NASHVILLE — The lighting inside The Nook Pub is dim sufficient that it looks like nighttime even when it’s gentle exterior. There may be low-cost beer, a wide array of whiskey and a frozen-drink machine churning “Bushwackers,” described as an grownup model of a Wendy’s frosty, stuffed with booze. Sports activities memorabilia covers the partitions — jerseys and images of well-known athletes who’ve come via over time, just like the late Steve McNair, town’s first NFL star who used to name the bar’s proprietor after video games to ensure it might keep open for him. A purple No. 94 Ohio State jersey hangs over one of many nook tables.
On a Thursday night time in August, the pub was full of regulars and the TVs lining the bar confirmed an NFL preseason sport. After a spherical of golf, Mike Vrabel took an Uber, walked via the parking zone and got here in via the again entrance. He went proper to that nook desk beneath the Ohio State jersey, his jersey. His golf buddies, whom he met right here a few years in the past, have been already ready for him, gentle beers in hand.
For the subsequent few hours Vrabel talked and laughed, and didn’t transfer from his seat. He stays one of the crucial recognizable faces in a city recognized for nation music stars (Submit Malone was at The Nook Pub the week earlier than). Vrabel is beloved for teaching the Tennessee Titans to the AFC Championship Sport within the 2019 season and serving to construct a winner regardless of an imperfect roster. However on this night time, The Nook Pub’s patrons largely left him alone, giving him area to take pleasure in beers and meatballs — the pub is thought for these — together with his buddies. Apart from a chat with the bar’s proprietor and his son, just one different individual, stumbling, approached Vrabel, merely to let him know the Titans made a mistake firing him months earlier. Vrabel smiled and thanked him.
“I used to be born for bars like this,” he stated later.
For Vrabel, this was a day without work from his consulting job with the Cleveland Browns, an endeavor he took after he didn’t land one other head-coaching job. 5 months later, he’s probably the most coveted candidate of this hiring cycle.
A flurry of interviews awaits, however Vrabel spent this week at his residence in Park Metropolis, Utah, celebrating the New 12 months together with his household, watching school soccer and remaining unbothered by the stress of what’s subsequent. The Browns permitted Vrabel to depart with one sport left within the common season, giving him a head begin on interviews with groups that have already got job openings: The Jets, Saints and Bears, with others quickly to come back when the common season ends.
Over the past 5 months, The Athletic spent in depth time with Vrabel as he labored for the Browns, and labored to create a imaginative and prescient for what his subsequent head-coaching job would seem like. He mirrored on his time with the Titans, notably the day it ended, and sized up what he believes is an inaccurate notion many across the league maintain of him: a hard-ass, and onerous to work with. It’s a problem to beat, although it received’t change Vrabel.
“I do love what I heard one time,” Vrabel stated: “What any person thinks of me is none of my enterprise.”
In late August, Vrabel walked as much as his favourite diner in Nashville, two cups of Starbucks in hand — one, a quad espresso, for him, and the opposite for the journalist spending the day with him. Vrabel wakes up at 4:30 most mornings to work out and, so far as he’s involved, diner espresso received’t get him via the day. When he was knowledgeable exterior drinks weren’t allowed, he chugged his cup, tossed the opposite and made his option to a nook sales space.
Vrabel was on a break from his duties with the Browns, returning to Nashville for a number of days to finalize the sale of his residence — he and his spouse, Jen, downsized however stayed on the town — and, in fact, to golf. His telephone buzzed all through breakfast, calls from contractors and inspectors and in addition Browns colleagues, together with tight ends coach Tommy Rees.
Alongside the best way, he shook fingers with a number of individuals eating on the restaurant, locals he’s gotten to know over six years in Tennessee. He rested his arms on the again of the sales space, took a breath, and instructed a narrative about how he not too long ago met a fan who didn’t understand he’d been fired and requested Vrabel how the workforce was going to be in 2024.
