Vrabel On What it Will Take to Win it All

As he continues to try to make the Tennessee Titans a Super Bowl team, coach Mike Vrabel does not intend to reinvent the wheel.

“I think the next step is just continuing to understand why we win games,” he said last week prior to the NFL Honors program, where he was named Coach of the Year. “We win games because we take good care of the football, because we can run it, we play good defense.

“… That’s what it’s been like for the last 25 years in this league. It’s my job to make sure we do everything we can to play to that and to practice to that and prepare.”

OK, using Vrabel’s criteria – and his timeline – let’s look at how the 2021 Titans fared as compared to recent seasons and how much better they need to be in 2022 if they intend to maintain their status as the team to beat in the AFC South and to make a deeper run in the postseason.

• Take care of the football: The Titans were mimus-3 in turnover ratio with 25 giveaways and 22 takeaways. The area in which they struggled most was fumble recoveries. They had six, which was tied with four others for the third fewest in the league. Only Jacksonville (two) and Philadelphia (four) had fewer, but it should be noted that the Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams were one of the others with just six (the Rams were plus-2 in turnover margin, however).

This was just the ninth time in the last 25 years that Tennessee was minus-3 or worst. Only once among the other eight did the team manage a winning record and a playoff appearance (2017).

It is worth noting that the Titans’ best turnover ratio in the last 25 years was plus-18 (22 giveaways and a whopping 40 takeaways) in 1999, which happens to be the only time the franchise ever has made the Super Bowl.

There is no doubt this is an area the must be much better.

• Run the ball: Even with Derrick Henry sidelined for nine games, the Titans finished fifth in the NFL in rushing offense, tied for third in rushing touchdowns and seventh in rushing first downs. They converted 21 of 25 times when they ran it on third-and-1, a conversion rate of 84 percent (third in the league) and were a combined six-for-six on third-and-2 or 3. On fourth-and-1, they moved the chains eight of nine times, and on fourth-and-2 they were two-for-two.

Tennessee outrushed the opposition by an average of 56.8 yards per game, its widest margin of the last 25 years. Second on that regard was 2009 when the difference was 55.0 yards per game led by Chris Johnson’s 2,006 yards.

The Baltimore Ravens were the only team to outrush their opponents by a wider margin. Yet it should be noted that of the league’s top five in rushing yards differential, the Titans were the only team to make the playoffs.

There is little need for this to be a point of serious emphasis this offseason. Even a small step back in this regard likely won’t hurt.

• Play good defense: This, obviously, is a much broader topic than the previous two, but anyone who watched the last two seasons knows that Tennessee’s defense in 2021 was much better than the 2020 version. That does not mean there is no room for improvement.

The Titans were among the NFL’s top 10 in third-down defense (sixth, 36.7 percent) and red-zone defense (seventh, 51.7 percent). Any coach would be happy to be so proficient in those areas. That unit also was one of four in the NFL that allowed an average of fewer than 4.0 yards per rush.

There were too many big plays allowed, however, specifically in the passing game. Tennessee’s was one of six defenses that allowed 60 or more passes of 20-plus yards, and the average of 6.84 yards allowed per pass play ranked just 18th in the league. There is also the fact that opponents converted 58.3 percent of their fourth-down tries, which ranked 21st in the NFL, at a time when teams go for it on fourth down much more so than ever.

Maybe the Titans (or any defense) can’t be elite at everything, but they certainly can even out the differences in their performance in some of the critical situations.

“It’s going to take everybody’s best effort to continue to condition and work on skills and development and, you know, the mental approach, the physical approach,” Vrabel said following the NFL Honors. “We’re all going to have to do more than what we did last year.”