Pats Pulpit
New England added several coaches to Mike Vrabel’s staff.
The New England Patriots have been busy the last few days, consistently adding new coaches to the staff of first-year head coach Mike Vrabel. On Monday, four additions were reported.
Doug Marrone, Jason Houghtaling and Milton Patterson have joined the club in unannounced roles, while Thomas Brown was brought aboard as tight ends coach and pass game coordinator. What do those and the other most recent coaching staff moves mean for the Patriots, though? Using the information available, let’s try to answer that question from a big picture perspective.
O-line help: Even though his role is not yet known, the expectation is that Marrone will work with the Patriots’ offensive line in some capacity. With 2024 O-line coach Scott Peters not returning, and with his assistant Robert Kugler also potentially on his way out of town, the team has a significant gap to fill — one that Marrone would be more than capable of filling.
The 60-year-old is one of the more experienced offensive line coaches you can find. A former tackle at Syracuse, who also spent time with five NFL teams, he has been coaching O-line since the early 1990s.
Besides working for several college programs, he also coached the position group for the New York Jets, New Orleans Saints and Jacksonville Jaguars, and was a head coach for both the Jaguars and the Buffalo Bills. While his career head coaching record of 40-61 does not stand out — even though it includes one trip to the AFC Championship Game — his résumé is still impressive.
Carryover: The Patriots under head coach Mike Vrabel and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels will focus on versatility, and that will extend to the blocking schemes employed up front. That being said, the team fully moving away from the concepts and terminology used in 2024 is not going to happen either; hiring Marrone is further reflection of that.
Marrone, after all, has a similar offensive background as previous Patriots coordinator Alex Van Pelt: both come from a West Coast/Nathaniel Hackett-inspired system, and use the same protection and run calls up front.
For the Patriots, this carryover will be key. Fact is, after all, that quarterback Drake Maye will be asked to make the calls at the line of scrimmage and at one point autonomously run the offense. Not having to learn an entirely new verbiage will help make the transition from Van Pelt to McDaniels an easier one for the sophomore, and ideally help speed up the process for him to fully run the show when on the field.
Focus on mentality: One of the most infamous quotes coming from the Patriots over the last year was their de facto general manager, Eliot Wolf, claiming that there would be “less of a hard-ass vibe” in New England in 2024. With Marrone coming aboard alongside other veteran coaches such as Vrabel and McDaniels, that will change.
When it comes to Marrone, his...
