Mike Vrabel is one of the NFL’s most fiery coaches, but his tenure with the Tennessee Titans came to a quiet, albeit unceremonious end.
The Titans, of course, fired Vrabel following the 2023 seasons after six seasons of working together. The announcement came as a bit of a surprise at the time, not just because Vrabel was one of the best coaches in the league, but because there was some talk about potentially extending him (with some more power).
Ultimately, it didn’t work out that way. Instead, owner Amy Adams Strunk sent Vrabel packing after two straight losing seasons.
Mike Vrabel Reflects On How Titans Tenure Came to End
Tennessee fired Vrabel … or, as he put it, they “s—canned” him.
Vrabel now has more pressing matters on his mind. He returned to New England where he enjoyed great success as a player. Now, he’s tasked with leading a stalled rebuild. But he was willing to reflect on his time in Nashville with two of his former players, Taylor Lewan and Will Compton in a recent episode of the “Bussin’ With the Boys” podcast.
The duo asked him about getting fired, and Vrabel recalled he didn’t give much of a protest after getting the bad news, and he asked just one simple favor of his bosses.
“That wasn’t a meeting. Those aren’t meetings. You just get fired,” he recalled on the podcast. “I just said ‘Give me an hour, and I’ll be out of here. I just want to talk to my staff.’ Everybody makes decisions. (They asked) ‘Any questions?’ Nope. I got the point. I get the drift.”
Vrabel recalled something similar, and a story about Vrabel on The Athletic during Vrabel’s gap year — one he spent as a consultant with the Cleveland Browns — detailed the meeting.”
Vrabel’s Tennessee Connection in New England
“Vrabel gathered more than 20 coaches, the group cramming into a small room at the Titans’ facility,” Zack Rosenblatt wrote in an excellent profile from January of 2025. “One by one, holding back tears, he told each person how much they meant to him.”
“He had a story for everyone,” former Titans defensive line coach Terrell Williams, who followed Vrabel to New England as his defensive coordinator, told The Athletic.
John Streicher, who also now works in Foxboro, Mass., elaborated, too: “It was off-script and from the heart. He took a hard for himself and for everyone else and made everyone feel comfortable and loved, like everything was gonna be OK.”
Based on the staff he’s built in New England with a handful of former Titans coworkers, it appears Vrabel made sure to make it was going to be OK for as many as he could.
Reflecting on his time with Tennessee — and Cleveland — he believes he’s going to be better because of the experiences in his past.
“I think we learn stuff every day,” Vrabel told Compton and Lewan. “Stuff that’s going to come up every day. Situations, injuries, we always talk about distractions are unavoidable. It’s how we handle them. So, just staying flexible, consistent and focusing on the guys who want to improve and are taking the message.”
Mike Vrabel Reveals One Request He Had for Titans After Being Fired