The Tennessee Titans‘ coaching situation has been tumultuous at best over the last few years. That will hopefully change with the hiring of Robert Saleh, but the real question is, what went wrong?
Titans defensive lineman Jeffery Simmons appeared on the Bussin’ With the Boys podcast earlier this week and was asked what has been different going from Mike Vrabel to where they are now.
“We learned, with Vrabel, not to compare,” Simmons said. “But when you look at it from a player standpoint, it’s like, what is really our identity? I feel like this is something I was trying to help find. Because later in the season, we started running the football. It’s like, damn, why couldn’t we do this earlier in the season? That should have been our identity to start off with to help our young quarterback.”
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He’s not wrong. Tony Pollard and Tyjae Spears could not get the ball moving on the ground to start the season, but Pollard strung together a few 100-yard games toward the end of the season to earn his fourth consecutive 1,000-yard season.
“It’s just like building a house,” he continued. “If your foundation is not there, or it’s not good, you got a s****y house. … When you have such a young team, what can you really fall back on? Who are the Tennessee Titans, and what do we really stand for? We didn’t have that.”
The Titans’ identity was notably absent from the time former coach Brian Callahan took over in 2024 until he left, and even when Mike McCoy took over as interim head coach, it took some time for the Titans to find that identity.
One thing Saleh will need to do quickly is set the Titans’ expectations. That is something Vrabel did well that Callahan did not do well, and it definitely played a role. This will help them establish their identity in 2026 and set them up for success.
This article originally appeared on Titans Wire: Tennessee Titans: Jeffery Simmons believe they lacked an identity