Just over a week ago, New England Patriot owner Robert Kraft expressed the club’s intention to act “fast” when it came to evaluating and making a decision on their next head coach.
Less than a week later, the club has indeed pulled the trigger on the person set to hopefully turn things around in 2025.
Adam Schefter on ESPN reported Sunday morning that the Patriots and Mike Vrabel have reached an agreement on a multi-year contract that will make him the club’s head coach. That news comes one day following reports that Vrabel and the club were in negotiations on a contract, indicating that it was only a matter of time before the deal was made official.
Now, it’s a done deal.
The Patriots had a limited group of people they interviewed, with former Buccaneers and Texans coordinators Byron Leftwich and Pep Hamilton being interviewed early in the week to satisfy the Rooney Rule, which sparked some intense criticism of how the club handled the process. Vrabel sat down for an in-person interview Thursday, followed by Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, who is drawing significant interest around the league, on Friday via Zoom.
Vrabel, who was a former player who with the Patriots from 2001 through 2008, is an incredibly intelligent, hard-nosed guy who not only knows X’s and O’s but also does a good job of relating to players and is also a terrific leader. One thing we saw in multiple meetings during Vrabel’s tenure as Titans head coach is the fact he shares the same situational awareness as former head coach Bill Belichick, who clearly helped Vrabel learn a lot of that while the two were together here in New England.
Belichick brought Vrabel to the Patriots in 2001, which was certainly a little ironic. Vrabel’s signing came just a few years after the young linebacker, during his rookie year with the Pittsburgh Steelers, strip-sacked former Patriots quarterback Drew Bledsoe in the Divisional Round of the playoffs to finish off the end of the 1997 season, which started New England’s slide under Pete Carroll.
However, that play even showed how well Vrabel loved to soak up information. At the time, head coach Bill Cowher and defensive coordinator Jim Haslett came into that game having seen some things on film they were looking to exploit when it came to Bledsoe, and Vrabel took that intel and turned it into the play that essentially won the game.
“We were in our regular dime package, no stunt or anything,” said Vrabel following that victory via Steelers.com. “It was just kind of a straight rush. We didn’t have a blitz on. I was fortunate enough to find some kind of speed around the corner and keep rushing.
“Our coaches said all week that if you’re the right end, keep rushing. Don’t give up, because Bledsoe isn’t going to look back to his left. He’s not going to throw back to his left. He’s going to roll to his right, and he did. I was lucky enough to catch his right arm as it was coming up.”
Meanwhile, his arrival with the Patriots saw him fit in perfectly in a locker room where Belichick was trying to build a group of tough, smart leaders on the defensive side of the football, with Vrabel joining a defense that included guys like Tedy Bruschi, Ty Law, and Willie McGinest.
That formula certainly worked out, and we saw how that group came together that season during what ended up being the club’s first championship run, and it build the foundation for a team that went on to win two more titles over the next three seasons.
Vrabel remained in New England from 2001-2008, with the veteran departing in February as part of the deal that sent Matt Cassel to Kansas City.
For now, the work will begin in trying to turn things around following two disappointing 4-13 seasons. But the Patriots at least finally appear to have the person they want to lead the way, with the next question being who might join him as he begins building out his staff in the coming days.
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Ian Logue is a Seacoast native and owner and senior writer for PatsFans.com, an independent media site covering the New England Patriots and has been running this site in one form or another since 1997.
