The hiring of the three-time Super Bowl-winning linebacker and former Titans coach represents a pivot back to a coach-centric model in Foxborough after the failed one-year experiment with another former Patriots linebacker, Jerod Mayo. Vrabel has strong opinions and strong convictions. He’ll lead and expect others to follow, or he’ll run them over like he did during his 14 seasons as an edgy, intelligent NFL linebacker.
Forget the nostalgia. Vrabel’s brand of unvarnished truth is ideal for a franchise in decline and denial. Since Vrabel’s Titans ended the Tom Brady era in the 2019 playoffs, the Patriots are 33-52 with zero playoff wins. Their .388 winning percentage is the seventh-worst in the NFL, and only five bad teams — the Panthers, Jets, Jaguars, Bears, and Giants — have fewer wins.
Ownership can’t accept what the franchise has become.
Vrabel, who won Coach of the Year in Tennessee in 2021 and went 56-48, including the playoffs, in six seasons, isn’t a panacea for the Patriots. But he gives them a clear identity and a clear direction.
Like Vrabel told The Athletic in a story about his year away from head coaching as a consultant for the Browns, “Ultimately, somebody’s got to be in charge.”
If you know Vrabel, you know he wasn’t talking about Kraft family favorite Eliot Wolf.
“Everybody has their own way of doing things from a coaching standpoint and from a front office standpoint,” Vrabel told me in 2007 when he was a player. “I think the biggest thing is Bill has never been a stats guy. … He’s going to want guys that are going to do what they’re supposed to do when they’re supposed to do it and do it consistently.”
That’s what Vrabel will have in common with Belichick. No one sacrificed more during his Patriots playing days. The versatile Vrabel did whatever to win, including moonlighting as a touchdown-catching tight end and moving to inside linebacker in 2005 and 2006 to cover up personnel deficiencies.
The Patriots have many of those now, and that remains their biggest issue. There are no more coach or quarterback scapegoats left to blame. Vrabel’s passion, personality, and familiarity for the fan base should buy time.
Unlike Mayo, Vrabel won’t have problems in front of a microphone. His press conferences will be more Bill Parcells than Belichick, so buckle up and toughen up, media members. No one is safe from Vrabel’s sardonic wit.
No one.
When Belichick waxed poetic about his days coaching the legendary linebacking corps of the Giants, led by Lawrence Taylor, Vrabel strolled out to practice one day wearing a New York helmet.
Such was the respect Belichick had for Vrabel’s football intellect. The first season of coach-to-player electronic defensive communication, he chose Vrabel for the green dot.
“He taught me a lot about football, and so I’m glad to hear that maybe I imparted a little bit of wisdom on him,” Belichick told me in 2009. “Mike is a very instinctive player, a smart player, not just knowing the game plan and the plays, but knowing how to play the game and what was really happening. He could sort a lot of things out — a lot more than most players could.”
Thus, it was no surprise that Vrabel schooled Belichick as a head coach in their first two meetings, winning 34-10 in 2018 and in the “Last Night of the Patriots Dynasty” playoff contest on his way to taking Tennessee to the AFC Championship game.
Vrabel devilishly employed Belichick’s clock-draining, intentional penalty tactic against him in the fourth quarter of the playoff win. Vrabel, who is 2-1 against his old coach, always respected Belichick, but never acted as if the coach’s football intellect was superior to his own.
“If I ever coach, I will use a lot of what was said to me by Bill Belichick,” Vrabel told me in 2009. “It’s easy to watch, but it’s hard to emulate. It’s a tough way to coach like that.”
He learned in Tennessee that it’s tough to coach anywhere, any way, especially when you lack talent. There are some elements of this situation that will be familiar to Vrabel from his final two seasons: not wielding a No. 1 receiver, not having a great offensive line, and having ownership with unrealistic expectations.
In Vrabel’s final two seasons after Tennessee traded away receiver A.J. Brown, he posted a .382 winning percentage.
It’s worth noting that Vrabel has never undertaken a total rebuild. The team he inherited in 2018 was coming off back-to-back 9-7 seasons and won a playoff game the season before. The good news is that Drake Maye projects to be a caliber of quarterback that Vrabel never enjoyed in Tennessee.
As gruff and brusque as Vrabel can be, he’s also a charmer. He turned that on when he was here in 2023 to be feted as a Patriots Hall of Famer. This was the coaching job he coveted.
It was hard to believe it was the same guy who, when asked about the Patriot Way in 2020 said, “Is that the street the movie theater is on?” Who in 2008 openly criticized the Krafts for Patriot Place being built on the backs of players, hastening his departure as a throw-in in the Matt Cassel trade.
“Mike Vrabel is as well-suited for coaching as any player I have ever coached,” Belichick said in a statement in 2011.
Now, Vrabel — one linebacker removed — is following in Belichick’s considerable coaching footsteps.
He’ll do it his way, not the Patriot Way.
Christopher L. Gasper is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @cgasper and on Instagram @cgaspersports.
