The Red Ferrari We Found Hidden in Our Garage

It’s a sad day in Nashville.

Our Tennessee Titans saw their Cinderella story come to a grinding halt last Sunday in the AFC championship game, courtesy of the Kansas City Chiefs.

Heartbreaking, but it wasn’t exactly a surprise.

The real surprise was that we made it that far.

For years, the Titans have looked more like a rusty old lawnmower that was left out in the rain than a well-oiled machine. And after a dismal 2-4 start, it looked like another disappointing season.

Mike Vrabel was our fifth head coach in eight years, and it looked like he wasn’t going to make it much longer.

Then everything changed in the blink of an eye. Nearly every player suddenly started playing better.

A LOT better.

Running back Derrick Henry became the leading rusher in the NFL, earning the nickname “King Henry”. Quarterback Ryan Tannehill had the highest passer rating in the NFL. The defense shut down Tom Brady and the New England Patriots with a historic goal line stand in the first playoff game.

The Titans started winning. And winning. And winning.

So what led to such a seismic change?

It wasn’t athletic talent. We had plenty of that when we were losing, including two Heisman Award winners.

What made the difference was a courageous management decision made by Coach Vrabel and General Manager Jon Robinson.

Back in October, they decided to bench one of our Heisman winners, starting quarterback Marcus Mariota.

If you’re not a football fan, you can’t imagine what a controversial call this was. Not only was Mariota the most popular player on the team, but they paid a fortune to get him. Benching him was like saying “We failed. We’re desperate and don’t know what else to do”.

But somehow, some way, Tannehill just clicked with the team. Some called it the second Music City Miracle, because it almost took an act of God to turn the Titans around.

They went from trudging along like that rusty old lawnmower, to racing through the wind like a bright red Ferrari on the Autobahn.

Tannehill was the Firestarter needed to ignite the rest of the team, and had been patiently sitting there on the bench as a backup quarterback all that time. Once he was unleashed, it was like a Ferrari that had finally been let out of the garage.

As Jim Collins wrote in his mega best-selling book Good to Great, great managers make sure they have the right people on the bus, AND in the right seats.

What the Titans needed was for one person to move from his seat on the bench, to the seat called “Starting Quarterback”.

Great athletic talent is critical to winning. But in this case, great management was the tipping point.

In Servant Leadership,

Glenn Shepard

P.S. The one position that did not improve was our kicking game. We were last in the NFL in field goals and went through five kickers in one season.

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