The New England Patriots officially announced on Sunday that they had hired Mike Vrabel as their new head coach.
It’s a move everyone was expecting, but now that it’s done, there’s already a sense of new life for a Patriots team that looked dead in the water in the 2024 season.
Did the Patriots do wrong by Jerod Mayo by making him a one-and-done head coach? Yes.
Did the Patriots make the right decision to fire him and hire Vrabel? Yes.
Both can be right in this instance. Unlike Mayo, Vrabel has a proven track record as a winning head coach. He coached the Tennessee Titans to three consecutive playoff appearances and an AFC Championship Game. There is no learning on the job with this hire.
That’s also why this was the right pick over Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson as well. Look, I completely understand why people are enamored with the offensive innovation Johnson could have potentially brought to New England, but he’s also unproven as a head coach.
He might go on to be one of the best young head coaches in the league, or he could crash and burn like Josh McDaniels did, twice.
The Patriots couldn’t risk another failed hiring of a rookie head coach, especially when they had a chance to get Vrabel. There’s a familiarity there between the two sides, and that can be viewed as a good thing. This one is personal for Vrabel considering he won three Super Bowls with the team as a player.
It’s also important to remember that he didn’t coach under Bill Belichick. So, the notion that this will be a continuation of how Belichick handled things is completely inaccurate.
The biggest question mark is what the assistant coaching staff will look like under Vrabel. Could we see a return of McDaniels as an offensive coordinator? Who will take over the defensive play-calling?
Change is inevitable in the NFL, and no one needs it more than a Patriots team that has finished back-to-back seasons with only four wins.