With the Tennessee Titans firing now-former general manager Jon Robinson and reportedly expected to give head coach Mike Vrabel more power, it’s clear the two weren’t on the same page.
But there were signs that was the case long before what happened on Tuesday.
The first sign was during the 2022 NFL draft, when the Titans traded franchise cornerstone A.J. Brown to the Philadelphia Eagles.
Via video of the Titans’ war room, Vrabel could be seen getting up out of his chair and shaking his head in obvious frustration following the trade of Brown and the drafting of Treylon Burks.
Vrabel had good reason to be pissed. After all, Robinson just traded away one of his best players, and did so after the Titans head coach was adamant that Tennessee wouldn’t let Brown go.
“Not as long as I’m the head coach,” Vrabel said of trading Brown back in April. “I love A.J. professionally, personally. I’ve gotten to know him well as his coach and enjoy seeing him as much as I possibly can. I saw him here, working out here earlier… as long as I’m the coach here I would want to have A.J. Brown on my football team.”
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Mike Vrabel won the power-struggle with Jon Robinson. This was his reaction to the A.J. Brown trade during the Draft.
Of course, it was also Robinson that drafted Brown in the 2nd round in the first place. Gave the Titans 4 cheap rookie years and then flipped him for a 1st. pic.twitter.com/mMUryPNlkC
— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) December 6, 2022
Then, in early November, Vrabel once again had a rare showing of frustration with his general manager after he gave ESPN’s Ed Werder a brutally honest quote pertaining to the Titans’ passing game and receivers.
Bear in mind, the question was about Derrick Henry.
Asked Mike Vrabel sustainability of Derrick Henry taking 26-plus carries every game. “We’ve been able to use him and he’s helped us win a lot of games since I’ve been here. I don’t what else we would do _ throw it 50 times? I mean, who the (bleep) would we throw it to?’’
— Ed Werder (@WerderEdESPN) November 7, 2022
According to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, “Titans brass wasn’t happy with the direction of the roster assembled by Jon Robinson,” leading to his being fired.
Based on the two examples above, and the fact that Vrabel is getting more power over personnel decisions, we can only assume the Titans head coach, who has been far more successful in his job than Robinson has been in his, was in the group of people who weren’t fans of the former GM’s work.
If firing Robinson and making a bigger commitment to Vrabel was necessary to ensure the latter didn’t bolt out of Nashville in the near future, then Titans owner Amy Adams Strunk absolutely made the right move.
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