5 names to know for the next Titans DC.
The Tennessee Titans went through the 2020 season without a defensive coordinator and it resulted in the worst 3rd down defense in the long history of the NFL.
It was pathetic to a degree unseen in Tennessee and the embarrassing lack of adjustments or self-evaluation that the coaching staff did over the course of the season seems to indicate that they either don’t know how to fix it or they don’t care.
Either way, no coach on defense should be safe. Especially Shane Bowen.
I believe that Mike Vrabel wanted to make Shane Bowen the DC before the season, but his resume wasn’t strong enough and he knew there was a real chance that he would struggle. In his head, I think that he thought that he was sparing Bowen from being the man behind one of the worst defenses in the NFL.
Instead, everyone saw through what he was trying to pull and it just made Bowen look weak and like someone who got the job because he was friends with Vrabel.
This is incredibly important to clarify and I will write something more detailed later, but if there is one thing you should take from this piece it is that: The defensive failures of the 2020 Tennessee Titans were the results of bad coaching and not bad players.
Now, with that out of the way, let me talk about the coaches that have a good chance of rising through the ranks to the Titans DC job this offseason.
The Filter
Mike Vrabel believes in people and he trusts the people he works with to lead him in the right direction. To that end, Mike Vrabel hired someone he trusted and who he had worked with in the past to be his DC when he first took the Titans HC job: Dean Pees.
He seemingly trusts people that he has worked with directly and if he hasn’t worked with him (or someone that he really trusts) good luck getting a job on the Titans staff. In fact, of the 8 DCs or position coaches that Mike Vrabel has hired, there is only 1 that didn’t work with him or Pees before joining the Titans.
That would be Terrell Williams the defensive line coach. Here is a list of the rest of the coaches that he has hired and their connection to him.
-Shane Bowen (OLB coach, sort of the DC): Worked with Vrabel at Ohio State and with the Houston Texans
–Jim Haslett (LB coach): Coached Mike Vrabel when he was with the Pittsburgh Steelers
–Tyrone McKenzie (former LB coach): Played under Dean Pees with the New England Patriots
-Anthony Midget (secondary coach): Worked with Vrabel with the Houston Texans
-Kerry Coombs (former secondary coach): Worked with Vrabel at Ohio State
-Scott Booker (safeties): Played and coached with Dean Pees at Kent State
Hiring people you know and trust can be a good thing, I mean Dean Pees, Kerry Coombs and Tyrone McKenzie were all good coaches. The problem is that for every one of those coaches, you also get a Shane Bowen, Anthony Midget, or Jim Haslett weighing your team down.
But, we can use this information to narrow down the list of potential DCs that Mike Vrabel might pick. Any candidate MUST have either coached or played with Mike Vrabel or they won’t be on this list.
So, starting at the bottom…
5. Matt Patricia, former Lions HC and Patriots DC
I actually think that Matt Patricia would be a good defensive play-caller for the Tennessee Titans, especially when you consider what he did outside of his job as the head man in Detroit. Remember, we just saw this year that a defensive-minded head coach has nothing to do with whether or not the defense is actually good.
The drop off from Dean Pees to Shane Bowen was like throwing a boulder off of a mountain and there was nothing Vrabel could do to slow that plummet.
So forgetting the three years that Patricia spent as a HC and thinking about six years Patricia spent as a DC, look at his stats over that stretch:
–Seasons in the top-10 in points allowed: 6 of 6
–Above-average DVOA ranking seasons: 5 of 6
-Above-average team sacks (16th or higher): 6 of 6
-Top-10 in team sacks: 3 of 6
Say what you want about Patricia, but predominantly runs a 4-2-5 defense and he would be great for the development of young stars like Harold Landry and Jeffery Simmons who fit best in that front.
He is the only veteran play-caller on this list too just to show you how limited the pool of good DCs with experience is.
4. Bill Kollar, Broncos DL coach
Kollar is a lifelong defensive line coach who has made it a habit of creating and developing Pro Bowl players. When Kollar joined the St. Louis Rams in 2001, he started coaching Leonard Little.
Little was in his 4th season and in his first three seasons he combined for just 5.5 sacks and 5 TFLs, which is just more than one of each per year. In the 5 years Leonard spent with Kollar, he totaled 55 sacks and 51 TFLs which is 11 sacks and 10+ TFLs per year.
The next season, he joined the Buffalo Bills and helped EDGE Aaron Schobel make it to back to back (and his only two) Pro Bowl seasons. In Buffalo, he also helped a 5th round pick named Kyle Williams find his footing and earn his place in the NFL before going on to having a career with 6 Pro Bowls.
After that, he started on his path towards meeting Mike Vrabel when he joined the Houston Texans for a six-year stint. Here is an incredibly interesting note from his time there: between Antonio Smith, Mario Williams, and J.J. Watt, Kollar’s unit was by far the best on the team and made a combined 5 Pro Bowls between the three of them in that time.
Finally, he has been with the Denver Broncos since 2015 where he won a Super Bowl ring in his first season. Under his tutelage, Von Miller went to five straight Pro Bowls before an injury this season, Bradley Chubb made his first Pro Bowl this year, and Demarcus Ware earned his final pro bowl season.
Outside of EDGEs, he also helped develop Derek Wolfe (2nd round) and Malik Jackson (5th round) into great starters in the NFL.
Maybe he doesn’t know exactly what coverage he wants to run right now, maybe he does, I don’t know. What I can say is that this is a coach who developed at least one Pro Bowl defensive lineman in every stop he has made since the start of this millennium. I would say that he is worth rolling the dice on as a DC.
