With Jerod Mayo fired on Sunday, all eyes now turn to the New England Patriots’ search for their next head coach. And there’s one name that everyone believes is at the top of Robert Kraft’s list: Mike Vrabel.
Vrabel, a Patriots Hall of Famer who has six years of head coaching experience with the Tennessee Titans, is expected to be one of the hottest coaching candidates around the league, and already interviewed with the New York Jets late last week.
Making his weekly appearance on The Greg Hill Show, WFAN host and longtime NFL analyst Boomer Esiason said he believes that the possibility of missing out on Vrabel is the biggest reason Kraft moved so quickly in firing Mayo. Listen to the full segment above.
“I think what most other people think, and that is that Mike Vrabel’s out there,” Esiason said. “And I think with the Jets interviewing Mike Vrabel last week, and we all know about the relationship between Vrabel and Bob Kraft – we saw that when he went into the Patriots Hall of Fame during the season when he was the coach of the Titans – I think that tells us all we need to know. I think all of us really think that Mike Vrabel is going to be the next head coach of the Patriots as we sit here right now this morning.
“I think it’s gotta be Vrabel,” Esiason added. “I think that’s why Bob Kraft would’ve went this quickly, this soundly and this decisively.”
Esiason believes that Vrabel’s interview with the Jets may have pushed Kraft towards making the change even more.
“I think that Bob Kraft did not want to see Mike Vrabel wearing green and white,” Esiason said. “Now, that could still happen, but I kind of feel like that’s the motivation behind this, that if you’re gonna get Vrabel, you gotta get him now. You can’t wait.”
Esiason also said that while the Patriots were a mess this season, he actually thinks New England is one of the best jobs available right now.
“You have your rookie quarterback [in Drake Maye] who got through the year, and I think he showed enough,” Esiason said. “I also know that you have a lot of money, probably the most money under the cap, to be able to spend in free agency, if you spend it right. And then you have a high draft pick. So, I think all of the ingredients are there for the Patriots to come out of their funk now over the next two to three years, assuming that they select the right guy.”