It is the day that Tennessee Titans fans have been waiting for all season, it is the day when Mike Vrabel does an audit of his coaching staff and figures out who he is going to fire and who he is going to retain.
With Todd Downing doing an abysmal job this season and after lying to Tennessee Titans fans by preaching continuity and then changing the fundamentals of what the offense looks like, surely he is going to be on the chopping block right?
Right?
Well, if he is then he isn’t the first coach that they fired this season. In fact, he won’t even make the top four after the Tennessee Titans decided to part ways with some positional coaches today.
According to various outlets, the Titans have fired:
-Linebackers Coach Jim Haslett
-Assistant Special Teams Coach Matt Edwards
-Assistant Defensive Line Coach Kenechi Udeze
-Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach Mondray Gee
Why did the Tennessee Titans fire those coaches?
Jim Haslett is the name that most people will recognize on this list, and he was probably on borrowed time considering his job last year.
In 2020 linebackers like Rashaan Evans and Jayon Brown regressed from promising young talents to players that often hurt more than they helped. Despite the defense looking much better this year, it looks like that has more to do with the scheme and the change in starters, than anything that Hasselt did.
It is impossible to know exactly what Edwards did as an assistant coach, but special teams haven’t been an advantage for the Tennessee Titans in years. Similarly, Gee’s specific responsibilities are a mystery but this could be a firing to do with some injuries.
Kenechi Udeze is the only strange firing because the defensive line was exceptional this season from the starters all the way down to the backups and the guys on the practice squad. It is hard to imagine that a move like this would have been made without input from Shane Bowen, so this probably has more to do with personalities clashing than the product on the field.
Some more firings could definitely happen, but it is a shame that Todd Downing is still in charge of the offense at this point. Last year Shane Bowen was given the title of Defensive Coordinator but he wasn’t allowed to run his own defense which is why he struggled.
This year we saw what that looks like and we saw Tennessee Titans GM Jon Robinson hand-pick players to fit that system, and it was a massive improvement.
There is hope that Robinson could spend the offseason making this offense too talented to fail, but the problem is that Downing was calling plays like he did when got kicked out of Oakland. The problem has less to do with the talent on the roster, and more to do with the guy who has continually failed when asked to call plays over the course of his career.