The OTP | Coaching Changes

we just can't get enough of us. Though well it's not exactly how it all went down, just to share with the ot people. By the way, great response to the gathering of the ot people. I think nobody likes that. I think they are clamoring for it. So we came in yesterday with our great friend, the ever reliable Rhett Brian, and we recorded the OTP on Tuesday ten thirty. So two o'clock I'm away from the office. I get a text from you and you said Rabel is talking at

four thirty. Immediately I get a pit in my stomach because I know that means there is news coming, and sure enough he announces major changes in the coaching staff, particularly the offensive coaching staff. So this is sort of an addendum to the February seven OTP. Right, I think that's a fair way to put it. That's actually what happened, and it's like a little bonus bonus footage on a DVD. So when the release came out, I've got to admit I was a little bit in. It was a lot,

it was. It was a lot to take in. I don't think that Tim Kelly to offensive coordinator was a surprise. I always thought he was sort of the leader in quite the literal clubhouse, because he certainly has a relationship with Mike Vrabel. Mike Vrabel has tremendous respect for Bill O'Brien. He is a protege of Bill O'Brien, one of the more adaptable offensive coaches. There is something that Mike Vrabel very much wants to be with his offense. He wants

to be more adaptable. So that wasn't a shock. But all the other moves on the offense, my goodness, never saw that coming. Yeah, it was. I was surprised by the volume of moves, not necessarily what they were when we actually dug into it. But I wasn't expecting so much shuffling of the deck, I suppose. M Yeah, that's what really caught me off guard. The only guy that really stays in his primary role on offense is Rob Moore, who will return for his sixth year as the wide

receiver's coach. Jason Hoteling is the new offensive line coach. He's been on staff for two years. Mike Sullivan stays in his role as assistant offensive line coach. Selly's been here for ten years and very part of making the machine run. Tony Doo's moving from running backs to tight ends is very significant. Amy, Yes, I think, go ahead. Well, I think there's a lot of different aspects to it. I think that's something that you and I both did

not expect. But when Mike Vrabel addressed that and a bunch of other moves, he said that a lot of what motivated some of the changes with staff that we're already part of the team was that he was looking for opportunities to give people a chance to do some career advancing. And Mike, you and I have talked about it before on the OTP, the tight ends position and

the coach of the tight ends. Is involved in every aspect of the offense, rarely not a part that they don't touch, and so really might have been a career opportunity. The only staff member who has involved deeply in both the run game play a sort of development game planning, and also the pass game planning. And so they are going to use Tony, and Tony's a really good coach,

I mean, outstanding coach. I'm sure Derek Henry's not thrilled because he's certainly a big advocate of Tony, but in terms of responsibility, it's a bigger job, and so they are taking advantage of not only Tony's coaching ability but his brain. He's a smart guy and happy that he'll get that opportunity. Titans still looking for a running back coach at this point. The outside influence that comes in is Charles London, and Charles London is going to be

the past game coordinator and the quarterbacks coach. We knew Charles London here twelve years ago. He was on Mike Munchak's first staff for a year, was an offensive assistant. Really smart guy. You could tell he was going places. He too, is a Bill O'Brien protege Penn State with ob and then the Houston Texans with Bill O'Brien. So there's another tie end. But he's been other places. He joins from the Atlanta Falcons, and so that is a guy that you know. I know Arthur Smith thinks the

world of his story. Though, Amy is really kind of cool. Charles London is forty eight years old, so yeah, it's not like he's a thirty five year old coach. I mean he's a guy who's been added Awhile he played at Duke in two thousand and three, he was working in event management. He was the director of stadium operations at Jillette Stadium. That's what he had learned to do at Duke. He's twenty eight years old, and he says, all this is great. I enjoy working for the Patriots.

