If you've ever been in a team meeting led by head coach Mike Vrabel, you'd know that the three-time Super Bowl champion likes to show highlights from his playing days.
Maybe it's one of his 57 career sacks, one of his 11 interceptions, or possibly his favorite, showing off that he caught 10 touchdowns on 10 career targets from Tom Brady as a goal-line tight end. To his credit, Vrabel has plenty of highlights from his decorated playing career.
Another Vrabelism is that the Patriots head coach will get into the trenches during practices and go one-on-one with his players, even as a 49-year-old who is 15 years removed from playing in the NFL. For some, that might be a bit much. However, those who've played for Vrabel use a different word to describe the 16th head coach in Patriots history: authentic.
"Most of my coaches couldn't move like Mike Vrabel," former Titans and Patriots great Malcolm Butler said. "I've never seen that. I know that guy is gonna make sure you hit the gym, and he'll do some sprints after practice and stuff like that. It made you feel like he wanted to be there. He was really involved mentally and physically. People saw that in him and wanted to play for him."
"He was not afraid to pull up his highlights to show you how many touchdowns he caught, and he'd tell guys that he had 10 touchdown passes with Brady," added former Patriots and Titans cornerback Logan Ryan. "He'd show the tight ends how to run a route or show the defensive end how to rush. He gets really involved at practice."
By demonstrating he can walk the walk and talk the talk, Vrabel establishes belief in his program. Although he was shaped by his playing days under former head coach Bill Belichick, Vrabel's experience as a player helps him understand the rigors of the NFL season.
"There's a lot of similarities. But, obviously, Vrabel played, so he was more player friendly when it came to days off and letting guys rest their body," former New England and Tennessee star Dion Lewis told Patriots.com. "Always being prepared, making sure we do our job, being disciplined, limiting penalties, playing as a team. He definitely had his own way to go about things, but it will definitely look pretty similar."
In their newest head coach, the Patriots hope Vrabel is the perfect blend of Belichick's meticulous preparation and a new-age head coach who can relate to today's players.
"I'm excited for New England because it made a lot of sense. He's a former Patriot, he's coming home, he understands what's expected in that building, and he's done it as a player. I think they got the best coach available. Obviously, excited for Patriots fans," Ryan said.
"He went to the school of Bill Belichick. Learn great football, learn situational football, understand the importance of what to do in every situation, and have your team prepared," Ryan continued. "I never felt like the team on the other sideline had a better plan or that our plan wasn't a suitable plan to win. I always felt like we had a good enough plan to win."
Offensive Philosophy
Vrabel is inheriting a struggling offense with a promising second-year quarterback, with the new Pats HC referring to Drake Maye as a "young, dynamic" player in his introductory press conference.
During his time in Tennessee, Vrabel's offense was a West Coast scheme built around a potent rushing attack. In his six seasons as Titans head coach, Tennessee had the highest early-down rush frequency in the NFL (45.3%). They also ranked second in rush attempts and rushing yards while operating a wide-zone scheme branched off the Shanahan tree.
Vrabel's first offensive coordinator was current Packers coach Matt LaFleur. LaFleur worked under the Shanahan's and Rams head coach Sean McVay, so he brought that system to Nashville. When it was successful in year one, Arthur Smith continued running the same offense as Vrabel's offensive coordinator when LaFleur became the head coach in Green Bay. Eventually, Smith would also leave to become a head coach.
"LaFleur was our OC, so we were doing more like the Rams [system]. The outside zones with the boots. A lot of motions and things like that. Like the Shanahan's," Lewis said. "We had a lot of nasty, physical guys up front who loved to run the ball. We just did what our team personality was, and that went back to Vrabel. He's a hard-nosed guy."
Although the Titans were successful with top-10 scoring offenses in 2019 and 2020, there's some concern amongst fans that the Patriots will be a conservative, run-first offense in the Vrabel era. However, the Pats head coach's response made sense when asked about the Titans run-heavy offense.
"Our best player was our running back, as you can see in Baltimore," Vrabel told WEEI radio last week. "We tried to build the offense around what we felt like was our best player and what was our strength. You base whatever system and scheme that you have on the players that you have."
Vrabel is obviously referencing five-time Pro Bowl RB Derrick Henry. Henry was Tennessee's lead-back for Vrabel's entire run with the Titans. During the six-year span that Henry played for Vrabel, the future Hall of Famer led the NFL in rushing by a wide margin and was the league's rushing king in 2019 and 2020, rushing for over 2,000 yards and 17 touchdowns during the 2020 season. But it wasn't just Henry who found success on offense under Vrabel.
"Ryan Tannehill was on a one-year, $5 million deal. Nobody wanted him at quarterback. He ends up making the Pro Bowl and signs a $100 million deal," Ryan told Patriots.com. "They drafted a second-round wide receiver, he ends up becoming A.J. Brown. Taylor Lewan ended up becoming the highest-paid left tackle, Jack Conklin went All-Pro at right tackle, Jonnu Smith got paid to go to New England. All those guys on offense seemed like they had some of their best years."
As the longtime NFL cornerback said, Tannehill had a career renaissance with the Titans after flaming out in Miami as a former top-10 draft pick. For those who want to see Maye flourish under Vrabel, Tannehill is a good example of what Vrabel-led offenses can do with quarterbacks. During a three-year span from 2019 to 2021, Tannehill went 30-13 as the starter while ranking third in expected points added per drop-back (+0.23).
