NEW ORLEANS, LA - OCTOBER 15: Matthew Stafford #9 of the Detroit Lions laughs while warming up after talking with Joe Lombardi, quarterback coach of the New Orleans Saints before a game at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome on October 15, 2017 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images) Tennessee Titans need to keep an eye on Nick Foles situation Tennessee Titans need to keep an eye on Nick Foles situation by Will Lomas Who is left on the board for the Tennessee Titans? If you are like me, you are probably ready for an update on the Tennessee Titans OC search? Well, unfortunately we aren’t likely to get any leaks out of the tight lipped franchise unless Jon Robinson and Co. want us to know what is going on to force someone else’s hand. So, that means it is time for a lot of reckless speculation. The big question isn’t who could it be as much as it is “who is left?” Let’s look at where things stand: Latest NFL head coach + offensive and defensive coordinator chart pic.twitter.com/yVxEzsKZ45 — Mike Clay (@MikeClayNFL) January 14, 2019 That was tweeted two days ago. Since then, the rumors are: -Jacksonville will sign John DeFilippo -Arizona is going to go with a veteran like Jim Bob Cooter or maybe Ben MacAdoo -Cincinnati will probably go with Bevell of an assistant coach of Zac Taylor’s choosing -Denver seems likely to go with Rich Scangarello -Absolutely no clue for Detroit, the names they were connected with all took different jobs -Maybe Jim Caldwell for Miami? So that leaves the Tennessee Titans where exactly? In house options It seemed like the Tennessee Titans will make an in-house promotion instead of a big move from the outside, and maybe they still will. I have a real question as to why it is taking them this long to make a move if that is the case. If that happens the two candidates are TE coach Art Smith and QB coach Pat O’hara. Neither one of those exactly inspire me based off of one year of what they have done with the talent given to them, though Smith did do a fair job with Jonnu Smith down the stretch as well as transforming Luke Stocker and Anthony Firkser into weapons for the Titans. Again, I have to assume they are waiting to interview someone still in the playoff or Vrabel is making pitches to college guys for after signing day other wise why on earth haven’t they gone ahead and promoted someone? Potentially fun veteran options Mark Helfrich is a guy that seems to check all the boxes. Much like LaFleur last year, I don’t think he is calling the plays on the offense in Chicago so he could be looking for a new home if offered the chance. The Bears have just been out of the playoffs for over a week and seeing as how his name hasn’t been floated around for other teams, maybe there was a waiting period and since they have potentially had their season wrap up meeting maybe he is now available to talk. He has a ton of potential to be successful here give his experience with Marcus Mariota and the fact that he just spent time with a great offensive mind in Chicago. Is it a perfect fit? Probably not, but there are a lot of positives to like about it. Marty Mornhinweg and Greg Roman did a great job building the Baltimore Ravens offense around a QB who really couldn’t throw the ball well or under pressure. After Roman got the promotion MM is gone, so could the Titans go after a veteran like that? The Big Three QB coaches The guys that really intrigue me are Mike Kafka (KC), Joe Lombardi (NO) and Brian Callahan (DAL). All 3 are QB coaches who are either still in the playoffs or who have just exited in the case of Callahan. They intrigue me because Justis Mosqueda had a great article breaking down the ANY/A value of HCs, OCs, and QB coaches in the NFL and their impact on the players around them. Those three are the highest rated position coaches on that list that made it deep into the playoffs this year. Could Mike Vrabel and Jon Robinson be waiting to interview one of them?