The Titans are stop No. 8 on my training camp tour, and I was here on the right day …
1. A lot of the faces may have changed, but stopping by Nashville for a single morning did enough to show me what will not—and that’s the identity of Mike Vrabel’s program. On this sunny Tuesday, the Titans spent a lot of time in what they term “Call It” periods. As a couple of players explained to me, the plan, going into the day, is to not have a plan. The guys get a list of calls the day before, like they would during a game week, and then the players and coaches get to react in a sort of scrimmage setting. So coordinators Tim Kelly and Shane Bowen are essentially calling a game against each other, with changing situations, and the players are having to execute on the fly. In a way, it reminds me of stories from the Patriots, in which Bill Belichick would have periods or practices that seemed to lack organization. A lot of times, the other coaches and players weren’t told why, but they could assume those came with a purpose—reason being that games aren’t played on a script. Vrabel having played for Belichick ties all that together. And the intensity and physicality that result from those periods seemed to play out as Vrabel would’ve drawn it up (had he drawn it up).
Andrew Nelles/The Tennessean/USA TODAY Network
