Tag: Frank Piraino

Mike Vrabel expected to add two familiar faces to Patriots staff

Mike Vrabel could be bringing some familiar faces to New England

New England Patriots coach Mike Vrabel is expected to bring a couple of more familiar faces on his newest coaching venture.

According to ESPN’s Mike Reiss, Frank Piraino and John Streicher, Vrabel’s former strength coach and football research director with the Tennessee Titans, could be joining him in New England.

Piraino spent time with the New York Giants last season. He is also familiar with the New England area, having been Boston College’s strength and conditioning coach beginning in December 2012 under Steve Adazzio.

Streicher spent last season with the Los Angeles Rams as a game management assistant. He spent time with the Titans from 2018-2023 in various roles. He was the team’s director of football administration in 2023, the football development coordinator from 2020-2022 and assistant to Vrabel from 2018-19.

Reiss wrote:

Sources around the NFL expect Vrabel to bring Frank Piraino, his former strength coach in Tennessee, to New England to achieve that goal. Piraino, who knows the area well from his time at Boston College, spent last season with the Giants.

And just as Bill Belichick had football research director Ernie Adams to assist him with game management, Vrabel had John Streicher in that role with the Titans. Now, Streicher is expected to follow Vrabel to New England. Streicher, who like Vrabel is an Ohio State alum, spent the 2024 season with the Rams.

The Patriots are undergoing a major staff overhaul. Last week, it was reported that at least five assistant coaches wouldn’t be returning to the team in 2025.

It’s clear that Vrabel wants to build his staff as he sees fit.

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Giants fire Jerome Henderson, Mike Treier; make other staff changes

The New York Giants have fired Jerome Henderson and Mike Treier, while several other assistants have opted to leave the team.

After an ugly 3-14 campaign for the New York Giants, someone would have to fall on the sword even if it wasn’t general manager Joe Schoen or head coach Brian Daboll.

That answer came on Wednesday when the team dismissed defensive passing game coordinator and defensive backs coach Jerome Henderson, as well as safeties coach Mike Treier.

Both men have been with the Giants for five seasons, preceding current head coach Brain Daboll.

It’s an odd move considering the Giants’ pass defense was not their biggest problem on defense this season. The Giants finished 24th in total defense, allowing 346.8 yards per game.

The run defense was the real culprit, allowing 136.2 YPG — the fifth most in the league — while the pass defense came in at No. 9 versus the pass this season (210.6) yards per game.

This was the team’s first year under defensive coordinator Shane Bowen, who was once thought to be on the hot seat. However, the team apparently will return with new coaches directing the defensive backfield.

The Giants also apparently had several other members of Daboll’s staff defect this week, reports The Athletic’s Dan Duggan.

Defensive assistant Ben Burress: Burress had been with the Giants since 2019 in a variety of roles, most recently as a defensive assistant working with the OLB the past two seasons. He also had a front office/analytics role during the 2022 season. He is leaving for an offensive assistant role at South Carolina.

Director of strength and conditioning Frank Piraino: Hired in February as part of a revamped strength staff, Piraino is leaving to re-join Mike Vrabel in New England. Piraino had been with Vrabel in Tennessee.

Director of sports and performance nutrition Steve Smith: No word on the reason for his departure. He had been with the Giants in his role since 2020.

The Giants promised that changes were coming. So far they haven’t been at the top, where many felt they should have been made. It remains to be seen if more cuts and departures are in the wings.

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Titans director of sports performance details versatile approach

Titans director of sports performance, Zac Woodfin, recently discussed the approach he’s bringing to Tennessee.

The Tennessee Titans have a new director of sports performance for the first time in five seasons. Zac Woodfin will replace Frank Piraino as a part of Brian Callahan’s inaugural Titans staff.

Woodfin comes to the Titans with 18 years of experience in the strength and conditioning field. The coach spent the previous two seasons as the Director of Player Performance and Wellness for the United States Football League and United Football League.

Before that, Woodfin spent time with the Missouri Tigers, Kansas Jayhawks, Southern Miss, UAB, and the Green Bay Packers.

The new coach recently detailed the unique approach he will bring to training. Woodfin described his style as “blue-collar” and “cutting edge.”

