PATRIOT REIGN? How Mike Vrabel and Drake Maye can restart a dynasty of their own
The End of Belichick wasn't pretty, but hope is renewed again in Foxborough with a coach turning games into street fights and a quarterback who's ascending.
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — The showers were a pigsty. A scene straight out of a college frat house. His first spring on the job, Mike Vrabel noticed that players were leaving washcloths all over the shower floors and refused to let this slide.
During a team meeting, the New England Patriots’ new head coach told everyone that the equipment staff is forced pick up all of their dirty washcloths — and that’s unacceptable. The bin of dirty clothes is right there. So, it was pretty simple. Vrabel let players know that he informed the equipment staff not to clean any of those washcloths. Anything left on the ground, that day forward, would only be dried. If they weren’t going to show the equipment staff respect, they didn’t deserve any in return.
There has not been one washcloth left on the ground since.
“If you want to win, you do the small things,” running back Antonio Gibson says. “We’re grown men. Pick up after yourself.”
Everyone knows to watch film on their own time. “Because” adds Pro Bowl special-teamer Brenden Schooler, “everyone’s too good in this league to just rely on talent.” Players cannot show up to a meeting one minute late. The starting time is the starting time for a reason. Players must take care of the cafeteria, the weight room, the training room like it’s their own home. “You’re not letting somebody come in your house,” Schooler adds, “and leave washcloths over the place. These guys aren’t your nannies.”
All of which is a direct extension of the head coach’s very first address to his team captured on video. He tells players to be on time for meetings and — inside those meetings? — he asks players to pull their hoods down and leave their cell phones on silent in their bag. There’s no need for a pretend cough if the phone goes off. Vrabel assures he’s seen every trick in the book over his 25 years in the league. When it’s time to lift weights? He asks players to leave their phone on the counter or their locker. He doesn’t want to see guys slip into the time-suck habit of doing a set, checking the phone, doing a set, checking the phone.
He implores everyone to treat the support staff with the utmost respect. If they have an issue, Vrabel tells players to cuss him out. He doesn’t want to hear them belittling anyone in the kitchen or training room.
And, above all, he vows these Patriots will build something they’d be proud of and protect at all costs.
“We’re building our own identity,” Vrabel says.
So, that was our charge at Go Long. When one of the greatest dynasties in sports crumbles to dirt, how does that organization rebuild again? In a league rigged to promote parity, Bill Belichick’s Patriots somehow went 266-121. They reached nine Super Bowls, won six and had a surreal stretch of 17 division titles over a 19-year stretch. Then, the empire fell. Belichick’s final days were bizarre. The Jerod Mayo Experiment combusted. Before those washcloths, there was trash all over a deteriorating sauna, one coach (Belichick) dating a woman five decades younger, another coach (Mayo) calling his team “soft,” and a litany of issues behind the scenes that had 2024 coaches thinking they had slipped into a time machine.
Many franchises that’ve lorded over their respective sports wander through a wilderness of mediocrity for a decade or two — the post-Lombardi Packers, post-Jordan Bulls, etc. — because it’s impossible to carbon copy a blueprint that worked in one era and apply it to another. These Patriots spent an entire generation humiliating AFC East foes. Now, they’re the ones chasing the Buffalo Bills and MVP quarterback Josh Allen. Once upon a time, the Patriots’ dynasty was launched with one Jets resignation scribbled on a napkin Jan. 4, 2000 and one bone-rattling hit of Drew Bledsoe Sept. 23, 2001. Belichick and Brady changed the sport.
Now, Mike Vrabel and Drake Maye join forces.
Players believe something special is building inside the locker room, thanks to the quarterback with the legitimate star potential and the head coach who wants to turn Sundays into street fights. They see the pelts on Vrabel’s wall.
“New energy. New juice. And the guys that he surrounded himself, all of our coaches, are a testament to him,” says Schooler, a man who’s experienced Belichick, Mayo and Vrabel. “So having him at the helm of our ship — with all the experience he’s had — he is the leader, the spearhead when we’re going into games. We’re following him into these games.”
His relentlessness is infectious. Most teams max out for a quarter, a half. Very few have the mental stamina to throw punches all game. One handpicked renegade from New England’s offseason spending spree — 34-year-old tackle Morgan Moses — promises the Patriots are creating a team that’ll fight for 60 minutes… with a distinctive attitude. “A certain fuck-it,” play to play, he calls it. Society’s softening. Football’s gone finesse. The Patriots, under Vrabel, see an opportunity in 2025 to stand out. That’s why Vrabel repeats exactly what he wants out of his players every damn day. “Until,” Moses adds, “it’s embedded into your system.” The head coach is one of them, hurling himself into training-camp scuffles and chasing kick returners down the sideline on gamedays.
