Sunday Was The Mike Vrabel Special

By: Steve Atkinson 

Last week, Jared Stillman, a radio personality, appeared on Felger and Mazz from Tennessee and confidently predicted that the Titans would win on Sunday. He referred to it as the “Vrabel special,” meaning that during Mike Vrabel’s coaching tenure in Tennessee, the team would typically win against tough opponents and lose to easier ones. However, there’s a significant difference this time: Ryan Tannehill and Marcus Mariota are not as skilled as Drake Maye.

Stillman appears to hold a grudge from Vrabel’s time in Tennessee, but now he has a franchise quarterback in Maye, which changes the dynamics.

Mike Vrabel should’ve Been Here A Year ago

Mike Vrabel commands the respect of his players in the locker room; they are fully committed to their shared goal of winning the division and making it to the playoffs. Vrabel has implemented his own offensive staff while Josh McDaniels, a hire from the Kraft family, calls the plays. Drake Maye operates a style that aligns with his abilities, which is exactly what Vrabel wanted.

Yeah, I think an emotional game, emotional stretch for us, something that this team and organization hasn’t done, and it’s done a lot. Again, that doesn’t do anything, but, again, the grind of coming back and getting prepared and staying in the game—we played really well in the second half—that’s what I’m really proud of. Sometimes you don’t always know how these games are going to go, and we certainly have to start faster, but really proud of the way that we played. Giving up three points in the last two halves of football. Offensively, really if we don’t beat ourselves it’s been a good product and was that same way today. I love the fact we’re finishing with the football. Special teams unfortunately with a penalty, but we had some good kick coverage, some inconsistent kick coverage. Again, some good ones and bad ones, and that’s where it’s been. But in the end, I felt like we did enough, so excited for these guys

Mike Vrabel made sure to get the run game going on Sunday. Stevenson ran the ball much better than he had in recent weeks. He went to the offense and basically said we can’t have Drake Maye pulling throws out of nowhere every time. They are going to need to run the ball. So that was a nice mix of both.

Again, it’s not just the running back. Again, we say the running back doesn’t do a good job and we got to run it better, but we got to block better. I felt like there were some running lanes and when there weren’t, we were able to take it downhill and be able to push some piles. We had some double-digit runs. We had some dirty runs. It was great to see us finish there at the end. So I think it’s always a combination. We took care of the football, and that’s really the formula. They made a mistake there that we were able to capitalize on.