A big part of Tannehill's success was being a highly effective play-action passer. With the defense needing to respect Henry and the run game, Tannehill ranked third among 51 qualified quarterbacks in yards per play-action pass attempt (10.0) and EPA per play-action attempt (+0.32). The Titans might not have been a high-volume passing attack, but they were highly efficient, which is a word that Vrabel has used to describe his vision for the offense.
Until the Patriots hire an offensive coordinator to join Vrabel's first staff in New England, the schematic direction of the offense is unknown. However, it stands to reason that Vrabel might lean toward installing a similar West Coast scheme as the one he ran in Tennessee. Along with running a Shanahan-style offense with the Titans, Vrabel spent last season in Cleveland as a consultant to head coach Kevin Stefanski, another team that runs a West Coast offense.
Regardless of the offensive coordinator, Vrabel wants the scheme to be versatile so it can adapt to what the personnel does well and expose weaknesses in defenses.
Defensive Philosophy
Defensively, you can draw a straighter line between the system Vrabel thrived in as a player and the one he built in Tennesseee, initially under Patriots coaching disciple Dean Pees.
Pees coached linebackers and eventually rose to defensive coordinator with the Patriots from 2004 to 2009. After a long stint in Baltimore, Vrabel hired the veteran defensive coordinator to run his defense for his first two seasons with the Titans. As a result, there were similarities to the system Vrabel played in during his eight seasons in New England.
"It was similar to New England. A lot of the calls are the same as what I ran in New England. I believe that Vrabel does a great job of understanding the strengths of his team and building that," Ryan said. "All the guys on defense, myself included, had some of our best, most productive years. Only a good head coach can deal with all those personalities and maximize their potential."
One area Ryan pointed to as a strength for Vrabel is finding ways to scheme up pressure. Last season, the Patriots ranked last in sacks (28) and 29th in team pressure rate (28.7%). Furthermore, New England was 25th in unblocked pressure rate (5.6%), which measures how often a defense generates a free runner at the quarterback.
"We had a really strong secondary. We did a lot of complicated secondary pressures, blitzes, and stuff to make it hard on the quarterback because we had a really smart, veteran secondary. We found a way to simulate pressure. We found a way to be multiple and complicated," Ryan added.
Based on Ryan's breakdown, the Patriots have similar personnel to those Titans defenses. One could see New England leaning on its strong secondary led by All-Pro corner Christian Gonzalez, captain Kyle Dugger, and others to do their jobs in the backend so that the Patriots can run simulated pressures to "affect the quarterback," as Vrabel says.
The other hallmark of Vrabel's approach is how often his teams' starters practice against each other, or in football jargon, good on good. Butler and Ryan both mentioned that Vrabel-led practices were heavy on scrimmaging, which helped defenders sharpen fundamentals.
"I remember that OTAs, we did so much good on good. We did so much scrimmaging, just like playing against each other, like competing. He wanted to figure out who the dogs were and who loved football. I appreciated that because I knew that's what it took."
He immediately went to team meetings and set the blueprint of what he wanted to be: a tough, smart football team. He started challenging star players right away. He started challenging guys to practice better, challenging guys to take pride in it," Ryan said.
Butler added that Vrabel harps on being a good tackling defense that is assignment sound, saying, "He's big on just doing your job, don't overdo your job and just play as a team."
Like on offense, we'll see who Vrabel tabs as defensive coordinator and what direction the defense goes in schematically. But it'll likely look familiar to past Patriots defenses.
In-Game Strategist
Along with how his team plays on both sides of the ball, game management is a major aspect of being a good head coach.
Over the years, Vrabel's shrewd game management moves have caught the eye, even exploiting a loophole during the Titans playoff win over the Patriots in 2019. Although many fans probably remember Vrabel taking a delay-of-game penalty to keep the clock running vs. the Patriots, it wasn't the only time he was a step ahead in this regard.
"He's much smarter than you think. He's one of the best at in-game strategy to the level of using in-game strategy against Coach Belichick in a game," Ryan said. "He did a better job of that than other teams. He used the punt loophole rule against Bill Belichick and took the delay of games on the punt to burn clock to close out the game.
We had a four-minute situation where we put 12 men on the field to purposely give them a free first down, so we had a fresh set of chains to get them off the field. I never saw a coach do that before. Vrabel is always studying the rules and finding ways to put his team strategically in a position to win the game in the end," Ryan stated.
Another anecdote Ryan recalled was his pick-six in Tom Brady's last game with the Patriots. Ryan famously intercepted Brady on his last pass attempt as a Patriot, but he broke his head coach's rule by returning it for a touchdown.
"Watch the clip of me picking off Brady on his last pass. He was yelling at me to go down and slide because, theoretically, we're up one. If I score a touchdown, we're up eight and have to kick the ball back to him," said Ryan. "I think he was actually mad. He threw his hands up in the air that I picked off Brady and didn't slide to end the game. Vrabel was the only person on the Tennessee Titans sideline that was actually mad at me for having a pick-six on Brady's last pass."
Ryan's recalling his head coach's reaction to a game-clinching interception that won a playoff game perfectly summarizes Vrabel's coaching style. A self-aware head coach who has both been between the lines and sees the game through a strategic lens. Hopefully, it will be a perfect blend of old-school football with a new-school approach to players and scheme.
Now, as Vrabel said to end his introductory press conference, it's time to get to work.
DISCLAIMER: The views and thoughts expressed in this article are those of the writer and don't necessarily reflect those of the organization. Read Full Disclaimer
