Pats Pulpit
The Patriots have found their next defensive coordinator.
The New England Patriots have found their next defensive coordinator, and the choice is not necessarily a surprising one. Terrell Williams, who spent six years with Mike Vrabel in Tennessee, will reunite with his former head coach in Foxboro.
Williams started his career at the coaching level and also spent time in Oakland and Miami before coaching the Titans defensive line under Vrabel between 2018 and 2023. In 2024, he joined the Detroit Lions as their D-line coach and run game coordinator.
Now, he is getting his first ever opportunity to coordinate a full defense. Let’s analyze the move from a big picture perspective.
What Williams’ defense will look like in 2025 remains to be seen, but the coordinator has a clear vision for the type of player he is looking for. Speaking with the Detroit media after his arrival as defensive line coach last offseason, he explained that he wants his defenders to be violent.
“I’m not going give you a dissertation about, ‘Hey, we have to do this...’ You have to play violent, and you have to play with effort,” Williams said.
“The violent element of it, that’s a big part of playing that position. You want guys that accept that. You have to accept that’s just what that position is. It’s a violent, high-collision position, and you’ve got to play with effort. And if you can’t do that, you’re going to have a hard time playing. I haven’t seen very many high-level starters that aren’t violent players. That just doesn’t work, it doesn’t go hand-in-hand.”
Williams mentioned players such as Jeffery Simmons, Ndamukong Suh and Richard Seymour — who he all coached at various stages in his career — as examples of what he wants. This mindset moving with him to New England would not be a surprise.
“I don’t know any other way to explain it other than we’re looking for violent players,” he said. “That’s just what it has to be.”
Even though Mike Vrabel spent eight years under Bill Belichick, his defensive coordinator will have no ties to the long-time Patriots head coach. This means that for the first time in a quarter century, the unit is set to look different from a coaching setup: after being led by Belichick and his assistants through 2024 — Jerod Mayo opted to stay in-house by promoting DeMarcus Covington last year — change is on the horizon.
What that change will look like remains to be seen, though. But after briefly departing the Belichick tree on offense last year, the Patriots will do the same on defense in 2025; the hope is that this one will yield better results.
Mike Vrabel thinking highly of Terrell Williams is nothing new. Not only did he hire him to the Titans in the first place in 2018, he later also promoted him to assistant head coach for the 2023...
