While Mike Vrabel is fond of calling on random players in meetings to make sure they’re being attentive, it’s a good thing he wasn’t checking notebooks early in his tenure as Titans head coach.
He wouldn’t have liked what A.J. Brown was scribbling down.
Though the star wide receiver is frequently floated to Foxborough in trade rumors because he played under Vrabel for three seasons in Tennessee, the two didn’t get off to the hottest start. It took time for Brown to really appreciate why Vrabel was so hard on him early in his career.
On the “Dudes on Dudes” podcast with Rob Gronkowski and Julian Edelman, Brown admitted that he disliked the coach at first and his notebook was tailored accordingly.
“He wants to make sure you’re staying engaged and he’s going to go over the keys to victory of the week,” Brown explained. “You better know them by the back of your hand. I used to write in my notebook because at the time, I really didn’t like Vrabes. I didn’t like him, and I admit that he knows that. So, I used to write, ‘I hate Vrabes, I hate Vrabes, I hate Vrabes.’
“I was doing that to pretend like I was taking notes to look like I was engaged. But because he was so hard on me when I was a rookie and I really didn’t understand it. So, at the time I told Vrabes like, ‘Hey, like I’m humble already. You don’t got to humble me.’ But I really didn’t understand what he was trying to, you know, push me to be.”
That didn’t stop Vrabel from trying to develop Brown, who has since grown into a three-time All-Pro with the Eagles.
“Another little quick thing, he showed a clip and I ran like a bang-8 (route), and I scored and he praised me,” Brown said. “So, I was kind of feeling good about myself, right? I’m a rookie and a couple of plays later, he showed me another play with the bang-8, and I get tackled. He was like, ‘What’s the difference between the first play and the second play?’ And he was like, ‘You’re tired.’ He was like, ‘That’s not going to cut it.’ He like, ‘That same mentality that you showed on the first play, you should do that all the time. That’s who you are. Like this right here, that’s not going to cut it.’”
Eventually Brown got the message. Vrabel’s teams have excelled because the sum is greater than the parts, and Brown was still a very productive part during their three seasons together.
“When I say he holds every single player accountable from top to bottom, I don’t care who it is, like that’s who he is,” Brown said. “And it makes the team come together because nobody is bigger than the team. Nobody is bigger than the program, so you have to respect it.”