact is that he came to the Titans in 2018 and helped instantly improve that defense. As it trended towards elite status late in the year, players like Jayon Brown, Harold Landry, Rashaan Evans, and Logan Ryan shined.

Meanwhile, established Titans stars like Kevin Byard and Jurrell Casey looked like they were constantly being set up for success.

His defense in 2018 will probably go down as one of the most impressive that Tennessee has had in the last two decades in terms of points allowed and sleepless night caused to opposing offensive coordinators.

This comes as a bad break for Tennessee because it happens at the same time that DB coach Kerry Coombs had committed to taking the coordinator job back at Ohio State where he and Mike Vrabel worked together.

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If not for that, there is a chance that Coombs could have been promoted to the coordinator job in Tennessee.

Before we discuss what comes next and who will replace him, everyone needs to remember what a great job he and the entire defensive staff did getting the young guys from the last two draft classes into the flow of this defense.

Jeffery Simmons, Harold Landry and Rashaan Evans have become huge parts of what makes this Titans team successful on defense and without Pees who knows if they are able to play at the level that we saw for much of the season.

With that said, I wonder what Vrabel does with Romeo Crennel now back on the market who he worked with for a long time. Also, look out for maybe the most well respected defensive coordinator in the league in Wade Phillips whose father Bum Phillips is famous for coaching the “Luv Ya Blue” Houston Oilers.

Either way, for the fourth time in Mike Vrabel’s two-year career as a head coach, he faces the problem of hiring a coordinator in January.