Socci’s View: At this time, in this place, the ‘ideal Patriot’ player is the ideal coach
September was so long ago.
Teammates, fresh off training-camp conditioning runs, exhorting one another,“Take ‘em to the hill!” Running back Rhamondre Stevenson ripping off nine of his 120 rushing yards for the clinching first down. Quarterback Jacoby Brissett kneeling three times near midfield in the final two minutes. Owner Robert Kraft presenting first-time head coach Jerod Mayo a game ball to an uproar inside the visitor’s locker room.
All of it to kick off a new era under a high sky in Cincinnati, where the Patriots emerged from the misery of 4-13 in Bill Belichick’s final season and played like a team of prior Belichick vintage in beating the Bengals, 16-10. Frustrating Joe Burrow and controlling the line of scrimmage. Executing complementary, situationally-sound football. Turning takeaways into points and playing keepaway with the lead.
All of it, so, so long ago.
One hundred and 28 days, to be exact, between then and now. Before the mistakes and missteps of the past five months. Before the 13 losses for a second straight year and the fourth and final win that was met with boos from a half-capacity home crowd. Before Kraft remembered Cincy not as a starting point, but as the “high point” of a tumultuous season while explaining why he fired Mayo, the young coach cast in what the owner described as an “untenable situation.”
And before Kraft stepped to the front of Gillette Stadium’s Sports Illustrated Pavilion on Monday, summoned Jen Vrabel to receive a large bouquet of flowers and presented her husband Mike to New England, as the 16th head coach in franchise history. Outside, it was cold and gray. Inside, there was clarity.
“In the interview process, Mike showed us that he had a very deep understanding of our current team, and most importantly, he had a clear and focused strategy of how to get us back to the championship way that is not only so important to all of us, but also something that I think our fan base really deserves and expects,” Kraft said from the same spot where he had inducted the ex-linebacker Vrabel into the Patriots Hall of Fame 15 months earlier.
“It was clear to me and to my family and my soul that this was the place that I wanted to be,” said the 49-year-old Vrabel, who first joined the Patriots in 2001 as a former Pittsburgh Steeler drafted by Hall of Fame coach Bill Cowher and signed by the Canton-bound Belichick.
Vrabel wore a blue-gray suit, red pocket square and dark blue patterned tie. He was backdropped by a large screen bearing his stubbled profile as the ex-Tennessee Titans head coach and a cutout of him carrying a football as a Patriot.
His playing image could have been captured from any phase of the game. On the field, Vrabel starred on defense, excelled on special teams and, more than occasionally, caught touchdown passes. In the locker room, he helped keep the culture intact for three Super Bowl titles. He was smart, tough and versatile. A ball buster who busted his ass, often to the point of logging scout-team reps against Tom Brady’s offense or the Pats’ various kicking units. At his essence, he was all about the team.
“Mike Vrabel is the quintessential Patriot,” the great Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan wrote in the runup to Super Bowl XXXVIII. It was quite the compliment from, as Tony Kornheiser says, “the quintessential American sportswriter.”
But Vrabel isn’t back in Foxborough because he was, as Ryan added, the “Ideal Patriot” player. Vrabel’s back because he’s the ideal coach at this time, in this Patriots’ place.
The Titans went 54-45 in his six regular seasons (2018-23) as their head coach, reached the playoffs three times and advanced as far as the AFC Championship in 2019, ending Brady’s career as a Patriot along the way. They won 12 games in 2021 and he was voted NFL Coach of the Year. Detailed and demanding, resourceful and respected, he coached Titans who reflected his own playing profile – all about the team.
“We played 91 players, and they all cared about the team immensely,” Vrabel said of his 2021 team. “They would do whatever it took for the team to win.”
Listening in the audience were Troy Brown and Joe Cardona. Brown played with Vrabel and later coached against him while working under Belichick in 2021. Cardona, the Pats’ long snapper since 2015, played against Vrabel’s Titans three times, including two losses.
“We just knew we had to be tough,” Brown recalled to reporters after Monday’s press conference. “You had to be tough and you had to be fundamentally sound to go up (against) a team that was coached by him. Kind of the same thing you would say about Bill.”
