Titans hiring Vrabel example of team falling for Patriot Way Lie
When Mike Vrabel was hired by his old Patriots friend Jon Robinson to coach the Tennessee Titans, ESPN
summed up the primary reason:
“Vrabel was always Robinson's man. The Patriot Way is a big deal here, as Robinson and Vrabel spent seven years in New England together with Vrabel a player and Robinson as a scout.”
“The Patriot Way” has become an act of religious faith. No matter how many
ex-Patriots coaches fail as head coaches (see Charlie Weis, Eric Mangini, Romeo Crennel, Josh McDaniels), a peculiar NFL belief persists that anyone who has occupied the same airspace as Bill Belichick and Tom Brady can replicate their success.
That’s “The Patriot Way Lie."
Would you invest millions of dollars in a weight-loss company where 80% of previous clients gained weight?
Me neither.
Whether coaches, scouts, and now players, Patriot Privilege is a real thing, and it can ruin your favorite football team.
Robinson’s hiring of Vrabel is most extreme experiment to date with “The Patriot Way."
Mike Vrabel is unqualified. And not just by a little bit.
Prior to his hiring, Sports Illustrated’s Peter King, perhaps Vrabel’s strongest and most influential media champion, addresses the biggest elephant in the locker room:
“Vrabel will have some difficult questions to answer,”
King writes, “including this one:
You coached the worst scoring defense in the league in your only year as coordinator — why should we hire you as our head coach?"
The question’s logic is simple: If you can’t successfully manage a smaller department of seven people, how can we entrust you to lead our company of 53 players and 20 coaches?
Few, however, seem to need an answer, or even care just how green Vrabel is. After surveying the pre-head coach resumes of all 32 current NFL coaches, Vrabel ranks at the bottom (Note: “Management Experience” refers to time as Coordinator or Assistant Head Coach):
MIKE VRABEL’S RESUME RANK and THE 10/3 RULE
31st — Coaching Experience: 7 years (Texans 4; Ohio State 3)
31st — Management Experience: 1 year as DC (tied with 3 others; ranked by performance)
32nd — Performance as Coordinator:Last-ranked defense in only year as Defensive Coordinator (DC)
Vrabel’s 31/31/32 trifecta of low coaching/management/performance is not normal — not now, or historically.
Coaches who ranked low in one area nearly always compensated in the other two. Only Andy Reid bypassed the management phase, but coached 17 years across multiple positions first. Only Jason Garrett coached fewer seasons, but four came as a successful offensive coordinator.
Vrabel’s experience gap is not small.
• 74% have at least
double Vrabel’s coaching experience (14 years)
• 90% have at least 10 years coaching experience
• 81% have at least
triple his management experience (3 years)
As a general hiring guide, a common “10/3” rule emerges (10 years coaching/3 years managing).
When excluding Vrabel, 71% of all coaches met both 10/3 marks, and 100% met at least one marker. Only Vrabel misses both. Vrabel’s 7/1 coach/management split is basically tripled by the other two DCs hired this year: Matt Patricia (20/6), who reportedly appears to have the Lions job locked up, and Steve Wilks (23/3).
In justifying Vrabel, King cites the young-at-first-hired ages of Mike Tomlin, 34, and Sean McVay, 30. But age is not the issue here. Tomlin was a key coach cog on a historically dominant Bucs' Super Bowl defense, and as DC in Minnesota, the Vikings improved from 20th to 14th with the league’s No. 1 rush defense.
As OC, McVay posted a respectable 10th and 12th ranked offense in his last two years with Kirk Cousins, and limited weapons. Tomlin (12 years coach/1 year management) and McVay (9/3) both came up short on half of the 10/3 rule, but each could ease interview concerns with tangible results.
Do these markers guarantee head coaching success? Of course not. But they are the best predictors, and almost prerequisites. Next to every other NFL coach, Vrabel’s resume is at the bottom — by far. And “I once played for Belichick” just doesn’t cut it.
So how did Vrabel become such a hot candidate?
King explains how NFL “enthusiasm about Vrabel
stems from these facts”:
• “He played on winning teams and knows what it takes to win”
• “Carries a lot of Bill Belichick with him from eight years as a Patriot”
• “Commanding presence in front of players”
• “Seen as a unifier who can help build a winner”
Did you get all that? These aren’t facts. They’re perceptions.
The pro-Vrabel articles are all the same: “leadership,” “high energy,” “great communicator,” “owns a room,” “commands respect,” etc. If all are true, Vrabel will be the greatest NFL coach since Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Sports-wise, Mike Vrabel just might have more intangibles than Derek Jeter, the Yankee great. Titans fans may want to prepare themselves for Derek Jeter, the Marlins owner.
If Vrabel “knows what it takes to win,” shouldn’t we require coaching evidence? Let’s take a closer look:
MIKE VRABEL’S PERFORMANCE
Texans Rank-Year (Defensive Coordinator)
24th, 2013 — Wade Phillips
7th, 2014 — Crennel
7th, 2015 — Crennel
11th, 2016 — Crennel (without JJ Watt)
32nd, 2017 — Vrabel (many injuries)
Dead last defense. Wasted were a couple of Deshaun Watson gems (see 41-38 loss to Seahawks), and another Pro Bowl year by Jadeveon Clowney. Up to half of the drop can be fairly explained by injuries (see JJ Watt, Whitney Mercilus, etc.), but after losing Watt to injury in 2016, the Texans defense only slipped four spots under Romeo Crennel — the NFL’s best defensive coordinator.
Upon arrival, Crennel turned around defenses on the Texans (24th to 7th), Chiefs (29th to 11th), and Patriots (17th to 6th; 3 SBs). Crennel is a defensive genius with 47 years coaching experience. Romeo is not replicable.
Vrabel was in over his head, but the blame really lies with Texans head coach Bill O’Brien who moved Crennel to “Asst. Head Coach,” and promoted Vrabel to fend off other suitors. The irony is thick. Vrabel’s departure will correct O’Brien’s blunder as Crennel will return to his old post. The Texans defense just got much better.
Many famed coordinators like Crennel, Norv Turner and dikk LeBeau do not make great head coaches, but this dynamic rarely works in reverse. Management experience matters.
Peter King side-steps Vrabel’s performance, and believes Vrabel has “had a lot of really, really good experience” because of his two coaching stints while also playing under Bill Cowher and Belichick.
Now let’s imagine if Vrabel played under coach legends Chuck Noll and Bud Grant, then coached eight years under Cowher with three as a successful coordinator, and then coached 13 more seasons after that.
Well, I just described the career of Mike Mularkey, the previous Titans coach who just took the team to the playoffs, but was then fired by Jon Robinson to hire Vrabel.
Should Vrabel’s 14 years as an NFL player count for something?
Definitely, but not as a coaching substitute. Ron Rivera (14/6), Todd Bowles (18/4) and Doug Pederson (11/3) all played 8-10 years, and have all logged more time at both coach levels.
The absurd idea that Vrabel “carries a lot of Bill Belichick in him” is just that.
Mike Vrabel’s resume is the anti-Belichick.
(There’s actually more. What a long fukkin article)