Pats Pulpit
The Patriots made Vrabel the first head coach hired this year.
Even before the New England Patriots fired Jerod Mayo within hours of their 2024 season finale, there was speculation about who would eventually succeed him. One name clearly stood out: Mike Vrabel, a former Patriots linebacker and ex-Tennessee Titans head coach.
Just one week after parting ways with Mayo, Vrabel was indeed announced as the 16th head coach in Patriots history. The team quickly went through the hiring process, interviewing only four candidates for the open position before bringing the 49-year-old aboard.
Despite a brief and somewhat unorthodox coaching search, the Patriots are getting rave reviews for hiring Vrabel. A recent poll of NFL executives and coaches conducted by The Athletic shows this: New England’s head coach hire is seen as the best in the league this year by a significant margin.
The 10 participants were asked to rank the seven hires from 1 to 5, with points awarded inversely. Vrabel, who received nine first-place votes, lapped the field: receiving 48 of a possible 50 points, he clearly stood above second- and third-placed Ben Johnson (Chicago Bears) and Pete Carroll (Las Vegas Raiders), who both earned 33.
One of the executives polled for the survey spoke highly about Vrabel’s leadership and personality as the basis of what made him an attractive coaching candidate this offseason.
“(Vrabel has been a) successful head coach with bona fide leadership ability, which is underrated with the personalities in today’s game,” said an executive, who, like all sources in this story, was granted anonymity so he could speak candidly about the coaches. “He’s really organized situationally within the game. His personality fits the northeast, where they’re going to run the ball and play good defense. And he has a quarterback.”
Whether that translates to the Patriots turning the ship around after back-to-back 4-13 seasons remains to be seen. There is optimism in league circles, however, that Vrabel is the right guy for the job and capable of stopping the erosion of team culture that accelerated under Jerod Mayo’s watch in 2024.
“I want to galvanize our football team. I want to galvanize this building. I want to galvanize our fans,” Vrabel said during his introductory press conference in January.
Out of the seven head coaches hired this year, the belief is that he is best suited to turn his words into action. If nothing else, that is something for Patriots fans to be excited about after a two-year stretch mostly filled with disappointment.
