The Tennessee Titans recently hired Zac Woodfin as their new director of sports performance, replacing Frank Piraino, who the team parted ways with earlier this offseason after firing Mike Vrabel and hiring Brian Callahan.
The change is significant for the Titans, a team that has been one of the most injured in the NFL over the past few seasons and desperately needed to go in a different direction.
Before being hired by the Titans, Woodfin served as the director of player performance and wellness for the United Football League. He has also had multiple stints as a strength and conditioning coach at the college level.
While down at the NFL owners meetings last week, Callahan touched on what he considers a “really important hire.”
“That was a really important hire and I waited until the end of it so I could really spend all my attention focused on who the best person for that role would be, and Zac [Woodfin] has knocked it out of the park,” he said, according to Jim Wyatt. “He’s fantastic. A ton of really interesting experiences.”
The Titans are keeping two members of Vrabel’s strength and conditioning staff in assistant director of sports performance, Brian Bell, and sports performance assistant, Haley Roberts.
Callahan is excited about keeping them aboard, and with the new people that Woodfin is bringing in. He also noted how the overall group is diverse in terms of being able to focus on different aspects of training, etc.
“What I think is really cool is the guys that he brought with him,” Callahan added. “We had two people with Haley and Brian Bell that I think are really fantastic coaches and people that we wanted to keep. He had a couple of guys that he wanted to bring with him. I think we’ve done a really good job of dividing that department. We have someone that’s going to do the sports science, we have someone that’s going to do the speed, we have a head coach. I think we’ve made that program a little bit more robust with adding some more pieces and some more knowledge to try to do the best we can to keep those guys getting stronger, faster, and stay healthier.”
After the kinds of injury issues Tennessee has had, Woodfin and Co. have a tall task on their hands. The good news is, there’s nowhere to go but up from here.