His response was playful however dry: “I couldn’t give two s—s.”
Vrabel was referred to as into Titans proprietor Amy Adams Strunk’s workplace on Tuesday, Jan. 9, final 12 months. Group president Burke Nihill was there too. The late-morning assembly was temporary, lasting perhaps two minutes — Vrabel didn’t have any curiosity in lingering. He was fired. He requested Strunk to present him an hour to filter his desk and to deal with his workers; the proprietor gave him the OK.
Vrabel gathered greater than 20 coaches, the group cramming right into a small room on the Titans’ facility. One after the other, holding again tears, he instructed every individual how a lot they meant to him. He instructed tight ends coach Tony Dews he wished Dews’ 4 daughters might have completed up their college in a single spot. He instructed defensive coordinator Shane Bowen how a lot he was going to overlook his household, and thanked him for all he’d completed for the protection. He instructed defensive position coach Terrell Williams he hoped to see Williams’ son graduate from highschool and to attend extra of his hockey video games, and he thanked him for instructing Vrabel find out how to higher join together with his gamers.
“He had a narrative for everybody,” Williams stated.
“It was off-script and from the center,” stated John Streicher, the workforce’s director of soccer administration. “He took a tough day for himself and for everybody else and made everybody really feel snug and cherished, like the whole lot was gonna be OK.”
Vrabel referred to as it “pure intuition.”
“I clearly didn’t plan on being fired,” Vrabel stated. “However I had lots of shut, private relationships with the women and men in that room. I employed them, I do know their households. They gave so much for us, and I needed to acknowledge what they’d completed for us, what they meant to me and the way I’ve seen them develop as individuals, or coaches, or watched their children develop up, for goodness sakes.”
Celebrating a playoff win in Foxboro with star operating again Derrick Henry was one of many highlights of Vrabel’s Titans tenure. (Kathryn Riley / Getty Photographs)
Vrabel’s Titans have been thought-about overachievers throughout his six seasons. Coaches and gamers level to an method constructed round week-to-week adaptability and a focus to the smallest particulars. There have been “educate tape” conferences — a take a look at how penalties have been referred to as and errors have been made by different groups — on Friday, and officiating-crew deep dives on Saturday. “He at all times would say going into video games: I need you bodily and mentally exhausted by the tip of the week by how onerous we labored in apply and the way a lot we put into the sport plan,” former Titans heart Ben Jones stated. “And I might be completely braindead by Sunday.”
Each week Vrabel recognized three keys to victory, emphasizing particular statistical targets (as an example: turnover differential, whole speeding makes an attempt or factors allowed) relying on the opponent. Jones estimated that if the Titans hit their three keys, they received 90 p.c of the time.
Vrabel would get to the ability early within the morning to work out and, for hours, camp exterior the coaching room. If a participant didn’t present up for remedy on time, he’d name them to “be certain they’d an excellent morning,” Jones stated, laughing.
The emphasis on accountability stretched from the apply squad as much as the workforce’s largest stars. Vrabel was unafraid to name out A.J. Brown or Jeffery Simmons or Derrick Henry in entrance of the complete workforce. There was candor — brutal at instances. Not everybody appreciated it, and Vrabel admits that, at instances, he centered an excessive amount of on the issues gamers have been doing improper, as an alternative of highlighting the issues they have been doing proper. However many of the Titans locker room understood the place he was coming from.
Stated cornerback Caleb Farley, a Titans first-round choose in 2021: “One thing coach Vrabes taught me was it doesn’t matter what automotive you pull in on Sundays. It simply issues if you happen to’re gonna hit any person of their mouth. Soccer is a grown man’s enterprise. It’s a nasty enterprise. There’s no room to be delicate.”