I like game day. But he said, I want to coach, and so he called Ted Roof, who was the head coach at Duke prior to David Cutcliffe taking that job, and he became a graduate assistant. And he has kind of worked his way through the ranks in different ways. He's coach running backs. He's been with the Bears, he has been with the Texans, he's been at Penn State, he's been with the Falcons. I mean, this is a

guy who interviewed for the Titans offensive coordinator position. There are a lot of people think that he is one of those up and comers, even though he's not. I mean, Tim Kelly's not even thirty seven yet. Tim Kelly won't be thirty seven until later this year, so agewise, he's a little older, but he is still incredibly well regarded.

As you tell that story, the only thing I could think of was that sounds like a Mic Varabel guy through and through, someone who decided this is what they're going to do and was able to make that pivot in their career. And it is working the steps. You know, there's no way to get to where you want to go in coaching without going through every single step, and that's what it sounds like he's doing. And I'm excited to have him as part of the team with Tim

Kelly as the offensive coordinator. Now there are many saying, oh, you're hiring someone from in house, Well, I mean he was in house for a year. Mike Vrabel is certainly very familiar with him, right and there were reports that Mike Vrabel tried to hire him when he first got the job, and so this is obviously a guy that Mike Vrabel thinks a lot of. But as you and I watched practice in twenty twenty two, I would describe his role on the field much like Jim Schwartz in

that he was an eye in the sky. He was an overseer. He clearly was not coordinating the offense the same way Jim wasn't coordinating the defense. Right. I think that's a great way to describe it. He was the thirty thousand feet view. He was the guy that oversaw everything, and so he was able to provide notes. He was able to provide some outside analysis because sometimes, especially with position coaches, you're so keyed in on your group. You need someone to kind of be able to zoom out

and see the big picture. So I think that what this is going to provide having him as the offensive coordinator, beyond the fact that he's a familiar face and all of those things, he has a really good idea. Better than a lot of people who may have been more zoomed in on one specific area. He has a really good idea of this offense as a whole, what it does well and what it maybe needs to improve upon.

I would think that better than anybody else, he has seen the full scope of what the Tennessee Titans have currently, and I think that's incredibly valuable. I think there's going to be a lot of consistency when it comes to obviously things like messaging and scheme and that kind of stuff, But beyond that, I think he just has such a

good perspective. Now he's going to be able to dive in and obviously be a lot more hands on, but be able to take some of that wide view knowledge and now focus it in a little bit more so that fair to say. I think it's fair to say. And I think it's also fair to say we haven't seen his offense yet. No, absolutely not. That was what they were doing last year. That was something different. I think we are going to see different aspects to what

he does. And I go with the fact, and I keep using the word adaptable because of the whole Bill O'Brien thing, and that was always so important, and you know that's how Rabel's defenses are too. They are adaptable. He wants the same thing with an offense if you need to throw it fifty times, you have the ability to do that successfully. If you need to run it fifty times, you have the ability to do that successfully. You're not just a one trick pony married to one thing.

You can use different personnel groupings and have different looks at different times based on the opponent and the overall situation. So here's what I did, Amy, I pulled the six games where he was the Texans offensive coordinator against the Titans. Of course you did. Of course I did. So there are two outliers that I'm going to drop out. Two thousand, nineteen, Week seventeen. The Texans have already clenched the AFC South, so they sit all of their starters. Deshaun Watson doesn't play.

A J McCarron is Houston's quarterback in a thirty five to fourteen loss. Not fair to judge him calling plays in that game. Twenty twenty one, Week eleven at Nissan Stadium. Tyrod Taylor is the quarterback for the Texans. The Texans the Titans played awful awful turn the ball over five times and had no takeaways, so the Titans are minus five in turnover ratio. The Texans get the lead, and because the Titans can't get out of their own way, they just had a bad day. Then all they did

was stalled to run out the clock. They win twenty two to thirteen. They gain one hundred and ninety yards, but they make no mistakes. And we've seen the Titans win games like that before where the other team has turned the ball over so much that offensively, you're just saying, don't make a mistake or you'll lose the game. So I threw those two out. I give you these four games. Week fifteen, Houston wins at Nashville twenty four twenty one.