“From my perspective and especially in the special teams game, it’s toughness,” Cardona replied when asked for the characteristic defining Vrabel-coached squads. “Special teams are a microcosm of the team – you see players from multiple positions. But I can guarantee you those teams in Tennessee, they were all tough. That stood out every time.”
Right from the start. On the Pats’ first offensive play from scrimmage at Nashville in 2018, Titans safety Kenny Vaccaro drilled James White on a pass in the left flat. The completion lost three yards. A message was sent. The Pats were in for a long day. The outcome was a 34-10 loss.
“We’re going to earn the right to be here every single day,” said Vrabel, setting expectations for the team he is taking over – from support staff to coaches to players.
“We’re going to ask our players to just do a few things. One is to put the team first, to know what to do and play fast and aggressive. That’s the vision for (our) type of player. Winners come in all shapes and sizes. We’re going to have leaders. Leaders are going to identify themselves.”
Coaches, Vrabel added, must teach, develop those players and inspire them. There will be no entitlement. He will work to galvanize them. And they will work to first win by not losing.
“We want to be good enough to take advantage of bad football,” Vrabel said. “That’s where we’re going to start.”
The Patriots, he says, have to develop an efficient passing game around Drake Maye, affect opposing quarterbacks and protect the football. It’s a winning formula in the NFL, tried and true here in New England.
“The (six championship) banners that hang in our stadium, they’re not going to help us win, but I think it’s a great reminder of what it takes to win and the type of people that you have to have in the organization, the selflessness, the work and the sacrifice that you have to make,” Vrabel says. “So to me, those are great reminders of what it takes. Just because those banners hang, that’s not going to give us an advantage on the field, but it’s going to give us a blueprint on how hard we need to work and the things that we need to do to be successful.”
No different than his playing days, Vrabel’s coaching career is a study in versatility. As an assistant at his alma mater, Ohio State, he coached the defensive line. At Houston in the NFL, he coached linebackers and coordinated the defense. As a consultant with Cleveland, he worked with tight ends and offensive linemen, among a wide scope of experiences.
“It just reminded me of not forgetting all the small, little details that are critical in coaching and teaching,” Vrabel said of last year’s Cleveland interval between leaving Nashville – fired after a 6-11 finish to 2023 – and coming to Foxborough. “(I) was able to work with the young coaches and really just get back to focusing on teaching and developing and what their style can be. Then the players, the fundamentals that are critical. We’re going to play with detail. We’re going to play with technique. We’re going to play with fundamentals. There’s going to be a brand of football that everybody associated with our team or our fans is going to be proud of.”
Seemingly still in playing shape, the 6-foot-4 Vrabel commanded the room with his conviction and clear messaging. To the Pats’ discerning fandom, who have seen their team suffer in recent seasons from a lack of player development amid an eroding culture, Vrabel’s words were pitch perfect.
Some of what was said, however, garnered a less-than-enthusiastic response on this station, as cohosts and callers raised questions about the Patriots’ player personnel structure; namely, the role of executive vice president Eliot Wolf. Subsequently, it was reported that former Titans and Giants executive Ryan Cowden, a Vrabel confidant, will be joining the Pats’ front office, while Vrabel’s coaching staff is to be determined.
Still, after the last few years and especially since a 40-7 loss to the Chargers started one of the franchise’s worst weeks in recent memory, Patriots fans should feel good about the vision Vrabel confidently projects.
He ‘gets’ what it takes to win here and understands the scrutiny that competing in New England entails.
“We’re going to demand effort and finish. People ask what non-negotiables are. Our effort and our finish is going to be the contract that we make with our teammates. That will be my job to make sure,” Vrabel said. “That’s the greatest compliment that you could ever give a coach, by the way. Not that he has great plays or great blitz(es), it’s ‘man, you guys, your players, play their asses off.’”
Seconds later, Vrabel smiled.
“Time to get to work,” he said.
September will be here before we know it.
Bob Socci has called play-by-play for the Patriots Radio Network on 98.5 The Sports Hub since 2013. Follow him on Twitter/X, Bluesky and Instagram.
