{"id":8592,"date":"2020-01-14T22:43:02","date_gmt":"2020-01-14T22:43:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/?p=8592"},"modified":"2020-01-14T22:43:04","modified_gmt":"2020-01-14T22:43:04","slug":"mike-vrabel-i-take-it-all-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/nfl\/mike-vrabel-i-take-it-all-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Vrabel, I Take It All Back"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

BY ADAM GREENE<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

All\nyear long it felt like Tennessee Titans head coach Mike Vrabel was a\nguy that was just accidentally getting the job done. That talent on\nthe Titans roster was plugging the team along to a not-so spectacular\nfinish, one that the team had experienced for the past four seasons. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They\nwere barely going to be over .500 again just like they were in two\nseasons under Mike Mularkey, one of the worst head coaches in the\nhistory of the NFL. There\u2019s no argument there. It\u2019s just\nscience.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\nTennessee had stockpiled so much talent that even a stooge like\nMularkey, a man literally named after cow crap, could finish with a\nwinning record in consecutive seasons and not only accidentally fall\ninto a Wild Card game in 2017, but actually win it. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nTitans, rightly, still fired him after. It was the only smart move\nthey seemingly made. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nguy that brought into replace him, Vrabel, didn\u2019t seem to deserve\nthe job. Vrabel had spent all of one season as a coordinator at the\nNFL level, running the Houston Texans\u2019 defense in 2017. In 2016,\nthe year before Vrabel was promoted to the job, the Texans had the\nNo.\n1 rated defensive unit in the NFL<\/a>. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under\nVrabel the very next season, they were ranked\nNo. 20<\/a>. Now, I\u2019m not mathematician, but by my\ncalculations that\u2019s 19 spots worse than the year before all because\nVrabel was handed the keys. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fun\nfact, the very next year with Romeo Crennel back running the Houston\ndefense they finished ranked\nNo. 12<\/a>. Again, no math expert here, but that\u2019s\nbetter than 20 and nobody can convince me otherwise. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nyear that Crennel was elevating the Texans defense back to where it\nbelongs, Vrabel was taking the team that Mularkey (again,\nscientifically bad) finished 9-7 with for two straight seasons and\u2026\nchecks notes\u2026 finished 9-7. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nyear the Titans finally gave up on Marcus Mariota, had one of the\nbest stretches in recent franchise history and\u2026 checks notes again\u2026\nfinished 9-7. You can see why I didn\u2019t think much of the former\ndefensive coordinator that failed up into his head coaching job just\nbecause, at some point, he played for Bill Belichick. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\nif you squinted hard, you could maybe see something changing. The win\nover the Kansas City Chiefs a couple of months ago was monstrous.\nThey nearly beat the Houston Texans in Week 15. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\nhad to play some pretend, though. Use your imagination. This was\nstill a team on the edge. If the Pittsburgh Steelers hadn\u2019t\ncollapsed at quarterback in December (and not traded away Joshua\nDobbs in the offseason), the Titans would not be in the playoffs. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If\nAndrew Luck hadn\u2019t retired, Tennessee wouldn\u2019t have even finished\n9-7. They were lucky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\nhere they are. And they have put forth two of the most impressive\npostseason performances in recent memory, knocking off the defending\nSuper Bowl champion New England Patriots (and maybe ending that\ndynasty) and stopping a perceived new dynasty in the Baltimore Ravens\nin its tracks. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And\nMike Vrabel did it. It\u2019s coaching. And you can see it. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If\nyou couldn\u2019t before in the regular season, you can now and it\u2019s\nstartling to witness. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve\nonly seen one coach in my lifetime \u201cfigure it out\u201d on the fly and\nthat was Ron Rivera back in 2013, the guy who the Carolina Panthers\nstupidly fired this season. He started out as a just a guy, a\nmediocre at best coach that would take the Panthers nowhere. In 2013,\nhe flipped the switch, learned how to coach, discovered how to\nmaximize the talent on his team and, most importantly, started to\ntake chances. He bet on himself and his team and became \u201cRiverboat\nRon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vrabel\ndoesn\u2019t have a nickname yet, but maybe he\u2019ll earn one. I still\ndon\u2019t see a realistic way the Titans can beat the Kansas City\nChiefs Sunday, but maybe Vrabel can. He\u2019s faced off against two of\nthe league\u2019s best and shut them down almost completely and he did\nit with his coaching, with game prep, with strategy and with in-game\nadjustments. The kind of stuff a great coach does. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve\nbadmouthed the Vrabel hire for the last two seasons for all the\nreasons I listed above, but no more. He\u2019s shown something in these\nplayoff games that, to this point, I certainly hadn\u2019t seen. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But seeing is believing. Mike Vrabel, I take it all back. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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BY ADAM GREENE All year long it felt like Tennessee Titans head coach Mike Vrabel was a guy that was…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":8593,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[129],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t