And if these Patriots learned anything from their own collapse, it’s that it doesn’t matter how many times a coach howls Do Your Job. Quarterback is king.
Maye sure looked like the sport’s next elite passer Sunday night at Highmark Stadium. He was brilliant in New England’s 23-20 win over the Buffalo Bills, completing 13 of 14 passes in the second half for 184 yards. On the game-winning drive, Maye broke free from the grips of 320-pound DaQuan Jones to complete an absurd 12-yarder to Stefon Diggs.
The third overall pick in the 2024 draft is universally heralded by players, by coaches, even by discarded members of Mayo’s fired staff as the entire package.
“I don’t know what his ceiling is,” says backup QB Josh Dobbs. “I don’t think anyone knows. I don’t think he knows.”
This team is far from being a finished product. Nobody’s talking about hoisting the Lombardi Trophy yet. But there’s real hope.
First, let’s sift through the dusty ruins of a fallen empire.
Go Long is powered by you.
We aim to take you places others will not. Thank you for growing our community.
Ironically enough, Mike Vrabel is the rebel who overthrew the Patriots’ tyrannical rule over the AFC. His Tennessee Titans stunned the Patriots in the 2019 wild card, Belichick bid Tom Brady farewell and — to the shock of many in the organization — the greatest coach in NFL history didn’t have a plan at quarterback.
Instead, the Patriots rolled with Cam Newton and reset the salary cap through the 2020 Covid season. Honestly, it’s a miracle the coaching staff squeezed a 7-9 record out of a three-win roster. The next spring, Mac Jones was appointed quarterback heir and even made the playoffs in Year 1. OC Josh McDaniels departed and, in the words of one team exec, “everything got crazier.”
The twilight years of Belichick weren’t pretty. How The Hoodie arrived at decisions blew their minds. He’d make a proclamation in meetings, sources say, and everyone was supposed to accept that proclamation as fact. “Even though,” one exec says, “it wasn’t.” Take kicker Nick Folk. He made 86.5 percent of his kicks in ’22, but Belichick wanted him gone because of his poor kickoffs. He blamed Folk for the Bills returning two kickoffs for touchdowns in the finale. “Not the other guys,” says one source in that front office, “who couldn’t fucking get off a block.” That’s why the Patriots drafted a kicker (Chad Ryland) in the fourth round the following spring.
Ryland lasted one season in Foxborough, while Folk has drilled an NFL-best 57 of 59 field goals since.
“The person in charge says something in a room,” this source continues, “and everybody just takes it as gospel. Fact. And it isn’t fact.”
Belichick never discussed his personal life with co-workers but Jordon Hudson drama organically crept its way into the picture. When Bridgewater State held its graduation at Gillette Stadium — common practice for local high schools and colleges — one Patriots staffer was instructed to find Hudson, a graduate in the audience, and bring her to Belichick’s office, a source recalls. Obviously there was some sort of relationship here. The staffer was understandably flustered. Seven months passed before the public learned of Hudson for the first time and much of that public is (understandably) repelled by the sight of a senior citizen dating a 24-year-old. Others don’t care. Either way, this strange spectacle hints at part of the problem those final Patriot years.
By then, nobody in the coach’s inner circle was willing to tell him something he didn’t want to hear.
“Everyone is so in debt in some ways to Bill that was there,” recalls one high-ranking Patriots source. “They’re all really loyal to Bill. Which is great. It probably means you hired the right people, but you can’t get anyone to keep it real.”
For years, mainstays like Charlie Weis, Romeo Crennel, Dante Scarrnechia and Scott Pioli were never afraid to let Belichick know when his shit stank. They’d flat-out tell him, one source recalls, “We can’t draft this fucking guy” or “We can’t run this fucking play.” Belichick listened, too. As time passed, such advisors departed and weren’t replaced by people with the guts to call out a future Hall of Famer. Hence… the abysmal draft failures. Hence… coaching decisions that made about as much sense as driving the wrong way on an interstate highway. Belichick hired Joe Judge as quarterbacks coach and let Matt Patricia juggle playcalling, OC, O-Line and Assistant GM duties because both arrived loyal and cheap. Other teams were still paying both.
The dynamic duo didn’t win many games but did manage to ruin Mac Jones’ Patriots career.
On Jan. 11, 2024, the Patriots and Belichick split.
On Jan. 12, Jerod Mayo was named successor via a bizarre clause in his contract.