Regardless of a roster that was middling at greatest, the Titans went 9-7 in Vrabel’s first 12 months and narrowly missed the playoffs. The following 12 months they went 9-7 once more, this time not solely making the postseason but additionally happening a shock run to the AFC title sport after upsetting the Patriots and Ravens (they misplaced to Kansas Metropolis within the convention title sport). They went 11-5 in 2020 and 12-5 in ’21 — then issues modified. In 2022, normal supervisor Jon Robinson traded Brown, an All-Professional, to Philadelphia and didn’t adequately substitute him. Accidents struck and the depth wasn’t there; the Titans misplaced seven straight video games to finish the season, throughout which Robinson was fired.
Vrabel most well-liked interim GM Ryan Cowden take over for Robinson to take care of continuity, however Strunk “needed to go in a brand new path,” Vrabel stated, including: “I used to be on the lookout for a sound construction with a transparent imaginative and prescient, open dialogue and communication.” The Titans proprietor employed Ran Carthon from the 49ers and fired Cowden after the 2023 draft. Vrabel appeared to nonetheless be part of the franchise’s long-term plans heading into 2023, however the Titans struggled to a 6-11 season, after which Strunk determined it was time to maneuver on.
Vrabel interviewed for a number of head teaching jobs. He felt like he would have landed the Chargers gig if not for that franchise’s connection to Jim Harbaugh. It by no means felt like he had an actual shot on the Falcons job, and he wasn’t particularly occupied with teaching the Panthers. However he felt there was a persistent line of questioning all through these interviews, concerning a notion that he doesn’t collaborate effectively with homeowners and normal managers.
“I care in regards to the workforce. No job is just too small for me or anyone else to assist the workforce win,” Vrabel stated. “I really feel like I can work with anyone. I really feel like successful is the last word aim and I — similar to our workforce — have gotten to be prepared to regulate and adapt to issues which might be happening.
“However I imagine that I can respectfully disagree, have a dialog and transfer on and get previous it. I’m additionally not afraid to share my opinion and what I imagine in, my convictions about issues that relate to serving to a soccer workforce win, constructing a workforce or serving to gamers, serving to scouts. I like when coaches and scouts get collectively post-draft, I like collaborating with the final supervisor on inactives (on sport day). I attempted to include that system into Tennessee as a result of it’s one thing that I embraced and cherished about what we did in Houston. It’s a singular relationship (coach and GM), one which has to stay respectful always. I feel that it at all times was. Are we going to disagree? Yeah, I hope that we accomplish that that we are able to develop. However finally, any person’s gotta be in cost.”
Vrabel rented a unique automotive every time he flew into Ohio this season, however lived out of the identical room at a Residence Inn — “Resi Inn,” as he calls it — a pair miles down the street from the Browns facility in Berea. He received to know the resort staffers, and each morning they’d a espresso, with further pictures of espresso, ready for him. A mile down the street is one in all Vrabel’s favourite haunts, named, fittingly, Mike’s Bar and Grill.
On a Wednesday night time in November, he popped in to seize a chunk to eat. Vrabel sat down, leaned his 6-foot-4, 260-pound body towards the again of 1 chair and propped his ft up on the seat of one other, jet-lagged after a 10-day tour to Italy with Jen to rejoice their twenty fifth marriage ceremony anniversary throughout the Browns’ bye week. It was his first true trip … perhaps ever. And it’ll in all probability be his final for some time.
“To me,” Browns coach Kevin Stefanski stated in November, “it’s insane that he’s not a head coach.”
The prospect of taking a 12 months off by no means crossed Vrabel’s thoughts. Some groups have been occupied with bringing him on as a defensive coordinator however he wasn’t into that concept. He might have taken a consulting job on the College of Wisconsin beneath Luke Fickell, his school roommate, however he wasn’t keen to depart the NFL orbit. Vrabel thought-about overtures to work in media, “however that wasn’t a path I needed to go into but” (he added he’s open to the concept of media work down the road).
“I used to be as shocked as anyone when he didn’t get a job,” Stefanski stated, “so I reached out and stated: What’s your plan right here? Are you going to go sit on the sofa for a 12 months? If you understand Vrabes, he has a lot power. You may solely ski a lot, proper?”
