Don't count out Mike Vrabel in Super Bowl LX
Seattle has the better roster. New England has the coach of the year.
Moving expenses were laughable. Hiring 17 new coaches was a completely new world for the New England Patriots in the first year AB, “After Belichick.” Coaches on Jerod Mayo’s staff were not initially granted enough money to move their entire families to Foxborough. When the team’s offensive line coach requested a mere $15K in new equipment for drills, he was sent on a wild goose chase. The sauna? A disaster. There were broken 2x4’s and trash scattered everywhere.
Bill Belichick ruled over everything. Once he exited after 24 years, the organization didn’t know how to function at the most basic level. Everything went through him.
Problems almost always got fixed, but it was a hassle. Mayo wasted hours upon hours on stuff that wasn’t football. Nor did Mayo have a clear vision. All he knew was this Belichickian world.
After one 4-13 season, he was fired. Mike Vrabel was hired seven days later and — unlike his ill-prepared predecessor — Vrabel had a plan. There were big-picture decisions, such as hiring Josh McDaniels to coach young quarterback Drake Maye and a $282 million spending spree on throwbacks who’d bring his words to life.
But Vrabel also understood the little things matter. Habits. That spring, he instructed the equipment staff not to clean any of the dirty washcloths players left on the shower floor. If players weren’t going to show them any respect, hell, they didn’t deserve any in return. There was no need to go Full Zimmer and ruthlessly MF players. This simple edict was enough. That day forward, exactly zero washcloths were left on the ground.
The Patriots believed something special was building months ago, as chronicled here.
After outlasting the Denver Broncos in the snow, 10-7, they’re now back in the Super Bowl.
New England will face the Seattle Seahawks on Feb. 8 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif.
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For two weeks, America will be learning all about Maye. He’s the 23-year-old quarterback once laughed off the screen inside the Chicago Bears’ draft meetings. He’s the one with a legitimate chance to win league MVP and Super Bowl MVP in Year 2. But these three postseason wins over the Chargers (16-3), Texans (28-16) and Broncos (10-7) were all Vrabel, all the embodiment of speeches he’s been giving this team since he was hired.
Predictably, the Seahawks open as 3.5-point favorites. Their exhilarating 31-27 NFC Championship win over the Los Angeles Rams felt like a de facto Super Bowl after watching Jarrett Stidham mush through the snow. Sam Darnold (346 yards, three TDs) dazzled. Jaxon Smith-Njigba caught passes with one hand. Rashid Shaheed, again, proved he’s liable to sprint away from 11 defenders any given moment. In both scheming receivers open in funky ways and showing the guts to throw late, OC Klint Kubiak earned himself future head coach interviews.
This matchup will be analyzed in every conceivable way the next 14 days.
Logic will point toward a Seattle triumph.
Vrabel is the rare coach capable of rendering logic nil.
In less than a month, his defense humiliated Justin Herbert, his offense navigated the shark-infested waters that is the Houston Texans defense and, no, this AFC Championship Game should not hang in the Louvre. But through the relentless snowstorm, on the road, his Patriots made the critical plays late.
Vrabel never BS’d anyone. He took his job because he believed in Maye. That’s what smart coaches do, and I think that’s why Sean McDermott is wise to wait a year before taking a new job. Took him a while, but McDermott knows every coach needs a quarterback to succeed.
The Tennessee Titans’ grave mistake was never fully appreciating what Vrabel was able to do with a C+ quarterback, Ryan Tannehill. Three years in a row, he made the playoffs. In 2019, his feisty roster ended Tom Brady’s Patriots career, stunned the No. 1-seeded Ravens (and MVP Lamar Jackson) in Baltimore and hung around with the juggernaut Chiefs in the AFC title game. In 2020, Derrick Henry ran for 2K yards and Tennessee won 11 games. In 2021, the Titans earned the No. 1 seed and lost on a 52-yard field goal in the divisional round. Tannehill threw three picks.
Yet, his finest coaching job might’ve been his last game as Titans coach. His 5-11 Titans had nothing on the line in the ‘23 finale. One win and the visiting 9-7 Jaguars were in the playoffs. Somehow, he got his players to fight, win, and I can still picture Vrabel’s final dash off the Nissan Stadium field. He knew he was getting fired.
Since then, of course, the Titans’ ownership has been exposed as a Mickey Mouse operation. Vrabel, vindicated.
Part of it’s being an NFL linebacker himself for 14 years. Part of it’s playing for Belichick. Part of it’s that experience as a Titans head coach. Vrabel knows how to relate to players and get the absolute most out of them. It’s not always pretty. Back to training camp, Vrabel made it clear what practice habits would be accepted and which would not. Those unfit were shown the door. Film sessions can be harsh.