News that wasn’t only shocking to those outside the building. Many in prominent positions set to work with Mayo on a day-to-day basis had zero clue he’d be the next head coach until Jan. 12. Nor was this a friendly passing of the torch. Sources indicate that Belichick didn’t know Mayo slipped this verbiage into his previous contract extension. Their relationship went south. Fast. One former Patriots coach says Belichick barely spoke to Mayo their final year and a half together.
Robert Kraft has made many shrewd business decisions.
This does not qualify as one of them, no. The Patriots owner failed to account for Mayo’s utter lack of perspective.
All Mayo had known in the NFL from 2008- ‘15 as a linebacker and 2019- ’23 as an inside linebackers coach was Bill Belichick’s way of doing business. He couldn’t compare the Patriots to… anything. Literally. A massive problem when there’s only one Bill Belichick. It’s no coincidence that all of his disciples fail to facsimile “The Patriot Way” elsewhere as a head coach. Mayo had a fine message to sell at the podium through his first offseason and is described by former co-workers in the coaching and front-office departments as charismatic, smart, funny. Unfortunately, those working with him daily didn’t see substance behind his public image.
One exec was surprised he didn’t have a full roster of coaches locked ‘n loaded.
“To me,” says this source, “if I’m going to be the next head coach of the Patriots in my contract, I’m going work on a staff. Or start networking or something.”
Belichick left quite a stench behind him, too. New England won more than any team in the NFL under his watch. Yet those six glistening trophies blinded the organization from modernizing in many ways.
“It was like stepping into a time machine,” says one coach from that ’24 staff. “As far as the facility. The way they did things. Because Belichick obviously had all that success, but he didn’t change anything. They don’t want to spend money on anything.”
On past staffs, coaches could tap into an analytics department to quickly get answers or video cut-ups. That department didn’t exist in 2024. When offensive line coach Scott Peters asked for new equipment to implement into his practices, one source remembers him getting a needless runaround. Peters had worked with O-Line guru Bill Callahan and saw firsthand how this set of sleds and shields led to real results. Eventually, this $15K purchase got approved but the process for such matters is described as a maddening hassle because everything seemed to be a hassle. Right down to moving expenses for the new coaches. Granted, this was the organization’s first rehaul in 24 years. Seasons past, Belichick could green light this or that. Hiring 17 new coaches was a completely foreign challenge. Other teams typically supply three or flights for yourself and two for your wife. That wasn’t the case here. The team didn’t provide nearly enough money for coaches to move their families.
After pushing back, they were able to argue the Patriots up to modern standards.
“But, again, everything was a hassle,” one coach says. “Everything was argument. The insurance sucks. Everything periphery was just not what I expected. We were fighting on everything.”
This new staff essentially sipped from the backwash of championship champagne past.
There was an Old Guard vs. New Guard dynamic. Those who had been in the organization didn’t know what all the fuss was able. Those new to town saw a million little things adding up. One coach recalls seeing broken 2x4’s in the sauna with trash scattered everywhere. OC Alex Van Pelt told Mayo they had to fix this and, to his credit, Mayo was open to fixing whatever was broken from those Belichick years. He was open to change. But all hours spent on trivial matters — moving packages, saunas, O-Line equipment — became hours Mayo wasn’t spending on football. Oxygen wasted.
“AVP told him the moving package isn’t good enough and he said, ‘Let’s fix it,’” recalls one coach. “Then he spends half a day trying to fix that instead of working on football.
“I think Belichick just didn’t care about any of it. And then obviously they won so much without a lot of that stuff. But everything ran through Bill. So when he leaves, there’s this, ‘Well, why do you need that now? Bill never needed that.’ I guess Bill didn’t need it, but we don’t have Tom Brady either.”
Belichick ran everything at 1 Patriot Place. His departure created an Atlantic Ocean-sized power vacuum that neither Mayo or the organization was prepared to handle. Conversely, Mike Vrabel steps in knowing exactly how he wants the building to run and can demand those changes at once.
“Because,” one fired coach from ’24 adds, “he has a vision.”
Mayo learned on the job, and it showed.
Through the Patriots’ 13-loss season, the head coach would often say something in his postgame press conference that he’d immediately walk back on Monday. After a 32-16 loss to Jacksonville in London, he called his team “soft.” (And walked it back.) This didn’t sit well with players. When I asked the vet Gibson about the s-word — taboo in pro football — he only says, “I don’t think anybody liked that one.” After a 30-17 loss to Arizona, Mayo criticized Van Pelt’s playcalling. When asked why he didn’t run his QB on third- and fourth-and-1 from Arizona’s 4-yard line, he said “You said it, I didn’t.” (And walked it back.)
