New Staff Member Brings New Approach to Secondary

Mike Vrabel says Anthony Midget's style will be a stark contrast to Kerry Coombs'

Mike Vrabel knew exactly what he was getting when he hired Kerry Coombs in 2018.

Vrabel began his coaching career as an assistant at Ohio State on a staff that included Coombs, who brings an unfailingly frenetic approach to his job. The Titans tapped into that passion when Coombs was named secondary coach.

Things will be different this year. That too is by design.

Vrabel is equally familiar with Anthony Midget, the Titans’ new secondary coach.

Midget was hired to replace Coombs, who left immediately following the season to become defensive coordinator at Ohio State, and to change the energy level in that room. The 41-year-old spent the past six seasons on the Houston Texans’ staff, the first four when Vrabel also was an assistant there.

“Midge is composed. He is different than Kerry,” Vrabel said this week at the NFL Scouting Combine. “And I think that will be really good. He’s got a lot of knowledge, a lot of range in our defense having coached with Anthony in Houston. I’m excited that he’s going to be able to bring a lot of knowledge to the secondary.”

Changes to the defensive staff included the addition of safeties coach Scott Booker, a defensive assistant for Tennessee each of the past two years.

“I think that just having watched these guys interact and talk through defense as we’ve been watching [film] in the offseason, … (Booker) helped (Midget) with our terminology and what, maybe, we called something differently than they called it in Houston. I watched Anthony work with Book about ‘Hey, let’s maybe look at tweaking this’ or how we’re going to do things to maybe make things better.”

Better? That remains to be seen.

Different? Absolutely.