Coaching suits Titans’ Vrabel to T
Former Steeler learned much from Bill Cowher and former teammates
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
In his four seasons as a player with the Steelers, Mike Vrabel never found his niche in their defense. Not like he did with the New England Patriots, when he became one of the most versatile players in the NFL.
Vrabel, drafted in the third round in 1997 as a defensive lineman, was asked to drop weight to move to outside linebacker and found himself vying for playing time with the likes of Greg Lloyd, Jason Gildon and Joey Porter. He never started a game for the Steelers.
But Vrabel, an Akron, Ohio, native who went on to play eight seasons and win three Super Bowls with the Patriots, learned something with the Steelers he carries to this day in his new role as head coach of the Tennessee Titans.
“What I remember about Pittsburgh is they had great professionals, great veteran leadership, guys who taught me how to be a pro,” Vrabel said. “Dermontti Dawson, Greg Lloyd, Levon Kirkland, Mark Bruener, Carnell Lake, Jerome Bettis. There’s a lot of great guys, Hall of Famers, in that group. I was lucky to be around them and play with them and learn from them.”
Vrabel will return to the city where his NFL playing career began Saturday afternoon when the Titans and Steelers meet at Heinz Field in the third preseason game for both teams.
Vrabel, 43, is on a rapid ascent through the NFL. After just four seasons of coaching in the league in which he played for 14 seasons, Vrabel was hired to replace Mike Mularkey and, in his words, “develop the program.” Mularkey unceremoniously was fired without explanation after the 2017 season in which the Titans finished 9-7, beat the Jacksonville Jaguars twice (something the Steelers failed to do) and won a first-round playoff game.
As such, it is not as though Vrabel is taking over a moribund franchise. The Titans have won 18 games the past two seasons after winning five the previous two. They are a team on the rise.
Curiously, Vrabel is the third consecutive head coach for the Titans who has ties to the Steelers, following Mularkey and former offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhunt. Game: Steelers (1-1) vs. Tennesee Titans (0-2), 4 p.m., Heinz Field. TV: KDKA
“Continue to move forward — the organization, developing players, teaching them,” Vrabel said over the phone Thursday when asked to define his objective in his new role. “That’s our job, to get the team ready and get them prepared to execute and win games.
“The players are responding. They have a done good job in camp trying to improve. We just want to develop and progress toward the regular season.”
Since the advent of the Super Bowl era, Vrabel is only the third former Steelers player who went on to become an NFL head coach, joining Mularkey (1989-91) and Tony Dungy (1977-78). Prior to that, Johnny “Blood” McNally (1934) and Walt Kiesling (1937-38) were player-coaches with the old Pittsburgh Pirates.
“I thought I always had an idea I wanted to be a coach,” Vrabel said. “My dad was a high school coach and gym teacher. I was around it. You do what you love. Coaching football and being around football is something I love to do.”
While the Steelers were never able to figure out the best position for Vrabel — they kept moving him between defensive end and linebacker — that wasn’t the case when he signed as a free agent with New England in 2001.
Not only did he have 47 sacks, 11 interceptions and 13 forced fumbles in eight seasons with the Patriots — he also was named first-team All-Pro in 2007 — Vrabel became known as one of the most versatile players in the NFL. He caught 10 passes, all for touchdowns, with the Patriots, including one each in Super Bowls XXXVIII and XXXIX. No player in league history has a better record of converting receptions to touchdowns, according to Cold Hard Football Facts.
Vrabel’s most impressive all-around performance came in his Pro Bowl season of 2007 when he recorded three sacks, recovered three fumbles and an onside kick and caught a touchdown in a Week 8 game against the Washington Redskins.
“He’s such a likeable guy, and I always appreciated his approach to the game,” Mark Bruener said. “He was a true professional. By far, he was one of the hardest workers I came across. It was easy to see how different he was.”
Bruener and Vrabel were more than just teammates for four seasons with the Steelers. When Vrabel came to town for the offseason conditioning program, he stayed with Bruener and lived in his basement. Vrabel would offer to help around the house, even baby-sit Bruener’s children. Bruener said his kids called Vrabel “Uncle Mike.”
“He was so personable,” said Bruener, the formeer Steelers tight end. “He’d get along with anyone, didn’t matter who it was. And he was extremely intelligent. I wasn’t surprised he became a head coach because of how cerebral he was, how he paid attention to other players.”
Coaching came naturally to Vrabel. His dad, Chuck, was a high school principal and coach in Akron, where Vrabel attended Walsh Jesuit High School. What’s more, he got to learn from some of the best coaches — John Cooper at Ohio State, where Vrabel was a firstteam All-American defensive end; with the Steelers, where he learned the value of special teams from Bill Cowher; and with the Patriots, where Bill Belichick’s preparation in all matters rubbed off on him.
His most recent tutelage came with the Houston Texans, where he was defensive coordinator in 2017 after three seasons as linebacker coach under Bill O’Brien.
“The one thing I remember about Bill Cowher is how critical and important special teams are,” Vrabel said. “He had veterans in there for special-teams meetings. I remember running down on kickoffs and making the play, and he’d recognize it and say, ‘Nice job rookie.’ I never forgot that.
“For most of my career, I would never slow down and not do well on special teams because I knew those veterans were watching and appreciated you. That’s something I took away from Pittsburgh, and I’d like to carry over here — making sure that every player recognizes the performance of a young player on a special-teams unit.”