Remember when we used to always say that teams take on the personality of their head coach? The Tennessee Titans and Mike Vrabel are literally mirror-images of one another. They’re old school. They’re tough. Heck, if we’re being honest, they’re, at times, boring to watch, but here’s another of the personality traits that the leaders of the AFC South share with their head coach.
They don’t vary from the script. Derrick Henry, not Ryan Tannehill, is the face of the Tennessee Titans, and in that, you can see the smash-mouth persona that this franchise has chosen to adopt.
The Titans want to be tougher than your team. They want to beat you up, and they have decided that will be the all-important ‘identity’ that we always talk about in terms of NFL teams. The Titans intend to ride that tough-guy image to a Super Bowl. We’ll have to wait and see if it works.
Three huge quotes from the Tennessee Titans head coach
On the Wednesday leading up to Tennessee’s sixth game of their 17-game regular-season slate, Mike Vrabel met with the media for a little over 25 minutes. He was his usual stoic self (he must have learned that from Bill Belichick). Here are a few of the highlights:
On the subject of Jon Gruden, Coach Vrabel said this:
"I know that Jon and I, every day we come to work, we try to provide an environment for our players, our staff, our organization that’s about winning… We’re trying to do everything we can to help our players just be positive every single day. I wouldn’t have any idea what would go around and what would be indicative of the league. I can just focus on what’s here and what we try to do every day. That wouldn’t be anything that I would even discuss (with the team). We’re just focused on the Bills and focused on just building a family, taking care of things that come up every day with our players, their health, their preparation, their mental and physical well-being."
It appears Coach and his team are focused on Week 6. Come on. Did you expect some other type of response?
Ty Sambrailo‘s retirement caught us all by surprise, but things like that happen during the course of the regular season. Here’s what Coach said about that as well as his feelings on the addition of Avery Williamson:
Ty Sambrailo’s retirement:
"Nothing catches me off guard. Talk to Ty, that would be the best thing for you guys (the media) to do. He informed us that he was going to retire, and that’s what he did so… Talk to Ty."
In terms of Williamson:
"(The plan was to) just provide depth, provide depth at that position… Avery’s played a lot of football, winning football, so we’ll kind of see where that is, see how quickly he gets caught up to speed."
Perhaps you’ve heard, Tennessee’s next game is on Monday Night Football versus a squad that most believe is the best team in the American Football Conference. They’ve got a pretty good quarterback too, one that might find his way into the MVP conversation at season’s end.
Of course Coach Vrabel was asked about Josh Allen. Here’s what he had to say on that topic:
"It looks like they’re scoring at will, moving the ball… (Their) quarterback looks like a running back with an elite arm. It’s like a wildcat that throws for 350 yards a game."
Time’s ticking. Monday night seems like it’s three weeks away, and at the same time, it feels like it will be here for you know it. This is a huge one for this Titans franchise. This one will tell us just how good this team is. Expect everyone of Tennessee’s fans to be in front of a television for this one.