New Titans head coach Mike Vrabel enjoyed a long and successful career in the NFL before transitioning into coaching in 2011.
But as Vrabel shared in his first sit down interview after being named the head coach of the Tennessee Titans, that transition wasn't as smooth as you might think. It turns out there's a big difference between interviewing for a roster spot as a player, and a spot on staff as a coach.
"The interview process is very...it's sensitive. By that I mean you have to make a connection with the person that's sitting across the table from you. As a player, your interview is 'I'm going to go after it, and we're going to find out who's better, and we're going to win, and we're going to fight, and we're going to scrap.'"
"So your development as a coach is you've got to go through and learn all these different things and then you have to learn how to interview."
That's when Vrabel opened up to share a personal story about his first coaching interview, which happened to for a job at Ohio State under Urban Meyer.
"I bombed my first interview. Urban Meyer interviewed me and I bombed it. It's an amazing and humbling story that I shared with [owner] Amy [Adams Strunk] and [GM] Jon [Robinson]."
"But Urban had faith in me, and he called me that night and said, 'That's the worst thing I've ever seen. I want you to come back tomorrow at 6 in the morning, and I want you to do it again.' So I left the house, and went down and stayed in the office, stayed up all night, cleaned my thoughts up, got things in order, did the interview, and he hired me at Ohio State."
Vrabel coached the linebackers that first season in Columbus, and then coached the defensive line the next two years before leaving to join Bill O'Brien's staff as the linebackers coach with the Houston Texans. Heading into 2017, Vrable was promoted to defensive coordinator.
Now, about seven years after that bombed interview in Columbus, Vrabel is leading an NFL franchise with loads of talent, fresh off a second-round playoff exit, and working to put together a staff for the first time, where he'll be on the other side of that interview table.
Hear more insight from Vrabel in the clip.
The first exclusive sit-down interview with Tennessee Titans head coach Mike Vrabel #TitanUppic.twitter.com/n41alYnDVP
— Tennessee Titans (@Titans) January 25, 2018