They gained three hundred and seventy four yards. Twenty twenty, Week six, Tennessee wins forty two thirty six in overtime, Texans gained four hundred and twelve yards. Week seventeen, twenty twenty, Titans win forty one to thirty eight in Houston. Texans gained four hundred fifty seven yards. In both twenty twenty games, Deshaun Watson threw for over three hundred yards, and then in twenty twenty one, Week eighteen, Davis Mills throw for

three hundred one yards. The Texans actually gained two eighty one in the second half, score on all four possessions, and lose to the Titans twenty eight twenty five in a game that the Titans led twenty one to nothing at halftime. So in those four games, Houston averaged right at four hundred yards and thirty one points against Tennessee.

It's not bad. Well, I've always been very impressed with him, and I never wanted to go against him because he always had when it counted, He always had something for us. We never put the kaibash on him at any point. And even if his team had a bad first half like they did in the season finale in twenty twenty one, he figured out something in the second half of the rookie quarterback and you know, if Ryan Tannehill doesn't drop a guy off his back and complete a long past

to Nick Westbrook Akeene, the Titans lose that game. Yeah. Well, I think, well, looking at all of that, it's that was a good exercise. Mike Keith. I'm glad you did that. It just goes to show you that that is more of exactly what Mike Rabel's looking for on this offense, which is someone who's able to make adjustments in game. Who's able to come up with something that'll work and

have that versatility no matter the circumstances. But listen too, when you think about this Amy, you think about he was coaching for Bill O'Brien as the head coach, and then Bill O'Brien got fired. He was coaching for Romeo Cornelle as the head coach, and he was coaching for David Culley as the head coach. The quarterbacks again, obviously Deshaun Watson stands out right, but Tyrod Taylor, Davis Mills, AJ McCarron. I mean, he's worked with all different sorts

of talents and heaven, Brandon Cooks is good. But I mean they didn't have a lot of running backs at that point. They had nothing to play for in the last two games of twenty twenty and twenty twenty one, and still were able to, you know, go out and make it very respectable showings. I think he's good coach, I really do. So he's got his group together on offense with Charles London. Pat O'Hara becomes the past game analyst.

The run game analyst is Luke Steckel, who interviewed for the Chargers offensive coordinator job very smart guy in his own right. So that's the offense. I'm still surprised. I still did not expect Vaybel to kind of start all over with it, whether it be inside guys or outside guys or whatever, to kind of jumble it up and say, we've got to do something different. We've got to have a different look in so many different ways. We've got to use the brains in different ways, we've got to

have the collaboration in different ways. It surprised me, but as you look at who these guys are, with their backgrounds and what they've done. Tony Dooze's coach tight ends before. Hoteiling has been a head coach before, he's a teacher in the offensive line. You're gonna go with a new message right now because you're obviously gonna have several new offensive linemen, whether they be veterans or they're drafted players. Kind of fits it all together. It makes more and

more sense as you delve. Yeah, and after hearing Mike Rabel discuss it, I totally wasn't surprised at all. I mean, he flat out said, we have to do some things different on the offensive side of the ball. The offense is not a disaster, but there are definitely obviously changes that need to be made. He's shaking some things up. He's kind of turning the picture upside down, you know how. Sometimes, especially in like art class, they tell you to turn

it upside down. If you were stuck, turn it upside down. Let's see what we can do, See if we can shake some new things out of this tree and continue forward. I think that's what Mike Brabele's doing, and he's trying to put people in the best places to succeed for their own right and also in the best place for this offense to succeed. Before we go to defense, want to remind you that this portion of the OTP is

brought to you by the new Duncan Rewards program. Download the app today and start saving and stacking your way to the free Duncan. You love Duncan Rewards, Save him, stack him, use him how you want. America runs on Duncan terms applied all right. On defense, not nearly as many changes. No, Shane Bowen is still the defensive coordinator. Scott Booker is still the safety coach. The inside linebacker coaches are still Bobby King and Zach Kerr. The defensive