<doc-sep>Just as the Tennessee Titans front office has showed in the past, they have not been in a rush to hire a new offensive coordinator. Matt LaFleur’s departure as offensive coordinator of the Tennessee Titans a week ago was a bit of surprise, but the Green Bay Packers felt comfortable about him taking over as the head coach of their football team. Our own Will Lomas quickly put together a list of desired options to replace LaFleur, and although three of those options have already penned new contracts, the Titans haven’t shown interest in any of those names — at least to our knowledge. That last part shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has followed the Titans under GM Jon Robinson’s watchful eye. Robinson’s front office has frequently held the team’s operations under wraps and leaks have been hard to come by. Fans expecting to hear about candidates the Titans might be interested in will be hard-pressed to find any news out there. Also, the Titans front office has exercised patience in the past. Robinson’s hiring of Mike Vrabel as head coach came relatively quickly following Mularkey and the Titans splitting up. Five days seems like a quick turnaround, but that January 20 hiring date is later than any of the head coach hirings that have transpired this offseason. Granted, the Titans were in the playoffs and their season was extended, but Robinson surely had Vrabel in mind from the get-go and could’ve snatched him up even sooner after Mularkey’s firing if he wanted to. LaFleur’s hiring as OC came on January 29. A span of nine whole days between the hiring of a HC and OC is essentially an eternity in the modern NFL, and fans had been clamoring for the Titans to make a move just a few days following Vrabel’s arrival. Dean Pees’ hiring as DC came on the same day as LaFleur’s. While other teams were rushing to fill out their staffs with high-profile names, Robinson and Vrabel sat back and waited for the right candidates to appear. And they ended up getting two guys with impressive credentials and pedigree. Pees’ success in 2018 has been well-documented, and while the Titans offense struggled for much of the season, LaFleur called some really innovative games and made the best of what we had at his disposal. It has been eight days since LaFleur was hired by the Packers. A similar timeline to last offseason would suggest an OC hire is coming within the next few days, but the Titans could be waiting to talk with candidates from the four remaining playoff teams. Or they might hire from within the current staff. We don’t know, but we can rest assured that Robinson and Vrabel will end up with the person that they feel is best suited for the job and aligned with the vision they have for the offense going forward. They know what they’re doing; there’s no need to stress about a lengthy search.<doc-sep>Well... here we go again! The Titans are in the market for a new offensive coordinator once again after Matt LaFleur was named head coach of the Green Bay Packers. This will be Marcus Mariota’s fifth (fifth!!!) playcaller since entering the league in 2015. Ken Whisenhunt called plays for the first seven games of Mariota’s career before getting fired. Jason Michael called plays briefly as the interim offensive coordinator under Mike Mularkey at the end of Mariota’s rookie year before giving way to Terry Robiskie who ran the offense in 2016 and 2017. When the Titans parted ways with Mularkey’s staff last offseason, Mike Vrabel brought in LaFleur to run the offense. Now that LaFleur has moved on to greener pastures, Vrabel faces the biggest hire of his short tenure with the Titans. Tennessee’s next offensive coordinator must find a way to unlock Marcus Mariota’s potential in a way that LaFleur never did (whether that’s due to injuries or scheme/playcalling is up for debate). For what it’s worth, here are Mariota’s career numbers broken out by playcaller: Whisenhunt: 1-4 record, 103 of 161 (64.0%), 1,239 yards, 9 TD, 5 INT, 93.2 rating, 7.70 YPA Michael: 2-5 record, 127 of 209 (60.8%), 1,579 yards, 10 TD, 5 INT, 90.2 rating, 7.56 YPA Robiskie: 18-14 record, 598 of 972 (61.5%), 7,117 yards, 43 TD, 25 INT, 87.9 rating, 7.32 YPA LaFleur: 8-6 record, 228 of 331 (68.9%), 2,528 yards, 11 TD, 8 INT, 92.3 rating, 7.64 YPA The bad news is that this is a cycle that is going to repeat itself every two to three years under Vrabel as long as the team is having success. It’s the downside to hiring a defensive-minded head coach in the modern NFL. Other teams are so thirsty for the next offensive guru that any coordinator with even a whiff of success will be plucked away. That doesn’t mean you can’t win with a defensive coach though. Bill Belichick has built one of the greatest dynasties of all time as a defensive coach with a revolving door of offensive coordinators calling plays for Tom Brady. It’s not just the GOAT either. Pete Carroll and Mike Tomlin have both won big as a defensive head coaches. Mike Zimmer has had some success recently as well. The good news for Mike Vrabel is that the pool of possible offensive coordinator candidates seems deeper in 2019 than it was in 2018 when he plucked LaFleur away from the Rams. Internal Candidates These are the coaches