With Mike Vrabel now in the fold for the Patriots, the next question is going to be who Vrabel brings in to fill out the rest of his coaching staff.
Offensive coordinator is clearly the biggest question mark, with the New England Patriots under a bit of pressure to make sure they nail that hire, especially given the effect it will have on now second-year quarterback, Drake Maye.
The talk seems to be swirling back and forth between former offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, and possibly Cleveland Browns tight ends coach Tommy Rees. Rees is a young coach that Vrabel has familiarity with given the time the two spent together there last season, which coming off a season under Alex Van Pelt, there’s likely some similarities between the offense Maye played under this season.
Meanwhile, McDaniels is obviously a more experienced coach, which might work well given that McDaniels also knows how to fully run the offensive side of things, and has had past success developing young quarterbacks. His experience might provide Vrabel the level of comfort to be freed up to focus on the overall team operation, allowing McDaniels to essentially be the ‘head coach’ of the offense.
The challenge with McDaniels is that it’s tough to say where he’s at in terms of his own intentions for 2025. Greg Bedard alluded to the fact in a recent podcast that McDaniels also has a connection to Detroit Lions coach Ben Johnson, who has interviewed for head coaching positions, which might make McDaniels someone who gets considered to join his staff.
Former Jaguars quarterback Mark Brunell is currently the Lions quarterback coach, and it’s possible that Johnson may choose not to take Brunell with him and put Dan Campbell’s team in a bad spot after he moves on. That would open the door for McDaniels to possibly instead follow that path while allowing Detroit to maintain some continuity on their staff if they opt to promote Brunell.
However, as we all know, McDaniels has a good relationship with ownership here in New England and he still lives in the area. So, if Vrabel were to come calling, it’s a connection that would definitely make him a solid candidate.
Julian Edelman, who spoke to McDaniels a few months back on his Games with Names podcast, released a segment on Monday where McDaniels discussed how he’d handle Drake Maye if he were the Patriots, which is relevant now since it provides some insight on how the two might work together.
“I think you have to have a plan. And that obviously starts from the head coach’s perspective,” said McDaniels. “And you have to be able to agree on how you’re going to unveil that thing to the player and ultimately bring him along. You know you were a young player that needed to make progress every step of the way. And this is no different. It’s just there’s so much notoriety and so much attention on the quarterback position.”
“So if they’re not talking about your arm angle, they’re talking about your footwork. If they’re not talking about that, they’re talking about your eyes or your read or how you navigated the pocket. And there’s a lot of things that go into playing it well. But at the end of the day, I think you got to take the player where he’s at when he comes in, whether that was [Matt Cassel] or [Jimmy] Garoppolo or [Jared] Stidham or [Jacoby] Brissett, or Mac [Jones], Aiden O’Connell, you got to take the player where he’s at. They’re all at different spots. They all have been taught different things. They’ve all digested different amounts of information. Some have played in different systems than yours. Some have played in maybe some that were a little bit more like yours.”
“And you just got to figure out, ‘All right, what do they know? And what am I going to try to push forward to get him to progress the quickest?’ ‘I think I can get this and this done in OTAs.’ Okay, great. ‘Cadence, play calls, footwork.’ All right, good. Then in training camp, now I got to get him to see different coverages and understand defenses a little bit more. And protections. And then move forward, ball security. And then the red zone is a different animal, and third down, and two-minute offense. So there’s a lot of things that go into it.”
McDaniels added that evaluating the quarterback from a mental standpoint is also important because every player is different. They each learn at different speeds, and a big key is not to give a player more than they can handle.
“But I think it’s just having a really good feel for where’s the player at? Can’t just keep throwing stuff at him,” said McDaniels. “We always talk about it. They have a bucket. You guys all had a bucket, and yours was a big bucket at the end. You could handle whatever we gave you. Well, when you take a young quarterback, it’s more like a cup. You got to put some stuff in his cup, and when it gets to the top, you got to stop. You know what I mean? And then make sure that he has this and he can do it well.”
“And then, okay, so then when he’s ready for more, then you get him a bigger cup. And then hopefully, he ends up with a bucket, and you got a bunch of stuff in there that you can do well. But there’s no shortcut. There’s no shortcut to it. And I think knowing where the player’s at is really important.”
As far as when any hiring might take place, it sounds like it might be a slow process. One thing that will have to be taken into consideration is the fact that the Patriots still have to satisfy the Rooney Rule in this next round of interviews, along with the fact that coaches won’t be able to be hired until the rest of the NFL postseason comes to an end.
Vrabel was asked on Monday about a potential timeline and who might be on his mind, and he mentioned that patience is going to be an important part of the process until he can gauge the level of interest from guys who could be on his radar.
“Well, no timeline,” said Vrabel told Zolak and Bertrand Monday on that hiring process. “I think just going through good, solid, strong interviews, don’t want to rush through anything and make sure that we’re getting the right pieces.”
“It’s always interesting just dealing with the first time and coaches. There’s some patience that has to happen with coaches that are under contract, maybe at another place, or maybe they’re working in college, and how do you want to interview and just that whole dynamic of just doing it properly and not rushing into anything.”
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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.
