Walsh Jesuit and Ohio State star Mike Vrabel hired as consultant for Cleveland Browns

Mike Vrabel won't be spending his time on the couch after being let go by the Tennessee Titans. The Akron native will be coming back to Northeast Ohio to work for the team for which he grew up rooting.

The Browns are hiring the former Walsh Jesuit High School and Ohio State University star as a coaching and personnel consultant, a league source confirmed for the Beacon Journal. ESPN's Adam Schefter was the first to report.

Vrabel, 48, was fired by the Titans after last season, his sixth as their head coach. Tennessee was 54-45 in the regular season, won the AFC South twice and made the AFC playoffs three times in his tenure.

The Titans chose to part ways with Vrabel after going 6-11 last season, their worst record under Vrabel. Tennessee dealt with quarterback issues all season, eventually turning the offense over to rookie second-round pick Will Levis midway through the season.

Vrabel returns to his native Northeast Ohio, where he was a high school star at Walsh Jesuit before graduating in 1994 and becoming a star defensive end at Ohio State. He was inducted last fall into the Summit County Sports Hall of Fame.

“Yeah, I grew up a Browns fan,” Vrabel told the Beacon Journal's Nate Ulrich in September before his hall of fame induction. “My first NFL game with my dad was in the Dawg Pound and [I] was at Municipal Stadium for the last game (in 1995 before the team moved to Baltimore).

“(Fans) were taking the rows of chairs off and throwing them onto the field. … I grew up wearing the dog bones and all that other stuff, just because football was popular and important where I grew up.”

The opportunity being presented to Vrabel is similar — although there is the personnel component to this role — to what he provided Browns defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz from 2021-22 while Schwartz was recovering from a health scare. Vrabel hired Schwartz to serve as a "senior defensive assistant," and essentially gave Schwartz carte blanche to do as he pleased for the organization.

Schwartz made a point to thank Vrabel publicly during a press conference last September before the Browns' Week 3 game against the Titans at Cleveland Browns Stadium. The Browns won the game 27-3, which dropped his all-time coaching record against Cleveland to 3-2.

"I started feeling a little bit better, got my vision back and a bunch of different things and he invited me to start just like one day a week, and one day turned into two and turned into three and Vrabes never once made it anything about other than do what you feel that you can do," Schwartz said. "And pretty soon, about six months later, I was pretty much back to normal and pretty much working normal hours, but it was really an honor to be back in that organization. It was an honor to work with guys on the staff.

"I think I have some lifelong friends on that staff and I'm greatly indebted to Vrabes for what he did and for helping me out. I just hope that I gave as much as I received in those two years."

Vrabel joins the Browns as they go through a significant staff overhaul. They have essentially turned over virtually the entire offensive staff, save for a couple of key coaches, while also changing defensive line coaches.

That comes on the heels of having shuffled the defensive staff — Vrabel's specialty — the previous offseason when the Browns hired Schwartz to be the defensive coordinator. They went on to have the top-ranked defense in the regular season, as Cleveland went 11-6 before losing in the AFC wild card round at the Houston Texans.

Vrabel brings to the Browns an extensive coaching background, which started after his 14-year playing career with the Pittsburgh Steelers, New England Patriots and Kansas City Chiefs ended. Beyond his six seasons as a head coach for the Titans, he also spent four seasons as an assistant coach with the Texans, both serving as linebackers coach (2014-16) and defensive coordinator (2017).

“He's the same guy, and so, to me, that's what makes head coaches successful,” former Kent State coach and long-time NFL assistant Dean Pees told the Beacon Journal's Ulrich. “They are who they are. (Bill) Belichick, (Steelers coach Mike) Tomlin, those guys are the same guys all the time.”

Vrabel also spent three seasons coaching at Ohio State from 2011-13.

Chris Easterling can be reached at ceasterling@thebeaconjournal.com. Read more about the Browns at www.beaconjournal.com/sports/browns. Follow him on X at @ceasterlingABJ

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Mike Vrabel hired as consultant for Browns after losing Titans job