The Patriots hurried a coaching search and hired one of their former Super Bowl-winning linebackers to right the wayward franchise.
Don’t stop if you’ve heard this before. Yes, it happened last year, too.
Mike Vrabel was hired Sunday as Patriots head coach — completing a move that was widely expected across the NFL ever since the moment that Jerod Mayo was fired hours after the regular season ended.
Mayo, owner Robert Kraft’s handpicked successor to Bill Belichick and Vrabel’s former teammate in 2008, lasted one season on the sideline.
After winning three Super Bowls as a player with the Patriots, Vrabel later went 54-45 with an appearance in the AFC Championship game over six seasons as the тιтans head coach. He was fired after the 2023 season.
With the Patriots, Vrabel could find the ᴀsset that he never had with the тιтans: a young franchise quarterback with a first-round pedigree.
The Patriots drafted Drake Maye with the No. 3 pick in 2024, and he showed flashes of promise as a rookie.
“Vrabel is going to тιԍнтen the screws,” Tedy Bruschi, Vrabel’s former Patriots teammate, said on ESPN’s ‘NFL Countdown.’ “In my opinion, there are some people in the front office that need to be told, ‘You don’t know what you’re doing and you need to take a step back.’ … I love the hire. Of course, this guy is a friend of mine. But there is going to be a change.”
The Patriots only interviewed four candidates, which pales in comparison to the five other extensive searches being conducted around the league.
Vrabel, a member of the Patriots Hall of Fame, spent the 2024 season as a consultant for the Browns.
In addition to Vrabel, the Patriots talked with Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson — arguably the NFL’s most sought-after ᴀssistant — and former NFL offensive coordinators Pep Hamilton and Byron Leftwich.
Because Hamilton and Leftwich are not in the NFL, they were available right away and the Patriots were able to satisfy the Rooney Rule, which requires at least two minority candidates be interviewed. Whether the league considers that process to be skirting the spirit of the rule to advance minority candidates remains to be seen.
The Jets and Bears interviewed Vrabel, who might have used the Jets to create the leverage needed to force Kraft to act.
Mayo was fired two days after the Jets became the first team to interview Vrabel.
The Raiders did not request an interview with Vrabel, which is interesting given that minority owner Tom Brady and Vrabel are former teammates and friends. NFL Network reported that Brady essentially is running the Raiders’ search and was told firsthand by Vrabel that he expected to land back in New England.
Rex Ryan, the former Jets head coach who interviewed last week to get a second term at the helm, reacted to Vrabel’s hire from his analyst’s chair on “NFL Countdown.”
“Hey, man, hopefully, I get to kick this guy’s ᴀss twice a year. I don’t know,” Ryan said. “I’m just kidding, Vrabes. I’m just kidding, buddy.”
