The Tennessee Titans have a very solid coach in Mike Vrabel, but the myth surrounding what Mike Vrabel has done for the Titans leaves out a lot of crucial details.
Some of you are reading this article because you know what I am talking about, and other people are reading this article ready to angrily type in the comments section. In case you fall in the middle and don't know what I'm talking about, I'm talking about the myth that Mike Vrabel elevates the talent on the Tennessee Titans roster and that he gets the absolute most out of his starting 53.
It just isn't true, and I will give some examples of situations where circumstances have led to these conclusions. To do that, I need to go all the way back to when Mike Vrabel was hired and what he walked into.
When anyone brings up the idea of firing Mike Vrabel, there will inevitably be someone who replies, "What do you want to do, go hire another Ken Whisenhunt?" People remember the 2014-2015 era as some of the worst Titans football in the franchise's history, and they are right.
Before the season was even over, Amy Adams Strunk made her first big move as the new controlling owner of the Titans by firing Whisenhunt. That offseason, the next move that she made was not hiring Mike Vrabel, it was promoting then-interim coach Mike Mularkey to HC and hiring Jon Robinson to be the new General Manager.
After back-to-back 9-7 seasons and a playoff win against the Kansas City Chiefs, Amy Adams Strunk and Jon Robinson made the decision to fire Mike Mularkey so that they could hire Mike Vrabel. Despite his success, Mularkey was too loyal to some bad coaches underneath him and Robinson was eager to bring in Mike Vrabel who was a young coach who shared a common background with him from their time in New England.
With that preface in place, there are really three, two-year stretches of Mike Vrabel's time in Tennessee that you need to look at.