Tennessee Titans Score Big With Their Coordinator Hires

Tennessee Titans head coach Matt Vrabel has a lot of proving to do given his relative inexperience coaching at such high levels, but he’s already impressing.

One of the most important jobs of a new head coach is assembling a quality staff. For all the love head coaches receive, many of them are great because they recognize other guys who can coach. This is the case with Bill Belichick, Andy Reid, Doug Pederson, Mike Zimmer and others. Vrabel is a smart guy but also an experienced one. Before he was a coach he spent several years in the league as a player. Some may have underestimated his depth of connections, not to mention what he learned from Belichick on how to spot coaching talent.

This was on display from the outset as Vrabel scored two new coordinators, both of which bring stellar reputations with them. The first is Dean Pees, former defensive coordinator for the Baltimore Ravens. The other is Matt LaFleur who was allowed to leave the Los Angeles Rams offensive coordinator position in order to take the job.

Pees and LaFleur can solve many of the problems Titans have

In truth both of these hires were surprises. For Pees it wasn’t that he lacked skill. Far from it. From 2012 to 2017 he was the defensive coordinator for the Baltimore Ravens. During that time they placed in the top 10 three times and won the Super Bowl. Before that, he held the same job with the New England Patriots and collected four more top 10 finishes along with a Super Bowl berth. He’s as proven as they come. The surprise centers around the fact that Pees had initially retired early in the off-season. He’s 68-years old. So it must’ve been a strong pitch from Vrabel to get him to reconsider.

The slightly bigger shock is Lafleur. Shocking in that the Rams willingly let him walk despite the offense having so much success in 2017 with the emergence of Jared Goff at quarterback. Lafleur has a strong reputation for quarterback development. Goff, Matt Ryan, and Robert Griffin III all had their career-best seasons when he was either quarterbacks coach or offensive coordinator. The one thing he hasn’t done to this point is call plays. It’s clear that is the opportunity the Titans dangled before him. An opportunity to show teams around the league he’s not just a lacky of Sean McVay. This is a must if he wants to be a head coach in the future.

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Part of building a great staff is presenting opportunities for advancement and Vrabel has done that. All in all this staff should be considered a major upgrade over what the Titans had this past season.