“The rah-rah yelling?” special-teams ace Brenden Schooler told us on our recent trip to New England. “It’s not fun. Obviously. No one enjoys that. But being able to look at it as a professional and be like, ‘I’m being coached. If he wasn’t doing this to me — and he wasn’t coaching me — that would be more of an issue than him coaching me hard.’ I’d rather be coached hard than not coached at all.”
The same coach who’s holding you to a high standard grabs a blocking pad to bash into 6-foot-6, 319-pound Will Campbell during the LSU prospect’s predraft workout. The same coach who wants you to play through pain bloodies his lip celebrating a sack with Milton Williams against the Chargers. Respect is a two-way street. Vrabel has earned the genuine affection of players and coaches.
On Sunday, the sun was out for kickoff. It was 26 degrees. By halftime? The grounds crew at Empower Field was snowblowing over the hashmarks. This became a completely different football game and Vrabel’s Patriots adjusted to the conditions better than Sean Payton’s Broncos. After one bomb early, Denver wasn’t able to do anything on offense. The Stidham-led operation gained all of 56 yards on its final eight drives. Punting was a perfectly fine play in this game. Vrabel wisely put the game in the hands of a backup quarterback who didn’t play at all this season and Stidham threw an interception late.
Look back at Brady’s reign. So many times, the QB understood playoff games in the events are lost more than they’re won. He patiently waited for the opposition to choke.
Only one team in NFL history has allowed fewer points through three playoff games ahead of a Super Bowl: the legendary 2000 Ravens unit.
The best sign of arguably the NFL’s best culture occurred on third and 5 with 1:57 to go. Denver was out of timeouts. One first down and New England was Super Bowl bound. Inside the huddle, Maye didn’t tell teammates he was going to keep the ball and bootleg around the left edge. Center Garrett Bradbury later revealed to The Boston Herald’s Andrew Callahan that they all expected running back Rhamondre Stevenson to receive the handoff off the right side. “I hit my block, and all the defenders started running the other way,” Bradbury said. “I’m like, ‘What? Oh my God.’”
Maye had a feeling Denver would crash hard inside if they all saw the Patriots selling out toward the right. His gamble paid off. Broncos linebacker Jonah Elliss bit just enough and could not redirect in the snow to catch Maye before the sticks. First down. Game over. All a direct reflection of that two-way trust. Vrabel is hard on guys. OC Josh McDaniels can be brutal, too. But that doesn’t mean their players need to play like a bunch of tight robots in the biggest moments.
This roster’s a blend of young players and vets playing free.
“It’s a group effort. It wasn’t just me,” Vrabel said afterward. “I stand up in front of you guys and I am thankful of the people around us in that building in our program. You have to come together and you have to do what’s best for the team — from a personnel standpoint, from a coaching standpoint and from the players. You get everybody to believe in something and buy in. That doesn’t come without adversity. You’ve got to have adversity. I do this for the players.”
The key is believing in something before you see it, Vrabel added.
From the spring on, he preached the need for the Patriots to create a new identity and “protect” it.
Now, they’re one win away from a seventh title.
There are brilliant coaches on both staffs. In Seattle, Mike Macdonald and Kubiak are both at the cutting edge. In New England, Maye is the rare quarterback asked to truly decode coverages. McDaniels worked with Brady, the best ever, and holds his new QB1 to the highest of standards. All possible answers are supplied within a play.
When we get to this point of the season, however, the X’s and O’s often cancel each other out.
Chances are, there will be one or two critical yards to gain (or stop) in this year’s Super Bowl at the line of scrimmage. Everything will be on the line.
In this situation, Vrabel loves telling guys there’s only one answer.
“The best play you can run,” Schooler says, “is to open up a can of whoop ass on somebody and go win. That is a play in itself. So to have these guys bought into the identity that Coach Vrabel wants for the team — and to really struggle early on in the season — was a big wake-up call for us. And once we started hitting our stride and guys started looking around and believing what we can do, that’s when we really hit our stride.”
New England has won 17 of 20 games. It’s working.
When you’re building a team capable of opening this can of whoop ass, there’s no time to waste on busted saunas.
Go Long will be flying across the country for Super Bowl LX in Santa Clara.
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Related:
PATRIOT REIGN? How Mike Vrabel and Drake Maye can restart a dynasty of their own
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Good read Tyler. I'm requesting an article about Matt LaFleur which dissects his coaching style and credentials. I'll admit I'm pretty disappointed in the Gannon hire. Seems like MLF was looking for the xxoo wizard rather than a guy who is going to rally the troops and be a leader they can look up to and respect. Might not be fair to Gannon but the Packers pay me big bucks to critique their coaching hires!