A week ago, after the New England Patriots had fired head coach Jerod Mayo and were swiftly moving though their paces to get to Mike Vrabel, two league sources close to Vrabel — who’d each shared time with him in a prior franchise — laid out the punch list he’d prepared as he went through the interview process.
A tight bond with an NFL team owner he can completely trust.
A general manager who understands the player he covets mentally and physically.
The capacity of both to withstand the pain and effort to meaningfully shape a team’s culture and locker room.
Despite being on virtually every head coaching search list, these were variables that gave pause to even the most sensible destinations. There was no track record with the Chicago Bears’ ownership, and the executive layer of the franchise was complicated by the forced marriage of team president Kevin Warren and general manager Ryan Poles. The Dallas Cowboys, who Vrabel would have interviewed with if the job had been open, were in a holding pattern with Mike McCarthy. The New York Jets’ ownership was mercurial, at best. And even the Las Vegas Raiders — with minority owner and former Vrabel teammate Tom Brady stumping for him — have a line of former coaching and executive staffers wrapping around a city block to offer negative feedback about owner Mark Davis.
To those who knew Vrabel, the wide field of head coaching opportunities wasn’t really wide at all.
“There’s no way Mike is going to coach the f***ing Raiders or Jets,” one source familiar with Vrabel declared early this past week. “He’s not going into the Bears’ situation after what happened with the [Tennesee] Titans [front office]. He’s going to the Patriots. Nothing else is going to be close.”
Less than a week later it has come to fruition, with Vrabel signing a multiyear deal to take over the Patriots shortly after their ouster of Mayo following the team’s final game of the season. It’s a marriage that was expected by virtually everyone across the league, lending credence to the belief that team owner Robert Kraft moved on from Mayo after one poor season partially because he believed this would be his last best shot at Vrabel. A shot that — if you believe those close to Vrabel — might not have been available if Jim Harbaugh hadn’t taken the Los Angeles Chargers job one year ago. In hindsight, they believe that was Vrabel’s next head coaching job had it not gone to Harbaugh. And it’s believed it would have included his hand-selected general manager, too. It was a choice that most believe would have been former Titans and current New York Giants personnel executive Ryan Cowden.
That latter point is important because it brings us to the here and now — and how some of those same moving parts are expected to come together in New England. From a front office that is expected to be tweaked, to a vitally important choice at offensive coordinator, to a roster that is going to head into some immediate offseason churn, a significant amount of work is already underway. Among the pressing questions …
What’s going to happen with vice president of player personnel Eliot Wolf?
As of Sunday — and it’s important to stress that this is in the immediacy of Vrabel signing his deal — I’ve been told that Wolf will remain in the front office with his title and also retain control over personnel. However, there is an expectation that the Patriots will act on Vrabel’s preference and move to add Cowden to a front-office role. That means effectively hiring Cowden away from the Giants, where he is currently a personnel adviser to general manager Joe Schoen.
After the firing of Jon Robinson as general manager of the Titans in 2022, Vrabel preferred that Cowden (who became the interim GM at the time) ultimately take over the role permanently. Titans owner Amy Adams Strunk instead chose to hire Ran Carthon away from the San Francisco 49ers, creating a fissure between Vrabel and the front office that would eventually spiral into his firing after the 2023 season.
Cowden has interviewed for other general manager positions in the past and has a wide base of personnel experience on his résumé, including 15 years of climbing the scouting ladder with the Carolina Panthers prior to becoming the director of player personnel with the Titans in 2016. He was considered an instrumental part of adding a multitude of players with the Panthers and Titans that leaned into strong offensive and defensive lines as well as finding the culture and scheme fits that Vrabel preferred on defense.
How could he end up meshing with Wolf, given that he would be inserted into the Patriots’ front-office structure with a new coaching regime? How those roles will ultimately work remains to be seen.
