2024 NFL Offseason

[GDAWG]

6 minutes ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

They better have someone ready to go.

 

Harbaugh or bust.

 

It should be Vrabel, but it probably will be Dan Quinn.  

[DG_ThenNowForever]

13 minutes ago, GDAWG said:

 

It should be Vrabel, but it probably will be Dan Quinn.  

 

I just heard secondhand of Belichick to Seattle? That would be a total disaster.

 

Vrabel is probably going to NE anyway. Let Belichick slum it in Carolina or Atlanta.

[Fowler2]

Harbaugh in Seattle vs. Shanahan & the Niners twice a year would be glorious. 

[GDAWG]

13 minutes ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

 

I just heard secondhand of Belichick to Seattle? That would be a total disaster.

 

Vrabel is probably going to NE anyway. Let Belichick slum it in Carolina or Atlanta.

 

If there's anyone that can make a team super competitive with a mediocre QB, it's Vrabel and at least Vrabel will hire outside of the Bill Belichick Coaching Tree for his assistants.  Belichick will most likely still have his assistants within his coaching tree for his new place.

[tBBP]

On 1/9/2024 at 6:11 PM, dont care said:

Out of everyone [Vrabel] probably deserves the boot the least. It wasn’t his fault the front office traded away everyone on offense but Henry and overpaying for tannehill. He never lost the locker room he just didn’t have talent.

 

There's a lot more to this than most people realize. I'll just sum it up this way: the relationship between Vrabel and the organization became toxic, and has been for a pretty good while.

 

As for his firing, many within the fanbase don't even realize—because apparently folk don't bother to read past their own emotional vitriol—that the decision to fire Vrabel was Ms. Adams Strunk's, not GM Carthon. (Of course that hasn't stopped some of the most insidious racist chatter I've ever seen in my life on some of the team's fan groups.)

 

Anyway, here's this:

 

Quote

Many have jumped to the conclusion that Titans general manager Ron Carthon made the decision to fire Vrabel, but according to Rapoport, that decision came down from owner Amy Adams Strunk.

 

“This was Amy Adams Strunk making the decision that based on a lot of things, including what happened when [Vrabel] went to New England for the Hall of Fame thing, including not dispelling rumors in-house that he was going to be the Patriots coach,” said Rapoport. “There was a lot there, and she clearly made the decision that she wanted to move on in the best interest of the organization.”

 

And of course, Vrabel did himself NO favors by saying what he said at his Patriots Hall of Fame thing. In case some might not know, here's this:

 

Quote

 

Vrabel might have raised more than a few eyebrows during his Patriots Hall of Fame speech, when comparing New England to other organizations.

 

“I also want you not to take this organization for granted,” said Vrabel. “I’ve been a lot of places. This is a special place with great leadership, great fans, great direction, great coaching. Enjoy it. It’s not like this everywhere.”

 

Yeah...not exactly a ringing endorsement of the organization that currently employs you. One could also take that as backhanded shade, considering some of the frustration Vrabel verbally expressed over the years at the lack of offensive weapons he dealt with during the tail end of Jon Robinson's time there. 

 

Now, with all that said, here's my takeaway of Vrabel having observed the Snatit over the past six seasons. He's a GREAT motivator of men. It's said that great coaches can get good out of average and great out of good. Dude definitely did that, and that was proven in the 2021 season when he somehow drug a team without its star tailback (recall that was D'Onta Foreman's off-the-practice-squad breakout season), with it's own version of a bakery at QB (Tannehill, though he did have some good games that season), probably the strongest defensive line rotation in the game, one of the game's top safeties in Kevin Byard,  and a bunch of "who?" guys rotating in and out of the starting 53 (I think they played like 93 guys or something like that during that season due to all the injuries, which we'll circle back to) to the AFC #1 overall seed....before blowing it all to the eventual AFC champion Bengals. And that game, probably more than any other, proved Vrabel's vice: his insistence on stubbornly staying with inept OCing on the part of Todd Downing, and some super-questionable in-game coaching decisions. Now, it wasn't his fault he didn't have anyone for Tannehill to throw to aside from AJ Brown—that was on former GM Jon Robinson for not really drafting anyone aside from Treylon Burks, who himself wasn't exactly star material early on. But it WAS Vrabel's call to reinsert Henry into the starting lineup in place of a by-then-hot Foreman (who the team then cut after the season, another dumb move), which made the entire game plan predictable as all get-out, which Cincinnati rightly exploited. (And that was despite the defense sacking Joe Burrow like nine times in that game, IIRC.)