line coaches are still Terrell Williams and Clinton McMillan. The may outside linebacker coach is Ryan Crowe, who's now in his sixth year on the staff. But here's where the additions come in. Let's start with his assistant with the outside linebackers, Laurie Locus. She comes from Tampa where she had spent three seasons, won a Super Bowl. Before that, she had interned with the Baltimore Ravens. Before that, she had coached in the AAF. But here's what I did

not know about her. Laurie Locus is almost fifty nine years old. Really, yes, whoa And I mean she paid some due. She went to Temple where she met Bruce Arians one time. She's a Steeler fan. She got married, had two kids, and the two kids are now late twenties. Both got a divorce, and she decided she wanted to play football at the age of forty. So she starts playing semi pro women's football and gets hurt and so

that ends her playing career. So she goes in to coaching, and I mean it's really a fascinating story how she worked her way up connected She was a semi pro defensive lineman with the Central pen Vipers. Mentioned that then she gets hurt. Her old high school hires her as an assistant coach. In two thousand and nine, she becomes an assistant with the Central Pen Piranha, a men's semi pro team. She volunteered at All Star showcases for Division

two and Division three. She went anywhere she could go. She drove to Indiana Apolis in twenty seventeen at the Combine where they did a women's Careers in Football form. She did it in twenty eighteen. She tried to get the Bill Walsh Fellowship in twenty seventeen, didn't get it, got it in twenty eighteen. And so she was a defensive line assistant with the Ravens, and she bonded with the likes of Terrell Suggs, Michael Pierce, and Brandon Williams, all of whom felt like she knows her stuff. She

helped me with technique. I mean they all these guys have come out on her behalf saying this. So she's coaching at AAF she has a chance to meet Bruce Arians, who earlier in his life had encountered a female receivers coach at a junior college in Mississippi, and always kept that in the back of his mind, and he said, I don't care who you are. If you can coach, you can coach. And so Bruce are hires her and she ends up there for three years, wins a Super Bowl ring, and now she's on the way to help

the Tennessee Titans. So that's who Laurie Locus is. She has put in her time, she has earned her stripes. And the players with whom she has worked the Adamican sues and I mean we're talking amy. Those guys don't play. Uh no, those are real football players. Yes, but you know they say, hey, she knows her stuff, and so there you go the stamp of approval as she joins Ryan Crowe coaching the outside linebackers for the Titans. You want to know something that's kind of funny about Laura Locusum.

I have a wall in my house where I put sticky notes when I have ideas of people that I want to interview for the OTP various things. If something pops in my head, I put a sticky note on the wall. I have had a sticky note on the wall with her name on it since twenty nineteen on the wall in my home. So I think that's going to happen. Isn't that crazy? What this says to me is if I leave my sticky notes long enough, these people will just come to me. There you go, They'll

all join the Titans. But no, that's how long I've known about her and just her presence in football. And I mean it's literally been on my wall for years that I have wanted to do an interview with her for the ot people. So personally, I am very excited because I've been a fan of her story for a while. The Titans have women working in the personnel and scouting department now, correct, and they have people doing analysis on

certain things that are both male and female. So you will go to practice and you will see females on the field working. Now you're going to see one specifically on the field helping coach the OLBS. I'm so excited. That's a good thing. Now, the question is are we going to see Chris Harris coached the defensive pass game as the coordinator and the cornerbacks. Former NFL player played with multiple teams, he was a safety. He's been coaching

in the league. The last three years with Washington, they've had some of the best secondaries in the NFL. And the Titans announced Chris Harris was hired as the defensive pass game coordinator and the cornerback coach yesterday, but he has interviewed for the Houston Texans defensive coordinator's job, So we'll see what happens, and probably about the minute we post this, that will be resolved one way or the other. That's the way this seems to be working this week.