In retrospect, flip-flopping did worse damage than the press conferences themselves. Mayo should’ve owned his words. As one coach points out, Mayo called the players “soft” privately in the locker room after that Jags loss before ever speaking into a mic. He didn’t think communication was the issue. Rather, Mayo fell into the same trap as many defensive-minded head coaches in thinking he knew a lot about the quarterback position. He’d chime in often with comments such as “We need to hit the checkdowns more.” Some on staff also believe Mayo trusted the wrong people.
There were coaches on staff who’ve been in the fire with other teams: Van Pelt, Ben McAdoo, Bob Bicknell. Instead, he reverted back to the people he knew.
“Especially,” one coach adds, “when things weren’t going well. He didn’t always listen to the best advice.”
There was one twinkle of hope through the season-long aneurysm: the team’s No. 3 overall pick, Drake Maye. It’s interesting. Whereas the former coaches in Chicago did not have many nice things to say about Caleb Williams — and skeptics dismissed their accounts as sour grapes — the coaches fired in New England effusively gush over Maye. He was viewed as one of smartest people, period, in the entire building. One ex-Patriots coach who worked with the rookie fully expects Maye to be a top 5 quarterback by next season in the Mahomes/Allen/Lamar/Burrow pantheon.
“He is a super, super fast processor,” this coach says. “He’s very, very, very smart and I kind of separate processing into two things. For a lack of a better term, but pre-snap: traditional intelligence, mental bandwidth. He’s got that. But he also has spatial processing so he can get out and he can see the field and he sees what’s going on and he can process that way, too. He can make any type of throw. He can throw with touch. He can throw the deep ball. He can be accurate underneath. There’s no throw he can’t make, and then he can play off-schedule. He’s a really good athlete who will pick up first downs with his feet. I really don’t know how he doesn’t end up being really good.”
Not to mention loyal. Maye never felt right about replacing the team’s initial starter. Maye knew the Patriots’ problems had nothing to do with Jacoby Brissett. The two became best friends.
Maye managed to supply a handful of midseason thrills but — much like QB greats past — his rookie season ended in triple the amount of L’s (nine) than W’s (three). Ownership saw early flashes and expected more bottom-line production. The final dagger was a 40-7 blowout loss to the Los Angeles Chargers at home. That’s when coaches started to think Mayo wouldn’t be given a Year 2 to figure this all out. On his speaker phone, walking down the hallway, Jonathan Kraft was visibly incensed in lambasting the team’s lethargic performance. For good reason.
On Jan. 5, 2025 Mayo was fired.
On Jan. 12, Vrabel was hired.
Everything changed almost instantly.
A code of conduct was established all offseason.
Training camp arrived.
Mike Vrabel was direct as one of those 2x4’s to the face. That’s what players love most. In blunt terms, the new Patriots boss told them the plan in 2025 was to turn games into all-out “street fights.” These Patriots would grab the proverbial collar of opponents, drag them into a dark alley, exchange body blows and be the last team standing.
“Either you’re going to be down with it,” the right tackle Moses says, “or you’re going to have to find somewhere else to go.”
Asked if Vrabel weeds out the weak and Moses is diplomatic. He says that several players simply do not “fit the mold.” A few lockers down, the running back/returner Gibson makes the proper distinction. No head coach can force a player to do anything. He’s not a drill sergeant barking in their earholes. He cannot two-hand shove players into a brawl. Gibson is correct to note “we have to go out there and play, we have to practice.” But in establishing this new world, yes, there was an initiation process.
“He is completely honest,” Gibson says. “Like, ‘Hey, if you don’t want to play, you don’t have to be here. Come talk to me. We can figure it out. If this ain’t what you want, then we can find out the best situation for you.’ There’s no hard feelings. But either you’re going to play or not. He keeps it real.”
New England’s roster experienced drastic turnover. Only 15 percent of the roster was even on the team three years ago. Nobody from the team’s last division title remains. With a starting quarterback on a rookie deal, the Patriots were able to go on a $282 million spending spree to find angry players who’d fit into Vrabel’s vision: DT Milton Williams, CB Carlton Davis, Edge Harold Landry, LB Robert Spillane and Moses amongst others.
Vrabel is not installing a culture of fear, either.
It’s simple: He told everyone that the best players would play… and backed up the rhetoric.
