NASHVILLE — The search is on for the Tennessee Titans to find their next head coach and replace Mike Vrabel for the 2024 season.

There is a strong crop of candidates open for hire this offseason and nine different NFL teams with a current opening. The Titans have already completed interviews with four different candidates and are expected to have at least five more interviews this week.

While Tennessee is said to be "casting a wide net" during this process, there's one thing they must avoid when they hire their next head coach.

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No Defensive Coaches

No matter what, the Titans cannot afford to hire a defensive minded head coach this time around. That would immediately eliminate Mike Macdonald, Antonio Pierce, Dan Quinn, and Aaron Glenn from the interview list.

The argument for defensive coaches is always the stability they've provided for other teams around the league. John Harbaugh, Mike Tomlin, Bill Belichick, Pete Carroll, Sean McDermott etc. If you find one of those guys, you've got culture and stability for years to come.

Just one problem with all of that…You had that in Mike Vrabel. If the Titans were going to hire a defensive minded head coach that could maintain culture and physical play, they would have kept Vrabel. Macdonald, Pierce, Glenn, and even Dan Quinn could all be good head coaches somewhere else, but they're all just less proven versions of Vrabel at this point. The main benefit of moving on from Vrabel is the opportunity to modernize your offensive approach independent from an offensive coordinator.

That's another thing with hiring a defensive guy. It's always essential that you get your offensive coordinator right. If you don't, you end up like the Titans with Todd Downing calling plays. But even if you do get the right guy, they'll probably wind up getting poached at the end of the season and become a head coach somewhere else. We saw this first hand with Vrabel and guys like Matt Lafleur or Arthur Smith.

The best way to fix an offense around a young quarterback is to hire the offensive minded head coach that won't be going anywhere. The Dolphins did it with Mike McDaniel. The Packers did it with Matt LaFleur, The Bengals did it with Zac Taylor. 

As the Titans look towards the future, the priority needs to be on building a modern offense around Will Levis that can propel you to contention in the AFC for years to come. While I disagree with the decision to move on from Mike Vrabel, having a vacancy at head coach now allows you to explore that opportunity. Perhaps the organization will be better off for it…But they have to get it right.

Mike Vrabel misses on the Patriots job, one landing spot to watch for the former Titans coach

NASHVILLE — Mike Vrabel will not be the next head coach of the New England Patriots. New England promoted Jerod Mayo internally after parting ways with future Hall-of-Famer Bill Belichick. Vrabel, fired by the Tennessee Titans last week, seemed like a shoe-in for the Patriots gig. After months of rumors and gaslighting about mutual interest […]