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Akron Beacon Journal
Scott Pioli’s close relationship with Mike
Vrabel was forged during their 10 seasons together, Pioli as an NFL executive,
Vrabel a linebacker with the New England Patriots and Kansas City Chiefs.
But Pioli had no idea what kind of
professional coach Vrabel could be until he sat in on meetings at Ohio State in
2013.
“I
listened to him present in team meetings and I said to myself, ‘Oh, my gosh,’”
Pioli said. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘If I become a GM again and he’s
not a head coach, I know my first phone call.’ And it happened pretty quick for
him.”
At
the time, Walsh Jesuit product Vrabel was in his third year as a position coach
at Ohio State, where he was a two-time All-America defensive end. Pioli
had been fired as Chiefs general manager that January and received an
invitation from Vrabel to visit and stay at the Vrabels’ home.
Pioli observed Vrabel in position meetings
with his defensive linemen and in front of the larger group and said it wasn’t
just Vrabel’s presence that struck him.
“It was a combination of things,” Pioli, now an NFL Network
analyst, said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “It was his presence, but
also his delivery and his ability to listen and his ability to communicate.”
Four years later, in just his fourth season
in the NFL after three with the Houston Texans, Vrabel was hired as coach of the Tennessee Titans. The
Titans have not posted a losing record since.
In 2019, the Titans survived a 2-4 start to
finish 9-7 and reach the AFC Championship Game. That surprised NBC Sports
analyst and former NFL coach Tony Dungy, who thought the Titans were a year or
two away.
On Sunday, the Titans host the Browns in a
crucial AFC clash of 8-3 teams. And what Vrabel has done — bringing in smart, tough, talented but yet
relative unknowns who fit the mold of what he was as a player — is finally
starting to gain notice around the league.
Sunday during “Football Night in America,” NBC analyst Cris Collinsworth
asked if Vrabel was getting enough credit for what he’s built and Dungy
responded, “I don’t think he does. He’s done a tremendous job changing their attitude and changing their
culture. He’s built a physical team, a team of no excuses.”
Tony Dungy lauds Mike Vrabel
A Hall of Fame coach who won the 2006 Super
Bowl with the Indianapolis Colts, Dungy doesn’t know Vrabel well. But he’s
heard plenty of stories from NBC analyst Rodney Harrison, who played six
seasons with Vrabel in New England. Dungy also knows several members of the
Titans staff, including safeties coach Scott Booker, who attended Dungy’s
church in Pittsburgh when Booker was about 5 years old.
“It’s an eclectic cast of characters, but
they all have the same belief in how they do things, they believe in Mike’s
system and they’ve got it going,” Dungy, 65, said of Vrabel’s staff in a telephone interview Tuesday.
“They love him. When you transmit that belief and you give your people
confidence in themselves, that’s a big part of it.
“I
love the way [Vrabel] has put it together. I love the way they play. It
reminds me of old-school football. I guess that’s why I like it.”
Dungy lauded Titans owner Amy Adams Strunk
and General Manager Jon Robinson for going old school in hiring Vrabel, now 45.
“All these owners looking for coaches, these
successful guys, [but] it’s not all the X’s and O’s that we know and we’ve got
this wide-open spread offense, we can run the zone read or all these multiple
defenses, it’s creating that mentality,” Dungy said. “That can be done whether
it’s Mike Vrabel, a linebacker and a defensive coach, Kevin Stefanski, a
quarterback coach and an offensive-minded guy, Bill Belichick, Pete Carroll,
Mike Tomlin, you create the mentality. You get guys to believe.
“These owners that are looking for this
cookie cutter, ‘I’ve got to get a 29-year-old offensive genius, otherwise we’re
not going to be successful’ — it doesn’t make sense. When you look at who’s
been able to turn franchises around, it’s that strong will, that personality
who’s going to get everybody to buy in. That’s what Mike has done, that’s what
Kevin’s done in Cleveland and changed the culture, that’s what good coaches
do.”
Dungy believes Browns’ first-year coach
Stefanski may be another in the Vrabel mold.
“I think he is. I think it’s real. The way
they’ve built it, it’s real,” Dungy said of the Browns. “I don’t know that
they’re with the top echelon teams yet. We saw them early in the year against
Baltimore and against Pittsburgh, so they’ve got a ways to go. But they’re not
the old Browns, that’s for sure.”
Mike Vrabel didn't originally have his sights
on coaching
Vrabel said in a Wednesday conference call
he didn’t have his sights set on coaching, that he never had a Plan B besides
playing in the NFL for as long as he could. He achieved that, putting in 14 years with the Pittsburgh
Steelers, Patriots and Chiefs and winning three Super Bowls in New England. He
saw his father, Chuck, coach basketball. Vrabel said coaching his sons’
basketball and baseball teams got him going. (Vrabel’s son Tyler is an
offensive lineman at Boston College, and Carter is an infielder at Wabash Valley.)
Vrabel said when he was driving to work in
the mornings while with the Patriots, he would call former Ohio State teammate
Luke Fickell, then a Buckeyes assistant and now coach at the University of
Cincinnati. Sometimes they discussed what they would do if opportunities came
up.
“You love the game and you love competing
and trying to get players to become a team and function as a team. It’s a great
challenge and it’s obviously a difficult one,” Vrabel said. “It will be even
tougher this week going against the Browns, who seem to have that unity and
identity.”
Vrabel’s parents were Akron school
administrators, and Pioli said some of the best coaches he’s seen have come
from families of educators. But Pioli wasn’t sure Vrabel would coach.
“I
always thought it was possible because he was so smart and he was a coach on
the field,” said Pioli, who started his career as a Browns scouting assistant in
1992. “You couldn’t play for that team in New England ... you had to be a
communicator, you had to know what you’re doing and you had to be helping your
teammates. People like that become good coaches if they want.
“I
didn’t know because he’s capable of so many other things. He’s incredibly smart
outside of football and he has a balanced life. A lot of people in football
aren’t that balanced.”
When the Titans were 2-4 last season, there
were rumblings about Vrabel’s job security. That took Dungy back to his first
season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1996, when they started 1-8; they made
the playoffs the next season. Pioli said the same was true when the Patriots
opened the 2000 season 1-4; Belichick led them to their first Super Bowl
victory the next year.
During his playing days, Pioli saw Vrabel
develop the skills he’s now using with the Titans.
“Mike
is a teacher and ... one of the things I’ve watched him get better at was as a
player, he was so smart, he knew so much, he often didn’t have patience
for people that weren’t as smart as him,” Pioli said. “Being that smart is a
blessing; not having patience can be a curse. But Mike has matured and
developed an understanding that people aren’t going to keep up with him, and he
can deliver a message without being condescending.”
As Vrabel grows in his profession, Pioli
said it won’t bother Vrabel if the sports world doesn’t recognize what he’s
doing in Tennessee. Vrabel will get all the satisfaction he needs if he hoists
the Lombardi Trophy again in this chapter of his football
career.
“He was always a really good player, but he
didn’t crave attention and celebrity,” Pioli said. “It’s an interesting part of
his personality that I really adore. He gets more satisfaction out of being
able to look at someone knowing that he whipped ‘em than he does the world
saying that he won.
“But that’s Mike Vrabel’s life. Mike has, for most of his career
and life, he hasn’t been the celebrity anything. But he’s been incredibly dependable and successful
every place, everywhere, every station in life.”