“Black and white,” center Garrett Bradbury says. “If you did good things, you’d get more opportunities. Which you respect. In this business, that’s not always the case. I think some guys are given more opportunities just because of who they are or what they’re paid. You will earn what you get here. And continuous improvement I think is a big thing for him. He knows how this league works. He’s played it. He’s coached it for a long time. He knows that you’ve never arrived.
“There was a lot of fairness with him. If he needs to get on us, we deserve it. And if things are all good, we’re doing what he likes, then he lets us know.”
Adds Gibson: “You go out there and perform — you do what you need to do — and he’s going to find a way to get you some plays.”
This merit-based approach was refreshing. If a player on the third team from Bucktooth Tech that hardly anyone even knew made a play in camp, the very next drive Vrabel would tell that player’s position coach to get him with the 2’s. And if someone excelled with the 2’s, the next drive, he may be with the 1’s. The inverse was also true. Those who struggled were demoted on the fly.
As a result, Vrabel’s roster naturally sharpens into everything he says in a meeting room. Unlike Mayo, he’s been other places as both a player (Pittsburgh, New England, KC) and a coach (Houston, Tennessee, Cleveland). He can compare, contrast, construct his own team from scratch with no wasted hours on BS. He ushered in a robust analytics department. He’s already dealt with moving expenses for a full staff as the Titans head coach. If anything’s rickety through the building, it’s addressed ASAP.
Picking up that dirty washcloth is a microcosm of a larger mission. Vrabel tells players all the time, “We’ll treat you how you treat the team.”
“That sums it up,” Bradbury says. “If you handle your business — you treat this team how it should be treated — then, in fairness, you’ll be treated good on the way back. Fairness is the thing that sticks out. Because you get what you earn, you get what you deserve, and you’ve got to show up every day and bring it.”
Another Vrabelism? The best players must be the best leaders. He knows all eyes are on the stars. Locker rooms must police themselves.
“Everyone’s held to the same standard,” says Schooler, the team’s special teams ace, “whether you’re the starting quarterback or you’re the lowest guy in practice squad. Him putting that on the leaders, the captains of the team, it’s an infectious way of operating and infectious in a good way. Guys jump on board and you’re doing the right things.”
That hasn’t been the case elsewhere in the division. In Miami, players were routinely late to practices and meetings in 2024. Mike McDaniel’s been a breath of fresh air in many ways but hesitant to ridicule those players publicly. When a coach lets something small slip, it’s easier for a second indiscretion to slip. And a third. And a fourth. Until the building’s a collection of 53 players on 53 agendas.
Striking a balance is exceptionally difficult. We’ve chronicled the demise of coaches like Mike Zimmer and Patricia who’ve taken discipline too far and turned off the modern athlete. Belichick’s approach wasn’t for everyone, either. Head coaches veer toward the hard-ass extreme at their own peril. Head coaches also cannot go full Country Club Mode a la Rex Ryan’s Bills of ’15 and ’16. Sean McDermott, to his credit, has consciously evolved. Vrabel probably did grind on a number of players with his Titans. After all, he was fired and was forced to sit out a full season.
One league source told us that Vrabel can hold a grudge and that one of the things he couldn’t let go was Ran Carthon being hired as the Titans GM. “So maybe he was onto something there,” this source says. Obviously, Tennessee has been a train wreck since Vrabel’s firing.
New England will need him to push… and push… and push his players just the right amount.
As the rare Patriot who’s witnessed all three regimes, Schooler believes there’s a time and place for a coach to read the riot act. If a player needs chewed out, he says, there’s a right way to go about it. Everyone’s different, too. The key is deftly understanding how each player receives criticism while simultaneously holding everyone to the same standard.
“It’s almost like raising kids,” Schooler adds, “this kid might take constructive criticism a little bit differently than your other kid does. Yes, you guys are all held to the same standard, but I might treat you a little bit differently based on how our personal relationship is.”
Of course, in this case, a head coach has 53 kids. It’s tough for anyone to know how all players are wired psychologically.
That’s why Dan Quinn — upon taking over the flailing Washington Commanders — told his 20+ coaches to spend exactly zero seconds talking football at the start of their first offseason with players. He wanted his staff to get to know players on a personal level. To Schooler, the key is being “intentional.” Listening. “And then once you have that trust and that bond built,” he adds, “it’s easier to say, ‘Hey, I need you to do this.’ And it’s not coming from a place of ‘I’m just yelling at you, you did something wrong.’”
True to form, Vrabel hasn’t permanently banished players to the doghouse for mistakes.
Everyone is having fun driving to work again. Not the case as last season’s losses mounted.
Mayo wasn’t completely wrong about one thing. These Patriots needed to toughen up.