3. John Butler, Bills DB coach
Since joining the Buffalo Bills coaching staff in 2018, the defensive backs have looked great in Buffalo and Tre’Davious White, Jordan Poyer and Micah Hyde specifically have done an outstanding job on defense.
Over that same three-year span, the Bills have finished every season in the top-12 of DVOA on defense (2nd, 6th, and 12th), and they have been able to adapt and evolve as the season has gone on thanks to good coaching.
Going back further than that, during his time in Houston with Vrabel (2014-2017), he helped polish UDFA A.J. Bouye into one of the best young cornerbacks in the NFL. Also (cover your eyes Titans fans), he got really good years out of veterans Johnathan Joseph and Kareem Jackson.
He is an older coach, but he has spent time coaching special teams, linebackers, and the secondary at the college and NFL level. I don’t think this would be considered an “inspiring” hire or anything like that because I don’t know how high his upside is. However, I think that this is a candidate who would have experience coaching multiple position groups and having a lot of success along the way.
Having an older DC with a depth of knowledge is something that has worked out really well for guys like Kevin Byard and Kenny Vaccaro in the past, and if this hire would get Byard back on track while also boosting the cornerback position (his specialty) then this would be a welcomed move.
2. Jerod Mayo, Pats LB coach
There were some rumors and rumblings that Mayo might be in the mix for the Houston Texans job late in the season, but that hasn’t happened. Still, the interest does seem real.
I think that there is a lot to be said for Mayo being hired as a coach by Bill Belichick after he played his entire career with the New England Patriots. He seems to leave a great impression on the players and coaches that he has worked with.
Since he has only been a linebacker coach for two seasons, I am going heavily off of the rumored interest in the NFL and two pretty important quotes. This one speaks to the respect he has within the Patriots organization:
"“The 33-year-old former linebacker is the only Patriots position coach ever hired by Belichick without a year of experience coaching in his system or elsewhere in the NFL or major college ranks. Make that that two years in Belichick’s system — typically the prerequisite for a coaching promotion in Foxborough — and Mayo becomes the second of only two coaches… …He called every single defensive play, just as he did during June’s minicamp. If Mayo continues to call plays throughout the summer, it’s reasonable to assume he will sometime during the regular season, just months after he was out of football; as stunning a development as there could be early in the Patriots’ 2019 campaign.”"
So Bill Belichick broke all of his conventions AND created a position on the coaching staff, and allowed Mayo to call plays during camp for the two years that he has been with the New England Patriots. That is a pretty massive deal.
The other quote I wanted to look at is the quote from one of the greatest books about the process of roster building in the NFL, War Room:
"Mayo had been a top ten pick who didn’t act like one. On draft day, when the best of the best are invited to New York, often wearing made-for-occasion tailored suits, Mayo had been home in Virginia with his family raking leaves. He was a worker there and a worker in Foxboro. In the off season, he’d come to the stadium and watch film, even when there were no coaches to be found. He loved the game, and it could be seen by the way he played middle linebacker, never turning down the opportunity to plug a hole or run sideline to sideline.”"
That was back in 2008 when he was a rookie drafted by a front office that included the newly promoted Jon Robinson as “Assistant Director of College Scouting” and he would have been watching that film with Patriots veteran linebacker Mike Vrabel.
1. Deshea Townsend, Bears DB coach
Townsend and Vrabel last worked together when they were players for the Pittsburgh Steelers for a three-year overlap ending in 2000. Fast forward a dozen years and both were in their home state coaching the positions that they had thrived in at the college and NFL level.
While Vrabel was with Ohio State, working with Urban Meyer, Townsend was with Mississippi State for three years developing defensive backs for an Urban Meyer protege in Dan Mullen.
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Then in 2016 and 2017, both were in the AFC South. Mike Vrabel was with the Houston Texans and Townsend was with the Tennessee Titans coaching their defensive backs.
To start Townsend’s two-year tenure, this is what the Titans starting defensive backs looked like: Jason McCourty, Perrish Cox, Brice McCain, Da’Norris Searcy, and Rashad Johnson.
Just one year later he helped lay the groundwork for what would be a great Titans defense (for a few years until Mike Vrabel failed as the shadow DC this season): Adoree Jackson, Logan Ryan, LeShaun Sims, Jonathan Cyprien, and Kevin Byard.
When Mike Vrabel was hired, he and Dean Pees decided to go with an entirely fresh staff on defense that included Kerry Coombs. That was the right decision for everyone involved and now Townsend is coaching the Chicago Bears DBs.
In his two years there as the DBs coach, the Bears defense has ranked 8th in DVOA in back to back seasons despite Kyle Fuller and Eddie Jackson being the only players to start in both of those seasons.
For me, what sets Townsend apart from the rest of the candidates is a little bit of a “destiny” vibe with how frequently these two crossed paths, but much more importantly, I think that Townsend has done a little bit of everything in his career.
He made the smooth transition from player to coach, he has coached older DB groups that were not exactly stacked with talent, he has helped get the most out of mid-round picks and UDFAs, he has developed superstars like Kevin Byard, and wherever he coaches it seems like the defense gets better.
After spending a decade with Dick LeBeau as a player and a coach, it is easy to see how he might have absorbed a lot of that knowledge and as a veteran position coach in the league, he has proven that he can adapt to new players and new schemes. I think he would check off some major boxes for the Titans like:
-Someone who can help develop Kristian Fulton
-Getting Kevin Byard back on track
-Understanding what Adoree Jackson does well
-Scheme flexibility
-Experience around great pass rush units
Is he the perfect candidate? No, that would be Wade Phillips.
But, considering that you have to deal with the limitation of only including people that Mike Vrabel could reminisce about old times with, this is the best group of options to choose from and there are some very strong candidates.