on the Titans current staff who could end up being promoted to offensive coordinator. Pat O’Hara (Titans QB Coach) If stability is the goal, this might be your best bet. O’Hara worked closely with LaFleur installing this offense in 2018 and would be able to keep the same concepts and terminology largely in place. That could be very beneficial for the continuity of the offense and ability to pick things up where they left off in 2018 when OTAs start this spring. O’Hara has had an interesting career to say the least. He was a quarterback at USC in college and then bounced around the NFL as a backup for a few years. He caught on with the Arena Football League in 1995 and would play there for over a decade before retiring and breaking into coaching at the high school level, a stop that included being the offensive coordinator of Olympia High School in Orlando while Titans legend Chris Johnson was the running back. After several years in the high school ranks, O’Hara returned to the Arena League as a coach and would spend the next decade as an offensive coordinator or head coach for various teams. He would catch on with the Texans as an offensive assistant in 2015 before following Vrabel to Tennessee to become the quarterbacks coach. Mixed in with actual football coaching has been a side career as a consultant on several football movies and TV shows including The Waterboy and Any Given Sunday. O’Hara makes sense if the Titans value continuity over experience. While he has called plays before at the high school and Arena League level, the NFL is obviously a massive step up. Tony Dews (Titans RB Coach) O’Hara is clearly the internal candidate that makes the most sense, but I could see Dews becoming a coordinator prospect at some point. He has one of the most well-rounded backgrounds of any coach on the Titans staff. After a playing career as a tight end in college, he began coaching and at some point along the way coached the following position groups: defensive line, offensive line, tight ends, special teams, linebackers, wide receivers, and running backs. By my count that’s every spot besides defensive back and quarterback. When Dews was hired on to coach the running backs for the Titans, Matt LaFleur told a story about Dews calling him up one time when he was passing through Atlanta. LaFleur was quarterbacks coach for the Falcons at the time and Dews was coaching wide receivers at the University of Arizona, but he just wanted to pick LaFleur’s brain about quarterback play. It’s a small story, but it’s stuck with me. While much of the credit for Derrick Henry’s revival has been given to Eddie George’s inspirational words, Dews really deserves some credit as well. A guy doesn’t start playing THAT well without some good coaching happening behind the scenes. Dews has never called plays so he’s probably an extreme longshot this time around, but I’m listing him here because outside of O’Hara I think he’s a guy a chance to become a future coordinator on this offensive coaching staff (Tyrone McKenzie has future DC written all over him on the other side of the ball). Former Head Coaches Ahh, the dreaded retread. I often think about the “Peter Principle” when I consider football coaches. For those unfamiliar, it’s a management principle that states that employees tend to rise to their “level of incompetence” within a hierarchy. Essentially, if a salesperson is great at selling, they’ll eventually be rewarded by being promoted to sales manager. However, being a great salesperson does not make you a great sales manager as those jobs require two different skill sets. If that great salesperson eventually fails as a manager, that doesn’t retroactively make them a bad salesperson also. It applies often to football coaches for me as a great running backs coach doesn’t always make for a great offensive coordinator and a great offensive coordinator doesn’t always make for a great head coach. However, in the age of hot takes, most treat coaches as a binary “good” or “bad”. If a coach fails, they’re derided as an idiot regardless of the success they might have had at previous stops to earn that opportunity. I bring all that up because it applies in this category. These former head coaches are almost all available because they’ve failed at their previous jobs. That doesn’t make them terrible, awful coaches. It just might mean that they reached their level of incompetence and need to return to being the great coordinator that got them that opportunity to begin with. Adam Gase (Former Dolphins Head Coach) Gase was a somewhat surprising firing in Miami after