Bill Belichick had Ernie Adams, Jerod Mayo had Evan Rothstein, and it appears Mike Vrabel is bringing back his own in-game guru as he begins his head coaching tenure here in New England.
According to multiple reports, Vrabel hired John Streicher this week, who was with him in Tennessee for six seasons in various roles, beginning as assistant to the head coach, moving his way up to director of football administration in Vrabel’s final season.
He spent last season in Los Angeles with Sean McVay, with the Rams head coach lamenting Streicher’s departure during his press conference with reporters on Wednesday.
“John Streicher broke my heart and went back with Vrabel,” said McVay. “We kind of knew that. What a great job he did with us. He’s going to have an opportunity to have an incredibly significant and cool role with the Patriots. So, grateful for the year that we had with him.”
The two work well together, and he was a voice in Vrabel’s ear on game days. In fact, for anyone who recalls their meeting in 2019 in what proved to be Tom Brady’s final game in a Wild Card playoff loss to Tennessee, Vrabel used a loophole that Bill Belichick exploited earlier that year.
It involved a rule where outside of five minutes, the clock didn’t stop with a penalty. Leading 14-13 with 5:52 remaining, Vrabel and the Titans burned a full minute of clock after a delay of game and false start took 30 seconds off, while Justin Bethel for the Patriots helped them out with a neutral zone infraction penalty. The Titans eventually punted, but not after nearly a minute had ticked away on the clock.
That time ended up being precious, as it ultimately left Brady with no time to work and no chance at pulling off an improbable comeback.
Vrabel admitted that it was Streicher who was in his ear during that sequence, with the two going back and forth as Streicher could see Belichick’s reaction. Vrabel said during a previous interview with Pardon My Take that it was all Vrabel could do to keep from smiling out of respect for his former coach.
“I did not want to smirk,” said Vrabel. “But my guy Stretch up in the box, who is with the Rams now, he’s going to help the Rams, John Streicher (Stretch), he’s like my personal assistant, game management, he was doing a lot for us and now he’s with the Rams. But he was in my ear and he could watch on the TV copy and he is like, ‘He is steaming.’ And I’m like, ‘Stop. Stop telling me this.’ Because I could not … I didn’t want to, like, smirk.”
“Outside of five minutes, any defensive penalty, they would just wind the clock. They would just take the yardage off and then put 25 seconds back and then start the clock. So you could take it down. You could false start. You could delay of game. Then you could false start. Then you could delay of game again. Because if you’re punting from the 36 yard line or 35 yard line, you don’t want to attempt a long kick in the weather or whatever it may be, what’s the difference for these punters nowadays between the +40 and the -45? They’re so good, they’re so specialized, they’ll just … instead of kicking it end over end, they’ll just kick it into the corner and kick it out of bounds.”
“So the yardage really didn’t matter. It was about taking the time off and figuring to try and give Tom Brady less opportunities, or if we get a stop, then they would have less time. We ended up stopping them and then eight seconds or whatever it was.”
The Patriots ended up with a little more time than that, but it didn’t matter. After forcing a three-and-out after that sequence, Tennessee put together another long drive that burned even more time, before Brady and the Patriots got the ball back with just 0:15 remaining deep in their own end at the one yard line.
Brady would go on to throw that infamous pick-six to Logan Ryan, and that sealed the game for Vrabel and the Titans as they went on to win 20-13.
Now, the two are back together, looking to hopefully create a little more magic here in New England.
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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.
