Pats Pulpit
Their upcoming season opener will be the first real opportunity for Mike Vrabel and his new-look New England Patriots coaching staff to present themselves to the NFL. The same is true for their opponent: the Las Vegas Raiders also made sweeping changes in this area over the offseason.
Hiring Pete Carroll as their new head coach as well Chip Kelly as offensive coordinator, the Raiders are set to look quite different from the team that went just 4-13 in 2024. What exactly they will look like, however, remains a mystery and thus a challenge for New England.
How are Vrabel and company trying to meet said challenge? By adhering to the two As: anticipation and adaptation.
“They have a first-year defensive coach with a coordinator that’s been there and done stuff, and then they have a new offensive coordinator who’s been in the NFL and has also come from The Ohio State University. And so, that’s a pretty unique blend of what we have to try to anticipate,” New England’s head coach said on Wednesday.
“There’s going to be numerous plays in the game that we won’t have seen or we won’t have run in practice in this preparation. That’s how it goes.”
“You go through training camp and you have rules in place,” added special teams coordinator Jeremy Springer on Thursday. “You just have to be ready for everything and be ready to, if they come out in something different that you haven’t seen before you hope your rules hold up against those things right there. And if they don’t, you adjust halftime, throughout the game. That’s how it goes in Week 1, but everyone, every team is going through the same thing. So, it’s just the way it goes.”
Led by Carroll, the longtime Seattle Seahawks head coach who also held that title in New England in the late 90s, the Raiders’ coaching setup is a new one. However, its individual members — from the head coach, to the coordinators, to the starting quarterback — all have a track record the Patriots hope to use to their advantage.
“Just trying to get themes and concepts and ideas of what they may want to do defensively with [Patrick Graham] and Pete’s style and scheme,” Vrabel said, “and then what they may want to do offensively from what Chip’s done in the past in the NFL, from what he’s done in college, what Geno [Smith] likes. Certainly, quarterbacks in this league like things, and will get things added, so I’m sure there will be things that he’s liked that they’ll run from plays he liked in Seattle.”
One thing the Raiders are atop their organizational structure is seasoned. Carroll is on his third head coaching job in the NFL and a one-time Super Bowl winner from his time in Seattle. His coordinators — Chip Kelly on offense, Patrick Graham on defense, Tom McMahon on special teams — are all longtime veterans in their respective fields. Geno Smith, meanwhile, started his...