Moses may have the best perspective. He lived wretched cultures (Washington, New York Jets), one of the best cultures (Baltimore) and praises Vrabel for understanding players “as human beings.” As fathers, brothers, sons. After playing in 226 total games himself over a 14-season career, Vrabel can relate to the sport’s draining 24/7/365 sacrifice. That’s why guys loved seeing Vrabel sprinting after Gibson along the sideline on his 90-yard touchdown vs. Miami.
“Fuckin’ Vrabes is running down the sideline!” Moses says. “That shit doesn’t happen. He understands the game and he still enjoys the game from a player and coach standpoint.”
One common scene at practice is Vrabel holding a blocking pad and telling 300-pound men to drive him off the ball. Yes, employees are given the green light to physically harm their boss at the workplace. This is how Vrabel fell in love with Will Campbell ahead of the draft. The LSU tackle knocked him on his ass during a private workout and the Patriots made him the fourth overall pick. Vrabel later said that he needed to “feel” Campbell’s punch at the line of scrimmage and also joked that this tape better never see the light of day.
Adds Moses: “When you’ve got a guy that’s out there putting himself on the line as a coach, it’s easy to come into the building and get your job done.”
This is the same coach who hurled himself into a joint-practice melee between the Patriots and Commanders and emerged with a bloody face.
The Vrabel Effect is eerily similar to how Dan Campbell has molded his Lions. These aren’t Neanderthals. Both relish the fourth-down gamble. Against Pittsburgh this season, Vrabel went for it on fourth and 1 from his own 15-yard line. Like Campbell, he’s 100x more cerebral than you’d assume. Josh Dobbs played for him in Tennessee. Each Thursday here in Foxborough, the quarterback says Vrabel quizzes players on the gameplan. An answer is supplied. And then you dig into a substantive conversation on the matter. Vrabel wants you to know why that’s the answer. “So it’s not just memorizing a talking point,” Dobbs adds. “You actually know what we’re trying to do.”
Similar to Campbell, all impassioned speeches carry real gravitas because players know this wasn’t pulled from a textbook or a coaching clinic.
Players know these coaches lived in the trenches themselves.
“Everything he preaches about?” Moses says. “He did it. Turn on his film and he’s busting motherfuckers in the face. Playing special teams. Catching touchdowns on offense. He’s done everything you can ask as a pro. The proof is in the pudding.”
When I ask Moses what goes into a street fight, he doesn’t hesitate.
“Are you willing to do this for four quarters?” he says. “There are teams willing to do it for a quarter. There are teams that’ll do it for a half a quarter. But are you really willing to do it for 60 minutes?”
No coach can hand out toughness pills.
Again, it must be innate.
That’s why the Patriots paid a premium for a hell-on-wheels interior rusher like Williams and handpicked Davis as a violent cornerback to lock down opposing receivers. Readers here may recall Davis reliving the shootouts that’d break out in his youth football games in South Florida. Many of his peers grew up to be “true killers,” too. It’s a borderline miracle he blazed his own trail. (“People who are in jail now — who killed people — I grew up with them,” Davis told Go Long. “Played with them. Broke bread with them. Hung out with them. Sweated with them. Became a blood brother with them. Through grinding and football. So, going through shit, being around shit, a lot of shit don’t faze you.”) Signing Mack Hollins has helped change the culture in the weight room. And after selecting Campbell, it’s easy to see why Vrabel fell in love with TreVeyon Henderson in the second round of the draft. Right here is a running back who battled depression, demons and suicidal thoughts.
Most importantly — as Belichick learned — that special something must be inside your starting quarterback.
Tom Brady stalked up to the line of scrimmage like an apex predator in the wild. The play clock bled. His murderous eyes scanned all 11 moving parts. And by his 40s, there was exactly nothing a defensive coordinator could scheme that this all-time great hadn’t seen.
The former 199th overall pick possessed no athletic attributes of note, but weaponized his brain unlike anyone in NFL history. Before the ball was even snapped, you were dead. His ability to decode, dissect, denote the Mike ‘backer and — with one “Set Hut! — utterly dismantle NFL defenses is unparalleled in the history of the sport.
Too often, gifted passers are swallowed whole by nightmarish circumstances. This league has a severe quarterback development problem. The picture of Baker Mayfield Sam Darnold in Carolina Panthers jerseys and Matt Patricia trying to coach up Mac Jones on the sideline should be blown up on a projector screen at the NFL Rookie Symposium as a warning that your life as a professional and be traumatizing.
Then, there’s Drake Maye in Foxborough.
