NASHVILLE – Mike Vrabel has been around the NFL long enough to know he will have some growing pains as a first-time head coach, and his goal with the Tennessee Titans is pretty basic: Don’t make the same mistake twice.
“There’s going to be a lot of things that are going to come up for the first time ,” Vrabel told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “I’m going to make mistakes. I’m not going to make too many of them, hopefully, and not make the same mistake twice and learn from the mistake and be able to ask for advice.”
Vrabel seemingly has been destined to be an NFL head coach for some time, perhaps even during his 14-year professional career as a linebacker with Pittsburgh, New England and Kansas City. The only question after Vrabel started coaching, first as an assistant at his alma mater at Ohio State and then the NFL’s Houston Texans, was which team would hire him first.
The Titans had tried men with prior experience as NFL head coaches in Ken Whisenhunt and Mike Mularkey. Whisenhunt was fired in November 2015 with a 3-20 record, while Mularkey was fired in January despite consecutive 9-7 seasons and the franchise’s first playoff victory in 14 years.
Controlling owner Amy Adams Strunk and general manager Jon Robinson, who first met Vrabel when both men worked in New England, hired Vrabel five days after firing Mularkey as the team’s 19th head coach.