 

And then there's the Snatit effect: granted, this was in effect before he was hired, but it was amplified under his watch: that team's maddeningly frustrating tendency to play up and down to competition. They beat, and sometimes soundly, some of the league's top teams, and then got nearly blown out by some of the worst. That is 100% on coaching. What else can be pinned on coaching? The sheer amount and mind-numbing frequency of injuries that team incurred over the past few seasons. I don't know what's up with the strength-and-conditioning staff there, but that defintiely should be/should have been looked at. 

 

So basically you add all that up, plus how often (though not widely reported) he verbalized his frustrations about things going on internally and you have a recipe for toxicity. Then you add what occurred at the Patriots HoF thing to it all, plus the team's cap issues prior to this season (which it seems Carthon is trying to do something about—more on that in a bit), and well...yeah.

 

So yeah, this team as is has reached its apex (or rather, it did two seasons ago), and isn't going any further. Plus Henry is a FA now and Tennesee aint finna pay him vig bucks after 8 years, so this seems like the opportune time to blow it up and start over, which it seems like Carthon is doing now that he's created the cap space to do so. And that's something some of the more boneheaded fairweathers among [what exists of] Snatit Nation need to understand: how to separate business from emotion. That's true in football and in life. (Doug Pederson may find this out the hard way after next season if he doesn't do something about his offensive coordinator/his team's offensive performance.) 

 

TL; DR: the relationship became toxic. And success or no, that ain't good for stability or healthy relationships, be it in football or in life.

[FiddySicks]

That’s an excellent summary. It kinda seems like the Titans are still just the Houston Oilers in disguise. I remember that same frustration when it came to playing up and down to competition even back then, and that’s been the only real consistency with Oilers/Titans football throughout their entire existence. 

[BBTV]

Belichick out. Hope he doesn’t waste his senior years chasing wins in a place like Atlanta or Arizona. 

[Pharos04]

 

Knew it was coming but still pretty surreal

[Brass]

As I stated in the other thread, if Belichick was willing to relinquish personnel control, this is a terrible move for the franchise.

[CS85]

I don't see why Belichick would want to coach again in the NFL after this.  I feel like he'd be much more inclined to go to a smaller NCAA program where he could relax and not have the NFL circus all around him.

[dont care]

17 minutes ago, CS85 said:

I don't see why Belichick would want to coach again in the NFL after this.  I feel like he'd be much more inclined to go to a smaller NCAA program where he could relax and not have the NFL circus all around him.

Who even wants that, at most if I were him I’d retire and take some pseudo position in someone’s front office to try to make them look legitimate but have no actual responsibility to do anything.

[heavybass]

..... Which NCAA program would he even relax in?

[infrared41]

2 hours ago, CS85 said:

I don't see why Belichick would want to coach again in the NFL after this.  I feel like he'd be much more inclined to go to a smaller NCAA program where he could relax and not have the NFL circus all around him.

 

Belichick would have to recruit if he went to a college team. He doesn't strike me as the recruiting type.

[TrueYankee26]

Carroll, Saban, Belichick retiring in the same offseason. Oh my God 

[McCall]

16 minutes ago, TrueYankee26 said:

Carroll, Saban, Belichick retiring in the same offseason. Oh my God 

Only Saban has officially announced he's retiring. The other two seem to plan on continuing to coach.

[CS85]

21 minutes ago, infrared41 said:

 

Belichick would have to recruit if he went to a college team. He doesn't strike me as the recruiting type.

 

I didn't say he'd have to try, he'd just kinda exist and whoever wants to come play for him, walk ons especially, can make up the team.  Winning doesn't matter so long as the kids in his program respect the hell out of special teams.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

9 minutes ago, McCall said:

Only Saban has officially announced he's retiring. The other two seem to plan on continuing to coach.

 

Isn't Pete staying on in some sort of emeritus role? I know it's a bull:censored: title they gave him, but I didn't get the sense he was itching for a new job. Or that anyone would hire him. Seems especially hard to invest in a 73-year-old when the new trend is Millennial coaches.

[GDAWG]

43 minutes ago, TrueYankee26 said:

Carroll, Saban, Belichick retiring in the same offseason. Oh my God 

 

there are rumors about Andy Reid and Mike Tomlin as well, with the latter more resigning than retiring.  

 

And I don't think Belichick is retiring.  He'll coach somewhere else. There's scuttlebutt that Dallas could be interested in him if Cowboys are one and done. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

Belichick floundering in year another place without Tom Brady would sure be wild to see.

 

If he does stay coaching, LAC seems like the best fit. In we're being fair, Belichick hasn't had a good, let alone great, QB since Brady. Herbert isn't Brady, but he is likely a top ten QB.

[BBTV]

It’d be great if he went to TB and won another title.