Browns GM Andrew Berry seen it as a singular alternative to usher in somebody of Vrabel’s stature to reinforce their player-development program whereas serving to in different areas; Berry and Stefanski placed on the full-court press to recruit him. Vrabel didn’t have a relationship with both man exterior of interactions at league conferences — which truly made it extra interesting. It was a possibility to spend the 12 months studying from an analytically minded group that does issues somewhat in a different way from what he was used to, and an opportunity to remain within the NFL and regulate how different groups across the league (particularly those with potential job openings) have been going about their enterprise. Add in that he’d be returning to Northeast Ohio, the place he grew up, and the match was proper.
He joined the Browns in March, although his place was not fairly a full-time teaching position, giving him the liberty to spend extra time with Jen (“We discover ourselves lacking one another once we’re not collectively,” Vrabel stated) and to fly to Park Metropolis, Utah, the place he additionally owns a home, to ski and rejoice holidays together with his spouse and two sons. He’d typically pop over for dinner at his dad and mom’ home, a 30-minute drive from the Browns’ facility — one night time in coaching camp, his mother gave him two desserts, carrot and purple velvet, to deliver to the ability — and on off days he’d usually fly again to Nashville.
At first of the season, Vrabel was working primarily with tight ends whereas serving to Stefanski and Berry in different areas. The unique plan was for Vrabel to spend many of the week with the workforce for residence gamedays and fly again to Nashville or Park Metropolis when the workforce performed on the street, nonetheless serving to out with game-planning and watching movie on a laptop computer plugged straight into the Browns’ community. He was in a gaggle textual content with the workforce’s tight ends and he’d talk all through the week when he was out of city, particularly after video games on Sunday.
Vrabel was excited to be a part of a workforce, although he admitted it was a wierd feeling gearing up for Sundays.
“I sort of miss being there,” Vrabel stated in August. “Yeah, you’re performing some stuff for them remotely, however you miss being across the guys, you miss the connection about being with the gamers and the younger coaches. (Week 1 was) the primary time I haven’t been on the sidelines since earlier than I received to highschool.”
Throughout the weeks in Ohio, Vrabel routinely drove to the ability and labored out with the coaching workers, usually earlier than dawn. For a stretch, Browns head coach Joe Sheehan wasn’t understanding with them, so Vrabel began bombarding him with playful texts and selfies with the workers, sufficient to disgrace Sheehan into finally becoming a member of them. One way or the other — maybe it’s these quad espressos — Vrabel was nonetheless raring to go for practices within the afternoon.
For one November exercise, the Browns have been pressured inside due to rain. After they’re indoors, the apply space shrinks, making it simpler for Vrabel to roam round. If teaching consultants are supposed to face within the nook and observe apply, Vrabel didn’t get that memo. As gamers began to stretch, Vrabel, sporting a Browns polo and shorts, skipped via the gang — joyful, a person in his ingredient. He’d periodically cease to talk, or to pat a participant or two on the again. He stopped to speak to an assistant coach, after which, briefly, Stefanski. He walked over to a practice-squad defensive lineman, received in a three-point stance and confirmed him pass-rushing strikes.
When Vrabel lastly reached the alternative sideline, he picked up a purple pinny with the No. 56 and joined the offensive linemen for the beginning of particular person drills. “It’s third down!” he referred to as, then lined up as an edge rusher, the one one not sporting a helmet. He received right into a pass-rushing stance and went at heart Ethan Pocic. After which sort out Jedrick Wills. On one play, Wills almost shoved him to the bottom however Vrabel saved his ft. Later, Vrabel lined up as a linebacker and almost was trampled by a gaggle of offensive linemen.
“This man goes to get harm,” stated Joel Bitonio, the Browns’ longtime guard, with amusing.