When the Patriots’ 23-year-old quarterback reports to work, he sits down with a coach (Josh McDaniels) who worked with Brady 11 of those 20 Patriots seasons, studies exactly what made the quarterback unstoppable and then brings it all the same hollowed turf. This is a quarterback doctorate program. He’s in the early stages of acquiring the same mental power.
One locker down, Josh Dobbs confirms the QBs all watch a ton Brady footage. The playbook has evolved. They’re not trying to mimic a 7-time champ. But the bones of the scheme are the same and Brady faced many defensive coaches Maye encounters today. I point out to Dobbs that one of the worst-kept secrets in the NFL is that McDaniels can be exceptionally hard on his players. He clashed with Brady many times publicly and privately.
Thus, one can only imagine the scene down the hallway from this locker room when this coach is trying to…
Dobbs cuts in.
“Isn’t that what you want? We all want to be the best,” says Dobbs, who’s played for six teams. “So I’ve seen it both ways. I’ve shown up to work and I had no clue what I was being asked to do. And I’ve been in a place where you’ve had to come in as a quarterback and it’s like, ‘Here’s a game plan, here’s a script.’ You’re figuring out your reads and your footwork and it’s trial by error. There’s no framework of what you’re trying to get done as an offense. I’ve been there. I’ve done it. That’s not enjoyable.”
McDaniels is the ideal extension of Vrabel.
He continues.
“You want a coach that has a plan,” Dobbs says, “that has reasoning and knows how he’s trying to attack the defense. So, yeah, he can be hard on you. But especially in this locker room, that’s what we want. We want to be held to a high standard and we want to try to become the best players we can be.
“I want to know the why. I want to know why and how we’re attacking them. You just want reasoning. As I said, I’ve seen the exact opposite of the coin.”
As in, Pittsburgh. When Dobbs backed up Ben Roethlisberger, he felt left astray. Lines got blurred. He had no clue what the timing, rhythm and spacing of plays was supposed to be. By then, Roethlisberger had already been through the ringer and was doing his own thing. Dobbs could learn from watching but also remembers asking himself all the time Is that right? Is that wrong?
Granted, this Patriots route is more grueling for a young quarterback.
What the Patriots asked out of Maye in 2024 is the diametric opposite of 2025. In the long run, mastering two different systems will pay off. But one coach from that ’24 staff expected growing pains in the short term because, as a rookie, Maye didn’t need to handle protections. Playing QB is tough enough and they thought trying to tell everyone who to block pre-snap would’ve mentally weighed him down. Now? He handles all moving parts. Further, the ’24 staff under Van Pelt was built on footwork. Quarterbacks are taught how to play with their left foot forward and calibrate their eyes to their feet to the timing of routes downfield. This isn’t an emphasis under McDaniels. “Everything we taught him,” the ’24 coach says, “is just different.”
All offseason, Maye needed to completely relearn the position. The good news? Master this current offense — the mentally taxing one — and McDaniels will almost always ensure there’s a receiver wide open.
Master this and you’ve got a realistic shot at developing your own Brady-like stranglehold on a defense before the snap.
“It’s more QB-centric,” Dobbs says. “He puts more on the quarterback’s plate. We’re in the driver’s seat position. We’ve got to know what the receiver’s doing. We’ve got to know what the O-Line’s doing. We communicate with them. We’re hearing it from (McDaniels), so we’re an extension of him on the field. That’s why he puts a lot on the quarterback’s plate. But once you get in and understand how you’re trying to attack the defense on each play and see the scheme and understand it, I’ve enjoyed it. There’s answers. There’s reasoning. We enjoy being in the driver’s seat and making checks and getting into the right play.”
Reciting an example of one play call on the “Green Light with Chris Long” podcast, it sounds like Maye’s speaking a different language. But it varies. Some of McDaniels’ plays are one word, others are 10. That’s not what makes this offense a challenge. On a given play, Dobbs says the OC will show QBs what to expect 75 percent of the time and then supply all answers if the defense shows something else. That headset cuts out at 15 seconds and ot’s on Maye to make the correct on-the-fly audibles.
This QB reality demands work beyond the 9 to 5. Those who don’t devote themselves to football in this type of offense will flounder. There’s no way to bullshit your way through this final exam each Sunday. Maye is flourishing. Maye spends many late nights at the facility with McDaniels and QBs coach Ashton Grant. Recently, Grant called Maye at 10 p.m. to see if he was studying plays with his wife and Maye joked that Ann Michael couldn’t understand all of the abbreviations on the call sheet. Grant says he’s constantly going the “extra mile” to prepare. From Day 1, Maye attacked all of this with an open mind.
