Mike Vrabel once cussed me out over A.J. Brown at Titans camp, proving he actually does know how to take accountability
Current New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel keeps thinking he can avoid the public accountability he proved capable of back in 2019 with the Tennessee Titans.
Mike Vrabel, A.J. Brown, and Tennessee Titans training camp collided in one of the more memorable moments from my years covering the team. With Brown now reunited with his former head coach on the New England Patriots after being traded from the Philadelphia Eagles, this 2019 story feels worth revisiting.
Especially with the offseason drama Vrabel has been publicly dodging.
We were entering Vrabel’s second year as Titans head coach 2019’s camp. Brown was the prize rookie in camp that summer, with defensive tackle Jeffrey Simmons sidelined by his pre-draft knee injury. All the attention was on the second-round wide receiver out of Ole Miss.
Brown had missed roughly a week to 10 days of practice with some type of mystery soft tissue injury. So when he finally resurfaced on the field, every camera and notebook in the media turned his direction.
Vrabel’s sacred third field rule
Vrabel had a strict rule at the Titans’ facility. The third practice field was completely off limits to the media. No phones, no recordings, no reporting.
If a player was rehabbing over there, you didn’t acknowledge it. Injuries were sacred ground with Vrabel. They probably still are in New England.
But this situation was different. Brown and fellow wide receiver Corey Davis went through full team warm-ups. Helmets on. Jerseys on. They were dressed out with the rest of the roster.
Then after warm-ups, instead of heading to individual positional periods, they peeled off toward the third field.
I slowly strolled over there thinking, logically, that the rules didn’t apply since they were technically practicing. I had never seen players go through warm-ups in full uniform and then move to the rehab field. Usually it was guys in workout gear.
Brown and Davis started running routes at about 50% speed, and I pulled out my phone and started recording.
About 10 seconds in, I heard it.
Vrabel hit me with the best curse out job I’ve ever gotten
From roughly 70 yards away, a very noticeable, very distinguishable voice started carrying across the practice fields.
Mike Vrabel, dog cussing me from a distance that would have impressed most NFL punters.
It remains, to this day, the best I’ve ever heard F-bombs strung together so eloquently and effectively to deliver a message.
The gist of it was: What are you doing? Get out of here. Go away. You’re an idiot. The delivery was far more colorful.
I backed off immediately. Hands up. Deleted the video. Nothing happened.
The then Titans’ head of media relations told me not to worry about it and that I wasn’t in the wrong. I’ll always laugh at his message to me: sometimes the head coach doesn’t understand logic.
Because, what I did was entirely logical. Brown and Davis were dressed out with the team. They participated in warm-ups. This wasn’t a typical rehab-field situation.
Vrabel’s accountability then versus now
Here’s the part of the story that sticks with me. After practice, Vrabel came up to me one-on-one and apologized pretty profusely. He accepted full accountability for being wrong. Then, to start his press conference with every reporter gathered and fans watching on the livestream, he apologized to me again publicly.
That’s a head coach owning a moment. No hedging, no deflecting. He was wrong, he knew it, and he said so in front of everyone.
Vrabel was more accountable in that single training camp afternoon than he’s been at times this spring in New England. The entire off field situation of his affair with former NFL insider Dianna Russini has been handled as poorly as possible.
Vrabel even had a cute puppy join him at the press conference podium to open training camp last week.
Come on… we aren’t stupid. “Pawtriots” event promotion or not, the optics control has been fumbled so badly Earnest Byner should feel some relief.
But in the summer of 2019, standing on a practice field in Nashville, that version of Vrabel earned a lot of respect from me. He cussed me out from 70 yards away and then made it right as soon as he could.
However, it’s the complete opposite approach to the one he has taken since the first Vrabel-Russini pictures became public in April. That respect now is wavering, to say the least.