Patriots choose safe option hiring Mike Vrabel
In pursuit of a return to respectability, the New England Patriots went back to the old Foxborough well to scoop up Mike Vrabel, the smart – if excessively safe – choice as the franchise’s 16th head coach.
As small as the NFL world can be, the Krafts are reluctant to go out on a limb for anyone more than one degree of separation from Gillette. Vrabel is a son of Foxborough (SOF) and he was welcomed home with a new contract less than a week after Robert ousted the previous SOF, rookie coach Jerod Mayo.
The whole situation harkens back to the pivot Robert made in 1999: he fired Pete Carroll after three seasons and swiped another already-establish SOF, Bill Belichick, from the New York Jets via cocktail napkin. If Vrabel’s tenure as New England’s head coach has 1/6th of the success that move proved out, the Krafts will have revived the “Patriot Way.” They can essentially say, “Look, it wasn’t just Tom and Bill. We raise great men in Patriot place, in the ice and snow, under the watchful eye of Red Robin and the Pro Shop, where – by the way - Vrabel throwback jerseys are now on sale for $129.99.”
Vrabel is the most obvious choice to bring the franchise back to stability. He’s an experienced head coach with a network of assistants, playoff wins, and proven ability to work with a young quarterback in Ryan Tannehill. Before his time in Tennessee, he worked his way up the ladder to defensive coordinator in Houston. He’ll bring the hard-ass vibes back to Foxborough. He’s a culture setter and professional, and those two qualities were seriously lacking in New England last season.
But let’s not pretend the Kraft’ personal familiarity wasn’t a major deciding factor here. Vrabel played eight seasons in New England, won three Super Bowls, and was a guest in the ownership suite just last season while he was simultaneously Titans head coach and accepting his red jacket.
The day after Vrabel met with the Krafts in Boston, they interviewed Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson for a reported three hours via video conference. But the candidate who appears to be everyone else in the league’s head coach crush was too much of an unknown for the Krafts. They’d rather get back together with their high school girlfriend. She had a good head on her shoulders, she just went off to another school.
At 38 years old, Johnson is nowhere near as green as Mayo was when he was tapped for the Patriots job last year. He started as a graduate assistant at Boston College in 2010, made his way to the Dolphins in 2012, and was hired by the Lions in 2019. But he had virtually zero connection to the Patriots anywhere on his resume, and he’d still be a first-time head coach in 2025. After suffering through a season of very public rookie mistakes from Mayo, it was hard to ever believe ownership would have an appetite to watch another young coach learn on the job. Johnson surely impressed in his conversation with ownership. His ceiling elsewhere may be sky high. But right now, ownership clearly wants what they know.
The Krafts’ history of boomerang coaches doesn’t stop at the top job. They’ve welcomed back coordinators Matt Patricia, Bill O’Brien, and of course, the ultimate SOF, Josh McDaniels. It would behoove the Krafts and Vrabel to execute an exhaustive search for the next offensive coordinator to tutor Drake Maye, but it will surprise absolutely no one if McDaniels takes the job this offseason.
Ownership can be accused of trying to recapture the magic of their double decade dynastic run with the repeated return of all these familiar faces. Vrabel could bring new ideas to Foxborough, since his coaching career has taken him to three other franchises. He could also bring a stronger direction to the front office, the true abscess on the Patriots organization over the last half decade.
But everybody knew how this search was going to go, once Vrabel’s desire to return to Massachusetts became internet gossip. This is how the Krafts have always done business, and it did lead to the greatest run of championships in league history.
Slaughter the fatted calf. Vrabel has his work cut out for him.
