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Mike Vrabel: Email was just trying to make my point, say my piece

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In the wake of many controversial roughing the passer penalties, Mike Florio explains that the NFL is deliberately undermining the integrity of the game, making it more difficult for defensive players to do their jobs.

Titans head coach Mike Vrabel was on a bye in Week Six. But headlines with his name still popped up from the current issues surrounding NFL officiating.

As reported by ESPN’s Adam Schefter on Sunday, Vrabel sent a “reply all” email in response to a message from NFL senior V.P. of officiating administration Perry Fewell that called for more training to ensure consistency in the way fouls are called and enforced.

Vrabel was asked about that email in his Monday press conference.

“Well, first I would say that obviously I wasn’t contacted by anybody that put the report out. That’d be the first thing I’d say,” Vrabel said. “The second thing is, I just — you know, it only goes to head coaches and General Managers. So, apparently there’s people there that want to put things out to people for a purpose. I don’t know, I’ve never understood that.

“The reply all, I mean, you guys know me, I’m not hiding behind anything. I mean, I just… we all get together, we meet, we sit in a ballroom. Apparently, you’ve got email now, it’s reply all, it’s like me standing up or any other coach or any other General Manager or anybody that wanted to say something in the meeting.

I felt the need to say it and address it. It’s important. Coaching, playing, and officiating all make up our game — players more so than anybody. We spent a lot of time on this in the offseason. The only other job that’s harder than playing is officiating. So, just trying to make my point or say my piece.”

Vrabel is a member of the NFL’s competition committee. As pointed out by a reporter, the comments Vrabel made in the email were similar to remarks he’s made to the media in the past. Vrabel said it doesn’t matter what traction he’s getting within the NFL and noted that he likes working with the officials when they come in during training camp.

“It’s never going to be perfect. Neither is playing, neither is coaching,” Vrabel said. “But, just striving for a level of consistency each and every week that things that look like a foul are a foul and things that aren’t aren’t, so that you’re not seeing one thing on TV one week and seeing something different the other and saying, ‘Well, what about?’ It’s like coaching. You want to try to be consistent so one kid says, ‘Well so and so, Tyler did this and he didn’t get in trouble.’ ‘Well, Carter, that’s what happens.’

“You’re just trying to set a level of consistency so that they can understand what they can legally do and what they can’t. If it’s defensive pass interference because you’re not playing the ball and there’s contact, then great, we all understand that.”