Mike Vrabel will have decisions to make regarding defensive staff in offseason

The Patriots may be less than 48 hours removed from their season ending in Santa Clara, but Mike Vrabel’s offseason is already beginning with a flurry of decisions needing to be made as he begins to assemble the 2026 team. 

One of those will be the defensive coordinator position and who exactly will be calling the plays next fall. 

When Vrabel was hired last January, he originally brought in Terrell Williams to be his defensive play-caller, but Williams was diagnosed with prostate cancer at the beginning of the regular season and he was forced to step away to focus on his health. 

In his place, linebackers coach Zak Kuhr stepped into the coordinator role and thrived, especially in the playoffs. Kuhr’s defense was a big part of New England’s run to the Super Bowl, and the case could be made that it was the main reason why the Patriots were able to go as far as they did. 

Williams was announced as cancer-free at the end of January, and joined the team out in California for Super Bowl week. 

There are still a lot of unknowns surrounding Williams, one of those being if he is healthy and willing, would he return to his role as defensive coordinator, or would Vrabel stick with a young, emerging talent in Kuhr? 

“Yeah, there'll be a lot of things that we'll have to work through there,” Vrabel said. “We'll have to work through – T [Terrell Williams]'s healthy and been given a release to be back and be back at work. So again, I'll work through all those things here in the next couple days, weeks, however long those decisions may take.”

Vrabel acknowledged that a decision will have to be made eventually once all the details are clear. 

“There's always going to be change,” Vrabel said. “I don't know when I would expect those. I just try to focus on the season. I met with the players this morning. We'll continue to meet and visit with coaches, and we'll kind of go from there.”