But Chris is working with Scott Booker, and Scott has coached the safeties. He's worked his way up from a defensive assistant. Impressive guy. Rabels said it was hard to not give him the secondary that he thinks he is that close to ready, But the chance to get Chris Harris was just over and above because of what he's done with the corners and what he's done with the secondary in Washington. Overall, well, we will see. Stay tuned

on that one, I guess well. The other newcomer to the staff is the defensive quality control coach, Justin Hamilton, And if you follow Virginia Tech football, you know they have a legendary defensive coordinator by the name of Bud Foster. Bud Foster retired and the person who was hired to replace him was Justin Hamilton. Justin Hamilton started his coaching career at Grace Christian Academy in two thousand and nine

when he finished playing in the NFL. He spent a couple of years in the NFL, parts of two seasons with Cleveland and Washington, So he goes to Grace Christian in Knoxville gets his coaching career started with a goal of eventually getting to his alma mater, Virginia Tech, and maybe, just maybe having a chance to be the defensive coordinator. He was the defensive coordinator at in Aia, University of Virginia's College at Wise, then Hokey coach Justin Fuente offered

him a job as the director of player development. He was then moved on to the staff as he was the safety's coach, and then in twenty twenty he became the defensive coordinator. When Justin Fuente lost his job at the end of twenty twenty one, Justin Hamilton decided he was going to take a year off. So here's the backstory to this. His wife is from East Tennessee, and so he spent a good bit of this past fall in East Tennessee. He actually was on a TV show run by a great friend of mine by the name

of John Pennington from way back. John and I used to do a TV show in nineteen ninety six together. And his whole thing amy is he said, I want to get back into coaching, but I want to go to the pros. So that's what he's doing. He is the defensive quality control coach and he will work in the secondary. Now, do you have anything to add to that or do you want me to keep going? No, I want you to keep going. It's kind of an interesting story, isn't it. Yeah, I've been pulled into this story.

Thank you. So he has a couple of famous former pupils from Virginia Tech. Divine Diablow, the really big safety for the Raiders, kind of a linebacker safety hybrid. He's a big dude, yes, And Caleb Farley's good and so as Caleb Farley rich And I don't think they hired

him with the Titans for this reason. I think this is just kind of what maybe a bonus in all of this is Caleb's got some things he's got to do physically to get well, for sure, but there's also a confidence factor, right, and you wonder if this person who goes back so far with him can bolster him to where maybe, just maybe we can see the best of Caleb Farley whatever that's going to be in the NFL, which Amy, we have not seen as of yet. No,

we haven't. But this is kind of an exciting development when you think about him and being able to maybe jump start what it is that he might need in terms of preparation and really getting the best out of him, like you said, especially throughout the off season as he's getting ready for training, camping beyond. So here's the common thread we're sort of seeing in all of this, And

tell me if I'm missing anything else. Hoteiling in the offensive line teacher, instructor, communicator that guys really like to work with as they work on their craft. Tony doos We know? Is that too, right, Rob Moore? Is that we know he's that kind of guy. Charles London doesn't start his coaching career till he's twenty eight, has coached multiple positions, has been with Tim Kelly before. That factors into that as well. Pat O'Hara and Luke Steckel certainly

have those abilities themselves. And then on defense, we're talking about Lori locus technique issues, being able to work on specific fundamentals. And you find coaches in a variety of sports when they come to sports later, they learned how to do it the right way, and so they can teach it the right way because they've never gotten the bad habits when they were eight years old or twelve

years old or whatever. Just throwing that out there. Justin Hay, Justin Hamilton is clearly a teacher, and then Chris Harris seems to have that about him, teaching those corners in Washington to play incredibly physical and to not be afraid. That's what we saw in the game in Washington. We completed the long pass to Westbrook a keene, but that was really more fluky than it was a poor play. Everything was hard against those guys that day. Yeah, it was.

And I was doing a little work, you know, when I was going through some of the Tim Kelly stuff with the games that he had coached against us, and I went back through and obviously I'm excited about the defense because you're gonna have Harold Landry back to go with Jeffrey Simmons, and I think having Harold Landry back, you know, in twenty one seventy five tackles, twelve sacks,

fourteen tackles for losses, forty nine quarterback pressures. He also plays ninety percent of the snaps, so it's almost like having two guys. When you lost Harold Landry, you almost lost two guys. And Harold also can drop into coverage. Harold can play the run. Harold. There's really not much Harold can't do, and that's why he's been I don't want to say he's been Chane Bowen's favorite player, but it's certainly been close because of the versatility of Harold Landry.