“The simplest way to describe our style is blue-collar, and it’s cutting edge,” Woodfin said, per Jim Wyatt. “It’s the perfect balance between those two.

“Blue-collar in the nature of, this is a very physical, violent game, and you have to train hard. There is no way you can train soft and play hard. So, the training has to be hard training at times.

“The cutting-edge part is the assessment, using the technologies that we have, that we brought in with our sports science department, to assess our guys, to know: ‘Are there asymmetries to understand what the things are they really need in order to improve their performance?’ Because everybody is different, and having a very individual training plan for each one of our guys based on the position they play, based on the needs that they gave.”

This will certainly sound nice to Titans fans, who grew tired of seeing Titans’ players consistently appear on the injury report. Under Callahan, the Titans have expanded the sports performance department.

In addition to hiring Woodfin, the Titans also added Mark Lovat, Grant Thorne, and John Shaw. Lovat and Thorne were hired as assistant strength and conditioning coaches while Shaw was hired as a speed training coach. That group of coaches joins holdovers Brian Bell (Assistant Director of Sports Performance) and Haley Roberts (Sports Performance Assistant).

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Giants announce new hires, more coaching changes

The New York Giants have officially announced the hire of Frank Piraino and revealed several new title changes for members of their staff.

As the NFL heads toward the new league year on March 13, the New York Giants continue to add to and tweak their coaching staff.

This week they announced that Frank Piraino was officially hired as the team’s new director of strength and conditioning.

Drew Wilson, the Giants’ assistant strength and conditioning coach for the past three seasons, has been given a new title: assistant director of strength and conditioning.

In other news, Mike Adams — the Giants’ assistant special teams coach last season — has been named the team’s assistant secondary coach and will work with both defensive backs coach/passing game coordinator Jerome Henderson and safeties coach Mike Treier.

Piraino is the fourth former Tennessee Titans coach to move to the Giants this offseason. The others are defensive coordinator Shane Bowen, tight ends coach Tim Kelly, and defensive assistant Zak Kuhr.

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Giants hiring ex-Titans director of sports performance Frank Piraino

The Giants are reportedly hiring former Titans director of sports performance, Frank Piraino.

The Tennessee Titans revealed 21 members of their 2024 coaching staff on Tuesday, which included some holdovers from former head coach Mike Vrabel’s staff.

But one name not included in the list was director of sports performance, Frank Piraino.

As it turns out, he won’t be returning to the Titans and has instead been hired by the New York Giants as their director of strength and conditioning, according to ESPN’s Jordan Raanan and Turron Davenport.

Piraino was first hired by the Titans in 2019 as the strength and conditioning coach and was promoted to director of sports performance in 2022.

Seeing as how New York has dealt with so many injuries over the last few years, Giants fans won’t be happy to know that the Titans have been one of the most injured teams in the NFL the last three seasons.

No team in the NFL fielded more players in 2021 and 2022 than the Titans, and Tennessee was the fifth-most injured team in the league in 2023, falling one spot behind the Giants.

Piraino is just the latest former Titan to join Big Blue, with the team also hiring former Tennessee defensive coordinator Shane Bowen to the same role, and former offensive coordinator Tim Kelly as tight ends coach.

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Giants hire new director of strength and conditioning

The Giants have hired Frank Piraino, who oversaw one of the most-injured teams in 2023 (Titans), as their strength and conditioning director.

In mid-January, the New York Giants hired Aaron Wellman as their executive director of player performance, replacing Craig Fitzgerald, who left for Florida a month earlier.

On Tuesday, they continued that overhaul, hiring Frank Piraino as their director of strength and conditioning.

Piraino comes to the Giants by way of the Tennessee Titans, where he spent the past five seasons — the last two serving as the team’s director of sports performance, overseeing one of the most injured teams in the league.

The Giants were the fourth-most injured team in the NFL in 2023, just one spot ahead of the Titans at No. 5 overall.

Before joining the Titans, Piraino spent 16 seasons at the high school and college levels, including six years with Boston College and other notable stops with Temple, Notre Dame, and Florida.

Piraino is the latest Titans castoff to join the Giants, who previously hired Shane Bowen as defensive coordinator and Tim Kelly as tight ends coach.

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