Window to Win With Vrabel Nearly Closed

Believe it or not, Mike Vrabel is nearly out of time.

Sure, he has been the Tennessee Titans head coach longer than any of his three immediate predecessors. Yes, he has made it clear that he wants to keep the job for an extended period, and general manager Jon Robinson has said that he expects a contract extension to get done in the not-too-distant future.

But this is not about longevity.

It is about opportunity. And history shows that if Vrabel is going to win a Super Bowl as head coach of the Titans, he effectively has one more chance to do so. If it does not happen with the 2022 season – his fifth – the likelihood that he becomes just another Marvin Lewis or John Fox or Jim Mora or Dennis Green, coaches who stayed with one team a long time but never won the big game, increases dramatically.

Over the last 30 years, dating back to the Dallas Cowboys’ first title under Jimmy Johnson (free agency started the following year), there have been 21 different coaches who have led their team to Super Bowl wins. Of them, 19 won their first (or only) Super Bowl within their first five years with that team. For example, Bill Belichick, who is the standard-setter, won in his second season with New England. Others such as Mike Holmgren (Green Bay), John Harbaugh (Baltimore) and Tony Dungy (Indianapolis) got in right under the wire and got their hands on the Vince Lombardi Trophy in their fifth seasons.

In some cases, it took a move to a new franchise – and a re-set of the five-year clock – for those coaches to make their respective marks. Recall that Belichick made one playoff appearance four years as Cleveland Browns head coach. Who knows what would have happened had he gotten a fifth year? Dungy was Tampa Bay’s head coach for six years at Tampa Bay before he went to the Colts.

The man who won it all a year ago, Bruce Arians, did so in his second season in charge of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Prior to that, he had a five-year run as the head coach with the Arizona Cardinals.

The only exceptions to the five-year rule are Pittsburgh’s Bill Cowher, who made it the Super Bowl in his fourth year with Pittsburgh but finally won it in his 14th season, and Andy Reid, who claimed the big prize in his seventh season with Kansas City after a 14-year run with Philadelphia. The Steelers, of course, are atypical in their commitment to consistency with their leadership. As for Reid, in this day and age it is difficult to imagine any coach getting as many opportunities as he did. It is worth noting, though, that when the Eagles finally moved on from Reid, they finally won a Super Bowl (a first for the franchise) in their second year with his replacement, Doug Pederson.

Under Vrabel, optimism about the Titans’ chances to celebrate amid falling confetti are as high as they have been in two decades. Three straight playoff appearances, two division titles in a row and one run to the AFC Championship game will do that. Plus, the is roster flush with difference-makers such as Derrick Henry, A.J. Brown, Jeffery Simmons and Kevin Byard, the kind of talent that was in short supply for this franchise through most of the 2010s.

Even with the disappointment of the recent playoff loss to Cincinnati, the feeling these days is reminiscent of 2000. That is to say, in the minds of many it simply is a matter of time.

Then, the Titans entered were fresh off a dramatic loss in Super Bowl XXXIV when Kevin Dyson was tackled one yard short of a game-tying touchdown as time expired. In many ways, the unexpected playoff run capped by the heartbreaking finish against the St. Louis Rams felt like the start of something. It actually was the end.

The 1999 season was then-coach Jeff Fisher’s fifth full season as Tennessee’s coach. He stayed on for another 11 seasons but never got any closer to winning it all.

So, even though the Titans seem to be trending in the right direction as they move toward their fifth year under Vrabel, the reality is that they are frighteningly close to the end of the road in terms of his chances to deliver a championship.

It would take an unthinkable set of developments for him not to get a sixth year and more. Unless they win it all next season, though, he and the Titans simply will be killing time from that point forward.