One source on Sunday compared the mix of Vrabel, Wolf and Cowden to what initially developed with the Denver Broncos after the hiring of Sean Payton in 2023. During the interview process, there was some thought that Payton could ultimately end up naming his GM depending on his landing spot. But when he was hired by the Broncos, general manager George Paton remained as a holdover on the staff, working with Payton closely during the run-up to the 2023 season on finding the types of cultural and scheme fits that he desired. It didn’t happen without an addition, either. In January, shortly after the first season with Payton and Paton working together, the Broncos created a vice president of player personnel position — at Payton’s behest — then hired New Orleans Saints assistant director of college scouting, Cody Rager, to fill it. The result was Payton getting another direct conduit into shaping the Broncos’ front office, while Paton remained as GM. For at least the 2025 season, that could be a similar balance between Wolf and Cowden in New England. While Wolf remains and retains personnel power, Vrabel and Cowden take an influential role in shaping those decisions.
For now, many inside the Patriots are waiting to see how exactly those roles are defined.
Is there an inside track for offensive coordinator?
Former Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels has emerged as a favorite for this spot. He’s an assistant who Vrabel knows well, trusts implicitly with understanding how to balance a scheme with a running game, and also has the ability to challenge a quarterback to bring out his toughness and mastery of the scheme. Another important note: McDaniels has the chin to take Vrabel’s criticism and grinding mentality as a head coach. That shouldn’t be lost in this equation, particularly with an extremely young roster of offensive players who are bound to make mistakes and draw Vrabel’s ire. While McDaniels has twice failed as a head coach, he has been a very successful offensive coordinator and collaborator with quarterbacks. And not just under Tom Brady.
McDaniels had some limited success with Cam Newton in 2020 before injuries derailed their progress, then managed to guide Mac Jones to his best NFL season as a rookie in 2021 prior to departing to take over as head coach of the Raiders. Clearly, the scheme fit and trust factor is there.
If McDaniels takes this job, what happens to the rest of the offensive staff? It would mean parting company with current coordinator Alex Van Pelt and likely with quarterbacks coach T.C. McCartney, who both played a large part in the sustained progress of rookie Drake Maye in 2024. If McDaniels comes in, that will certainly be a shift, including to a new playbook and scheme. So it’s not without at least some complication.
What kind of changes will be made to the roster?
On one hand, a largely disappointing draft class in 2024 (outside of the selection of Maye) will get a clean slate from Vrabel and his incoming staff. Among the many things Vrabel was known for in Tennessee, he often found a way to get the best football out of players, particularly on defense.
The guys who can’t get with the program when it comes to being a professional — knowing the scheme and playbook, practicing hard, being on time, showing up in the offseason — will not make it. And they won’t get a litany of chances, either. So the elements of the 2024 rookie class that lagged in those areas will likely be on a one strike standard, considering their low level of production and some of the red flags that surfaced among a few of the players.
As for the rest of the roster, it’s never been a secret what Vrabel leans into. In his best years with the Titans, he had strong offensive and defensive lines, big physical players with a tough running game, and leaders who could take his criticism. Rarely, outside of maybe Derrick Henry (who almost never deserved it), were his stars spared of hard coaching. His film sessions in Tennessee could often be harsh, and Vrabel preferred players who could take them in stride and then show improvement on the field. Those who wilt in the face of this kind of thing won’t stay out of his doghouse. This is part of what makes his rhythms with the front office so important.
Clearly, the Patriots already have some pieces on defense that can fall into place and perform to Vrabel’s standards. The overall state of the roster, on the other hand, looks like one that will be heavily turned over the next few offseasons, particularly on offense around Maye, where it may take multiple seasons of additions to run the kind of physical game Vrabel leans into.
Taken as a whole, there’s a lot to do. Patriots ownership had to know this was the path it was asking for when it dialed in on Vrabel. He’s not a closed book when it comes to his mentality. Anyone who has forgotten that from his playing days with the Patriots will be reminded of it quickly. And it will all start on Monday.