compiling a 23-25 record over three seasons on South Beach. The Dolphins never saw the offensive explosion that they’d hoped for when they hired Gase in 2016, but then again, Ryan Tannehill has been in and out with injuries, starting just 24 of 48 games over Gase’s tenure. Matt Moore, Jay Cutler, David Fales, and Brock Osweiler combined to start the other half of the games. There are two schools of thought on Gase. The first is that he’s a sharp offensive mind who has been saddled with terrible quarterbacks for most of the past four years (the three Miami years and one as the OC in Chicago before that). Before that, he was setting records as the Broncos playcaller with Peyton Manning at the helm. His 2013 Denver offense is still the highest scoring offense of all time at 606 points during the regular season.<doc-sep>
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA - JANUARY 13: Nick Foles #9 of the Philadelphia Eagles (L) meets with Drew Brees #9 of the New Orleans Saints at mid-field after his teams loss in the NFC Divisional Playoff Game at Mercedes Benz Superdome on January 13, 2019 in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Saints defeated the Eagles 20-14. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images) Tennessee Titans should now be interested in what happens with Nick Foles. The Tennessee Titans still have no OC hire news, but the Jacksonville Jaguars did just hire John DeFilippo as their OC. For a team based entirely around their running game to hire an OC who was fired last year (in his first year as OC) because he wouldn’t run the ball is…interesting…but that isn’t really what I want to talk about. The big thing I want to talk about is what this means for the Tennessee Titans and to figure that out, you have to start with Nick Foles. Alright, for those that don’t like to go too deep into theories and “what ifs” go ahead and close this because it isn’t for you. This is me putting puzzle pieces together and figuring out what teams should do based on their own best interest. Let’s break this down step by step. What are the options for Nick Foles. So the big question is what happens with Foles. According to this ESPN report, there is a mutual opt-in clause in his contract that means if he and the Philadelphia Eagles both decide that they want to work together in 2019 then they will on a $20ish million deal guaranteed. If the Eagles want to, they can decline this to take the option out of his hands and franchise tag him with the intent to trade him. So ultimately Foles doesn’t have a choice on where he wants to go if Philly goes “strictly business” on him. What should the Philadelphia Eagles do with him? It is 100% in the best interest of the Eagles to keep him on their roster. The problem is that with that projected deal, they are $12 million over the cap for 2019 (We will get to that later). No matter what, they Eagles can’t just let Foles walk without getting something in return. I know that they will get a compensatory pick for him, but that isn’t enough. Jimmy Garoppolo got traded for a high second round pick just a year ago as a budding potential above average QB. Nick Foles is coming off of being Super Bowl MVP and nearly knocking off the Chicago Bears and the New Orleans Saints in back to back weeks to head to the NFC Championship if not for a drop by Alshon Jeffery. With that in mind, I think they should be thinking that they can get AT LEAST 37th (which I think is where the Jaguars will pick in the 2nd round). At that is the bottom end, what happens if the L.A. Chargers or Pittsburgh Steelers want to make a move to land him as their next QB? In the top-40, there is still a good chance that you could land a Pro Bowl/All Pro player. Are you telling me the Eagles are smarter to just accept the 100th pick when they have a chance at that? No way. Should the Jacksonville Jaguars make that move? I mean, is there really another option? You have an OC who has won a Super Bowl with Foles before (although to be fair it was as the QB coach) on a team with the worst QB situation in the NFL. On top of that, this really isn’t a great draft for QBs. Dwayne Haskins should go 6th overall to the New York Giants and that leaves the Jaguars in the position to have to reach for a QB. Why not just take the BPA there and land a QB you know with your 2nd round pick? It would be the smart move to make even though it is expensive and it is the best way to make the most of their “win now” roster. What is the fallout in Philadelphia? To essentially “buy” this 2nd round pick, some sacrifices are going to have to be made.