Having him back will benefit Big Jeff and whomever else is up there in the front. The other thing, too, amy when it became clear that Roger McCrary was gonna win the corner job opposite Christian full time in camp, and I think it became clear pretty early in August

that that was going to happen. We figured that our secondary was going to be McCrary and faulting at the corners, A Monti Hooker and Kevin Byard at the safety position, and then Elijah Molden was going to be the nickel and then we were going to have a J. Moore to use maybe as the nickel linebacker, maybe as a third safety. You know, there were some things they were thinking about. Take out the aj More factor because he

was heard in training camp. Right. How many games those five defensive backs started together in twenty twenty two, if any, it's not very many. Zero, That's what I thought. They never. Bayard played every game, McCrary played every game, but obviously Hooker missed time faulton miss time, and Moulden basically didn't play. Yeah, if you could have that group together with Chris Harris, with Scott Booker, with Justin Hamilton, that's pretty good. It's great. Yeah,

And then what happens if Farley gives you something? What happens if Trey Avery gives you something? What happens if you start to find more of those pieces? I mean, suddenly you have the secondary you thought you would have last year that you never had together. To all five start again. That's like your basketball lineup, your first five you put on the floor. Those five did not start altogether. One game didn't happen. The only game that Molden started.

Fulton was not available. Hooker may not have been available either. Yeah, thinking back to things like that and some of those lineup issues, and holy smokes, I mean the season was so different than what we expected it to be strictly from a personnel standpoint. The excitement of the possibilities of having some of those personnel groupings that we hoped we would have right under some real strong teachers and maybe a different philosophy or a different mindset, just little tweaks

here and there. Oh, the possibilities. And I mean, listen, I don't know the complete style of what they're going to look like on offense. I don't know that. I don't know what that's going to look like. But I do get the idea of what Rabel's philosophy is with the adaptability. That's what he wants on offense, that's what he wants on defense. And I think you can see where he can get with rand Carthon and put together a roster that these coaches can mold in that way

to be more adaptable. That's just as I've played with it for literally hours last night and today. That's what jumps out to me. Well, I think that's a pretty good analysis. I think when we talk about what Mike Vrabel's looking for in a coach and the way that he defines what coaching is, a big part of that is teaching, teaching and building relationships. How many times have

we heard him say just that and inspiring exactly. So he has found people who can do that, who are teachers, who are good communicators, who are good at building relationships with people, can find a way to light your fire a little bit. And I think I think that we are continuing to see Mike Vrabel bring in Mike Vrabel type coaches. If it's redundant, but it's it's exciting to see. And I think that I think that the players, the personnel will respond to that because they seem to respond

to Mike Vrabel. So getting more people who are of a Mike Vrabel mindset can only benefit this team. Well, hopefully Chris Harris will be here and hopefully the running backs coach will be somebody who sort of fits that and you and you got to have a feeling he's got somebody in mind right this minute, right so because that's Rabel, all right. So this is the addendum to yesterday's OTP as we discuss the coaching staff here and kind of go through and I mean there's gonna be

a lot more to discuss. I mean, this is the first blush because we are literally recording this twenty four hours from the time that we learned of these these changes, almost to the minute, almost to the minute. But when you when you delve in some things, you're like, Okay, I get I get what that is, and that's what I'm coming up with. So we'll see more to come for sure, all right. Farm Bureau Health Plans is celebrating seventy six years of providing Tennesseeans with high quality health

coverage at an affordable cost. Visit FBHP dot com to learn about our history in Tennessee. Amy Wells, thank you as always for the time. Oh my Keith, it was a pleasure as always. Okay for Rhet, Brian and Amy Wells. I'm might key thanking you the ot people for tuning in to the O team.