NASHVILLE - Tennessee Titans coach Mike Vrabel entered the interview room at the franchise's training facility just north of town on Thursday morning looking pretty much the same as he had a week ago.
His gray and black stubble was roughly two days old, maybe three at the most. He wore a medium blue-gray North Face vest over his long-sleeve Titans blue coaching shirt and navy blue athletic shorts. If he had on socks, they were the kind that are hard to see, more in line with a golfer dressed in Bermudas than a basketball player.
Said Vrabel when asked about his coaching style, not his fashion style, though his answer could have applied to both: "I've tried to be consistent with my approach to this team."
If you're looking for the perfect word to describe the Titans about their two playoff victories as they prepare for Sunday's AFC title game at Kansas City, you would be hard-pressed to find a more perfect one than "consistent."
The team has run the ball and stopped the run throughout road victories at then-defending Super Bowl champ New England and Baltimore, which entered this postseason on a 12-game winning streak and ended it with a 28-12 loss.
Tennessee mostly has avoided costly penalties, being docked just 45 total yards in two games. It has twice been bludgeoned in the passing game (209-71 yards against New England; 345-83 against Baltimore) yet rather easily lived to fight another day.
Mostly, with everyone in the stadium, a national television audience and all those folks glued to their phones across the globe knowing what they were about to do, absolutely certain beyond a reasonable doubt that Derrick Henry was going to run the ball, he still ran for 182 yards against the Patriots and 195 against the Ravens.
Throw in those 211 yards and three touchdowns he totaled to defeat Houston on the last day of the regular season, a victory the Titans desperately needed to even reach the postseason, and you have the first player in league history to gain 180 yards or more in three straight games. In case you missed it, the NFL is celebrating its 100th season this year.
As Vrabel was quoted in the New York Times this week: "It's proof that there are still a lot of different ways to win in this league. When you can run the ball very effectively, even when the other team knows you're going to run it - that says a lot to everybody on the field."
Everybody. Especially everybody on the offensive line, where left tackle Taylor Lewan, left guard Rodger Saffold, center Ben Jones, right guard Nate Davis and right tackle Jack Conklin have become so appreciated by Henry that he recently bought them all Rolexes.
Of course, as first-year offensive coordinator Arthur Smith was quick to point out Thursday, Titans wideouts such as Corey Davis and Tajae Sharpe "are still waiting for their Rolexes" from Henry, despite throwing their share of important blocks this season.
Yet it's not the Rolexes that bond this team. It's the organization's determination to make this a team from top to bottom, that philosophy on display in the most basic of ways in recent weeks.
"I've always believed there is no job too small to help us win," Vrabel said. "Whether it's (the guys) who clean our building, or Anwar and Brittany who serve us breakfast, or Todd (Gray) and his (video) staff, it takes a lot of people in our organization to help us win, and I make sure our players understand that."
Talk about a consistent message and philosophy.
It has not always been this way in Titansville. The locker room used to have too many selfish souls and finger-pointers. It's at least one reason why the team failed to reach the playoffs a single time from 2008 to 2017. Too many coaches played favorites. Too many front-office types, too. Accountability seemed to depend on the depth chart, and too often from the bottom up.
Vrabel's predecessor, Mike Mularkey, dramatically altered that dysfunctional mentality. Vrabel has carried it a step further.
Merely read Associated Press writer Teresa Walker's excellent story regarding former starting quarterback Marcus Mariota's attitude relating to his diminished role after he was benched in Week 7 in favor of Ryan Tannehill to understand what a change in culture Vrabel has brought to the organization.
Said Mariota: "I take every single day and I try to make the most of it. Any way I can help this team and try to mimic or emulate what these guys are during the game, I'm going to do it."
None of this assures a victory Sunday at Kansas City and the spot in the Super Bowl as AFC champ that comes with it. But no team has seemed emotionally closer down the stretch than the Titans.
"That's not why I came back," he said. "I came back because of the players, this coaching staff, this city. I came back because of those people."
Win or lose on Sunday, the most important of those people, the most consistent of those people, would seem to be Vrabel, regardless of whether Henry ever buys him a Rolex.
Mark WiedmerContact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @TFPWeeds.