NASHVILLE Youth John Moore Jersey , Tenn. (AP) — Mike Vrabel can’t remember a game where he didn’t have butterflies in his stomach before kickoff. As a linebacker over 14 seasons, he could get rid of them with a crunching tackle.
He won’t have that luxury Sunday in Miami making his NFL regular season head coaching debut with the Tennessee Titans.
“I don’t think I’ll need any hits from the team,” Vrabel said Thursday. “We all just stay composed and do our jobs. That’s the most important thing.”
Not much is expected from the Titans this season with the coaching change despite Tennessee winning its first playoff game in 14 years with back-to-back 9-7 seasons . Vrabel has three Super Bowl rings as a linebacker with New England , and the coach who frequently picks up a blocking pad and works with the Titans in practices has made it very clear what he wants.
Three-time Pro Bowl tight end Delanie Walker said Vrabel doesn’t care what people say outside of the locker room or about Tennessee’s winless preseason. Vrabel’s focus has been preparing the Titans for the regular season, and Walker said the coach has been tough on them.
“He’s the type of guy he challenges you every day with questions asking you, ‘What’s the defensive players’ names? What’s their numbers?’ And I think that’s just to see how we’ve been preparing,” Walker said. “I’m excited to see how he is when we get down there in Miami and get the game started.”
Defensive lineman Jurrell Casey, another defensive lineman, thinks Vrabel’s attitude of pushing everyone will help the Titans achieve more. Casey sees Vrabel creating a mindset that everyone has to bring more. Even on the practice field, the Titans are expected to jog between drills with Vrabel usually leading the way.
“That’s what I love about him,” Casey said. “He’s expecting a lot from everybody. The stars http://www.officialcanadiensprostore.com/authentic-adidas-karl-alzner-jersey , he’s expecting more, and the young guy he’s expecting you to rise up and become stars.”
The Titans currently have a five-game winning streak in their first road game of the season, which started in 2013 with Mike Munchak.Ken Whisenhunt and Mike Mularkey kept that streak alive, wins that didn’t deliver nearly enough to keep either man around very long.
Now it’s Vrabel’s turn with the Titans gambling that the man long pegged as the next surefire success as an NFL head coach succeeds in Tennessee. Defensive coordinator Dean Pees, who came out of a short retirement to come to Tennessee, says Vrabel has been a professional as a player, assistant and coordinator. He expects nothing less now Vrabel is a head coach.
Nerves are part of the job even for experienced coaches like himself, according to Pees who’s going into his 46th NFL season.
“If you haven’t got a little something churning in your stomach, I think it’s probably something wrong with you,” Pees said. “You’re not very competitive. So it’s going to be exciting for him, and I’m excited to watch him too.”
A handful of Titans made clear that whatever happens on the field falls on their shoulders.
Walker said Vrabel and the assistants he brought in have been great Alex Ovechkin Jersey Kids , but they can only put the Titans in position to execute. Veteran linebacker Wesley Woodyard said the players can help minimize any growing pains by winning on game day for a man who played for a great coach in New England’s Bill Belichick.
“It seems like he’s a little bit more experienced than a first-time head coach,” Woodyard said.
NOTES: Rookie LB Harold Landry (ankle) did not practice Thursday after being limited Wednesday. S Kendrick Lewis (foot) missed a second straight practice. RT Jack Conklin (left knee) and LB Rashaan Evans (hamstring) were limited. LB Derrick Morgan (knee) practiced fully after being limited Wednesday.
Tina Weirather won a World Cup super-G Saturday to overtake Lara Gut for first place in the discipline’s standings with one race leftThe Olympic bronze medalist from Liechtenstein overtook Gut to go top of the standings. Weirather will carry a 46-point lead over her Swiss rival, who finished the race in seventh, into the final event on March 15 at the World Cup finals in Are, Sweden.
Weirather won the globe for the best super-G racer last season, edging Ilka Stuhec of Slovenia by five points. Set for another close showdown with Gut, Weirather called winning the trophy again ”very important.”
”It’s the biggest prize you can win in our sport,” she said. ”This means more than an Olympic medal, which is just one race and where luck always plays a part. But a globe is never a matter of luck.”
On a shortened course due to weather conditions, Weirather timed 1 minute, 2.17 seconds to beat Olympic silver medalist Anna Veith of Austria by 0.36. Wendy Holdener of Switzerland trailed by 0.38 in third for her career best super-G result. Gut finished 0.59 off the lead.
The surprise gold medalist from the Pyeongchang Olympics Richard Panik Jersey , Ester Ledecka of Czech Republic, didn’t compete as she started in a snowboard parallel giant slalom in Turkey.
Also, overall World Cup leader Mikaela Shiffrin and her American teammate Lindsey Vonn both sat out the race. Shiffrin was preparing for next week’s technical races in Ofterschwang, Germany, while Vonn will only race again at the finals.
Shiffrin’s lead over Holdener, her only remaining rival for the overall championship, was reduced to 611 points on Saturday, but the Swiss skier has been left with only a mathematical chance of closing the gap with seven races remaining.
Wearing bib No. 7, Weirather was able to learn from problems at the final jump before the finish for most of the early starters, including runner-up Veith. They came wide and lost time in making the next gate.
”I did a good job today. At the start I watched the first four skiers and saw they had big problems,” said Weirather Adam Henrique Jersey , who competed in a Europa Cup super-G on the same course last Wednesday.
”This is the most difficult hill all year,” she said. ”Every time I misjudge something, so it was important to find out how the rolls are, how the course feels.”
Veith acknowledged she probably lost the victory just before the finish.
”Everything was possible today,” the former two-time overall champion said. ”I felt like I wanted too much and that’s why I made the mistake at the bottom part.”
A combined event, adding the results of another super-G and a slalom run, is scheduled for Sunday.
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