Vrabel, sans helmet, wasn’t shy about leaping into the fray throughout dwell apply drills. (Zack Rosenblatt / The Athletic)
Berry didn’t know what he was going to get when the Browns introduced Vrabel into the fold, or how usually he’d even be round. Nevertheless it clicked for Berry throughout OTAs, sitting in his workplace overlooking the apply subject, watching Vrabel, drenched in sweat, racing Browns quarterback Jameis Winston from finish to finish at each apply.
“Anybody who asks me (about Vrabel), I might give this visible of him sprinting with the quarterbacks,” Berry stated. “He’s doing it for the pure, unbridled pleasure of teaching soccer and instructing. I feel that’s distinctive and particular.”
Berry leaned on Vrabel, employed each for his personnel and training acumen, throughout each the free company and draft processes, notably the latter. And Vrabel discovered that course of — seeing how Berry ready for the draft — to be academic. Vrabel stated he was permitted to learn the best way Browns scouts and expertise evaluators wrote their scouting experiences, how they integrated analytics and the way Berry “requested questions that will create some crucial considering for coaches.” Berry gave Vrabel a listing of prospects to check and requested Vrabel his opinion on how he would method sure components of the analysis course of. Berry additionally included Vrabel on a number of the Prime-30 visits, when prospects come to the workforce facility for interviews and evaluations.
“The stuff that he did wasn’t simply: What do you concentrate on this man?” Vrabel stated. “There have been extra thought-provoking questions: What one ability are you most excited to work with about this participant? What’s one ability that you just’re most excited to try to develop on this participant? I like that as an alternative of him merely studying the (scouting) report on the pc.”
Berry thought Vrabel was an “glorious” addition to the draft room and was moved by his willingness to collaborate. “He has the big-picture perspective,” Berry stated. “I feel it’s not solely sitting within the head-coaching seat, however as somebody who’s needed to recruit in school (at Ohio State), a former participant, a profitable defensive coordinator within the NFL — I feel the mosaic of these experiences has actually suited him effectively.”
As for the notion that Vrabel is tough to work with: “He has been an outstanding accomplice in each space,” Berry stated. “Working with everybody from Kevin to our QCs (high quality management assistants). Look, you need individuals who have robust opinions, however you additionally need individuals who can develop good working partnerships and be collaborative, and I might completely put Mike in that bucket.”
When tight finish Blake Whiteheart was on the apply squad firstly of the season, he stated Vrabel would meet him (and different apply squaders) on the facility on off-days to observe movie. They’d work on issues like run-blocking strategies too.
“He’s the identical individual each single day,” Whiteheart stated. “He’s gonna attempt to make you the very best participant you might be. You may inform that due to how a lot time he spends with all people — like, he spends time with me, I’m undrafted and he sees worth in that.”
Halfway via the season, Vrabel switched from tight ends to the offensive line room after speaking with Stefanski, feeling like he could possibly be extra helpful with a bigger group of gamers. Shortly, he bonded with second-year offensive sort out Dawand Jones. Vrabel was instrumental in build up Jones’s confidence. Jones has struggled with weight at instances (he’s listed at 6-foot-8 and 374 kilos) and Vrabel made it a degree to get Jones (and his coaches) to rejoice small victories, like when Jones misplaced 11 kilos one week.
“No person’s going to develop in something they do with out some small victories alongside the best way,” Vrabel stated.
Vrabel hadn’t been touring for street video games, however Jones requested him if he’d begin coming — with Stefanski’s permission, Vrabel agreed. “Dawand was actually working onerous and making an attempt to alter some behaviors and work on himself,” Vrabel stated. “I felt like I had made a dedication (to him) and needed to be concerned.” (Jones fractured his ankle in Week 11 however Vrabel saved going to the street video games.)
On gameday, Vrabel wore a headset and will take heed to coaches however wasn’t concerned with play-calling exterior of providing Stefanski the occasional opinion or helping coaches on the sideline. He acted as a hype man, for offense and protection, in between performs, and often helped coach up offensive linemen throughout pre-game warmups. It was in these moments, and watching him on the apply subject, that Stefanski got here to a realization about Vrabel.