As Vrabel builds a unit that sharply contrasts an ultra-sensitive, TikTok’ing generation, he couldn’t have picked a better quarterback to serve as the life force for everything.
Maye doesn’t want to be coddled.
Maye enjoys hard coaching.
“He’s really open to it,” says Grant. “Think about Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan. I’m not saying that Drake Maye is Michael Jordan, but the guys who have that fire that burns underneath him, they want to be coached. They don’t want guys who pat ‘em on the back. They want someone who will push him to continuously get better each and every day. And Drake is someone — every day — who walks in and asks: ‘What are we focused on today? What’s the challenge? How can I be better? How can I make my team better?’”
The roster is still a work in-progress, but he’s already producing. He’s moving defenders with his eyes. He’s wasting free runners with his legs. Four games in, Maye has accounted for 77 percent of his team’s yardage, more than any player in the NFL. He’s completing 74 percent of his passes, also best in the NFL. His 109.4 passer rating ranks fourth.
Week to week to week, this quarterback with elite processing should only gain a better grasp of McDaniels’ X’s and O’s. Physically, he entered the NFL in the upper percentile. Mentally, he’s now checking the boxes. But what truly has everyone buzzing in New England is everything you don’t see: the intangibles that all GMs, all head coaches covet in their pursuit of a franchise quarterback. The stuff a highlight reel or a Combine workout fails to adequately capture.
The first time they met, Grant was blown away by Maye’s maturity. He often forgets his quarterback is only 23 because he’s someone who can hold a conversation with both his 2-year-old daughter and 75-year-old grandmother. Maye makes a point to sit next to different players all the time in the cafeteria: DBs, D-Linemen, O-Linemen.
Inside an NFL locker room — with players hailing from all background — this ability to connect is extremely valuable.
That’s what players rave about. That’s what can elevate Drake Maye into rarefied air.
“On one hand he knows he’s a starting quarterback and that bears a lot of responsibility,” says Bradbury, the man snapping him the ball every play. “He knows when to get on guys and when things aren’t looking how they’re supposed to. But at the same time, he knows he’s one of us and he’s got relationships with everyone in the locker room. He’s just a dude. He’s one of the boys. He really is. Grew up with three older brothers. So I think a lot of that comes from that where he’s used to just being one of the dudes and he happens to be the quarterback as well.”
Last weekend, the Patriots steamrolled the poor Carolina Panthers, 42-13. The performance was domination in all three phases, a Vrabel master class.
On Sunday night, the Patriots out-slugged the team that usurped them in the AFC East. The team that built a powerhouse around Josh Allen as Belichick and Mayo and the post-Brady Patriots whiplashed in turmoil. GM Brandon Beane and McDermott certainly know that the Patriots are on the cusp. They’ve lived firsthand what a special talent at the quarterback position can do for everyone else.
Like those Bills, the future of these Patriots hinges most on Maye’s ceiling.
Can he catapult into superstardom? He flashed Allen magic in Orchard Park. And if he’s able to stay in this same system — ‘25 to ’26 and ’27 — perhaps Maye one day decimates all defenses with his brain like the man who now has a statue erected outside Gillette Stadium in his honor. They’ve got the footage to follow. They’ve got the coaching staff.
There’s zero doubt in this room.
Teammates don’t see a world in which Maye doesn’t ascend. He’s too good, too driven.
“The dude’s ceiling is through the roof,” says the vet Gibson. “He can make plays running. He can throw the ball. He can make the unorthodox throws. He’s got the smarts. So just seeing that this year — making all the play calls, alerting things, that was a big step from last year.”
He shakes his head and nods in Maye’s direction across the room.
“Ain’t no telling where he’s going.”
It took completely bottoming out. It took a few dirty washcloths.
But Sunday night was more proof: the New England Patriots are coming.
ICYMI:
Appreciate you digging in, in your unique way on my team. I think post Spygate, Belichick doubled down on building his staffs with his guys that he trusted. Sometimes that ended up with awful fits like Patricia and Judge coaching positions they had no experience in. Or Front office people that would not push back.
More examples of Krafts not spending off the field, look at the past two NFLPA surveys.
I’ll hope Maye is 90% of what the quotes say he will be here.
This is a fantastic piece, thanks. Any player or coach who wants to learn how to build a winning culture can probably learn something from this. One thing unmentioned, however, that I love about this Pats team is how versatile and complimentary they are. Truth is, we still don't yet have a really great roster compared to other elite teams. But once again, it looks we found the formula -- a great coach and a great QB. This is a lovable group and we're only going to get better.