Nick Suss, Nashville TennesseanTue, February 3, 2026 at 2:01 AM UTC·2 min readNew England Patriots coach Mike Vrabel doesn't view his run to Super Bowl 60, just two years removed from being fired by the Tennessee Titans, as a redemption arc.
"There’s no redemption to it," Vrabel said from Super Bowl 60 Opening Night on Feb. 2, the media event in San Jose, California, that kicked off Super Bowl week. "I really enjoyed my time in Tennessee. Still have a home there. I go back. So I enjoyed my time there, enjoyed the players I got to coach, the people that helped us win."
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe Titans fired Vrabel after the 2023 season, ending his tenure in Nashville unceremoniously. Just two years later, at the end of his first season as coach of the Patriots, he has a team in the Super Bowl. The Titans, meanwhile, have gone 6-28 in the two seasons without him, the worst record in the league in that span.
Vrabel's Patriots have won as many games in the postseason as the Titans did in the entire 2025 season. The Patriots came to Nashville and beat the Titans 31-13 on Oct. 19, less than a week after Vrabel's successor, Brian Callahan, was fired.
Since firing Vrabel, the Titans have fired another coach and a general manager, creating instability in the top positions across the franchise. The Patriots, meanwhile, steadied from back-to-back 4-13 seasons in 2023 and 2024 to a 14-3 finish in 2025 under Vrabel, earning the No. 2 seed in the AFC and winning the AFC East for the first time since 2019.
That 2019 season, coincidentally, ended with Vrabel's Titans eliminating the Patriots from the postseason, marking the last playoff game of the Bill Belichick-Tom Brady era.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementWhen asked if he'd call it karma, Vrabel wouldn't go that far.
"Karma, I think if you do what’s right at the right times and put yourself in enough opportunities to be lucky, I don’t know if that’s karma or not," Vrabel said. "But if you keep doing the right thing and put yourself in the opportunity, luck usually finds you."
Nick Suss is the Titans beat writer for The Tennessean. Contact Nick at [email protected]. Follow Nick on X @nicksuss. Subscribe to the Talkin’ Titans newsletter for updates sent directly to your inbox.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Mike Vrabel, former Titans coach, talks karma, redemption at Super Bowl 60
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