“He likes being round right here, we like having him round,” Stefanski stated. “Typically I’ll look over and Vrabes is enjoying because the defensive sort out on our scout workforce and our guards are placing their fingers on him and transferring him. So I’m considering to myself: What the f— else would you be doing along with your life proper now?”
Vrabel doesn’t have reply to that query.
“’I’ve solely had three jobs in my life,” Vrabel stated. “I caddied and carried golf baggage in highschool, I performed soccer and I coach soccer. I’m not lower out to do rather more.”
Vrabel has spent the previous 12 months actually contemplating what he needs out of his subsequent head-coaching job, the sort of coach he needs to be, and what he needs out of the group that hires him. His season away helped to crystalize his priorities. As at all times, he broke it down into three keys: Possession, collaboration, quarterback.
“There’s received to be clear communication with possession, in order that we perceive as coaches what the expectations are,” Vrabel stated. “That’s so we are able to clarify to them what’s cheap, what we are able to do, what we in all probability can do and what we’re going to attempt to do — or die making an attempt. I need to have a construction in place that folks see the sport the identical approach I do from an X’s and O’s standpoint, from a personnel standpoint, with team-building. We’d hopefully have that alignment, which is crucial.
“And I would love to have the ability to say that there’s a quarterback that you just really feel like you may win with — or that there’s a path to seek out the one you can win with.”
In late October, Vrabel took his seat in a crowded New York Metropolis restaurant, on the town to fulfill up with some NFL pals. He leaned again into the sales space to take up much less area at an already-cramped desk. He indulged in pasta as wandering eyes started to stare. A person in a Jets hat, eating together with his girlfriend, drank a glass of wine and, finally, mustered up the braveness to slip throughout the sales space, placing him by Vrabel’s aspect.
He requested for a photograph; Vrabel obliged.
“The place are you gonna go subsequent?” the person requested. “You gonna come to the Jets?”
Vrabel smiled.
“We’ll see in January.”
Brent Keally and Kent McMillin are regulars at The Nook Pub. In 2019, Vrabel and Jen had stopped in to observe March Insanity video games. Keally had a desk reserved (within the nook, in fact) and noticed the coach on the lookout for someplace to sit down within the crowded bar. Keally supplied the Vrabels a seat; the group grew to become quick pals.
Vrabel with {golfing} buddies Kent McMillin (in purple hat) and Brent Keally at his Patriots Ring of Honor ceremony in 2023 (left), and again at his residence desk at Nashville’s Nook Pub. (Zack Rosenblatt / The Athletic)
They golfed that Sunday after which, on common, about 4 instances per week all through his time with the Titans, McMillin stated — and now each time he flies again to Nashville. Over his six years with the Titans, Keally and McMillin would attend most Titans video games as Vrabel’s company, they usually knew to not trouble him after Wednesday night time, when sport prep intensified. They accompanied Vrabel to the NFL Honors in Los Angeles in 2021 when he received Coach of the 12 months, and to New England final 12 months when the Patriots put him within the Ring of Honor for his tenure as a Professional Bowl linebacker and part of three Tremendous Bowl winners.
“All people else sees him as a man who blows off individuals at press conferences,” McMillin stated. “However that’s not Mike. Mike is carefully vested. After which when he feels snug, he opens up. He retains that circle tight and small.”
Final January, lower than per week after Vrabel had been fired, the trio was again at The Nook Pub. Vrabel was at his desk, laughing together with his buddies, ingesting Miller Lite. His pals have been shocked when Vrabel didn’t land a head teaching job final offseason, however they by no means anxious about him, as a result of Vrabel wasn’t anxious. It’s January — we’re about to see why.
(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Pictures: Wesley Hitt / Getty Photographs, Nick Cammett / Diamond Photographs / Getty Photographs)