The Patriots are reportedly hiring Mike Vrabel as head coach with nowhere to go but up
Mike Vrabel has agreed to a deal to become the next head coach of the New England Patriots, according to multiple reports, returning the team he helped win three Super Bowls in eight seasons as a player. Vrabel replaces former teammate Jerod Mayo, who was fired after going 4-13 in his only season as Patriots coach.
Vrabel returns to coaching after spending 2024 as a consultant for the Cleveland Browns. Prior to that, he was head coach of the Tennessee Titans for six years, amassing a 54-45 record with three playoff appearances before they fired him following the 2023 season. His accomplishments in Tennessee, including being named the 2021 AP Coach of the Year, suggest the Patriots are in good hands.
Jerod Mayo out: Did he get a fair shake in New England?
Homecoming: Mike Vrabel and the Patriots reached a multi-year agreement to make him New England’s next head coach, per sources.
Vrabel now is the seventh individual to become the head coach for a franchise he once helped win a Super Bowl as a player, joining Jerod Mayo, Bart… pic.twitter.com/LR3cpdHNQf
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) January 12, 2025
Vrabel consistently won with a Titans team that was never projected among the best in the NFL. He exceeded the team’s win total over/under projection in each of his first four years, according to SportsOddsHistory data, even leading Tennessee to the AFC championship game in 2019 and the AFC No. 1 seed in 2021. Things didn’t start to go downhill until 2022 when injuries struck Ryan Tannehill and the quarterback situation began to decline.
In New England, there’s nowhere for Vrabel to go but up. Fair or not, Mayo endured what’s likely to be the worst season of the team’s rebuild, where a combination of Jacoby Brissett and rookie Drake Maye led an offense that was bottom-three in both points and yards per game. Vrabel steps in as Maye is likely to build on the promise he showed in year one and the Pats have the No. 4 pick in the upcoming draft — an opportunity to add top-level talent to a roster that desperately needs it.
That’s not to say Vrabel isn’t an upgrade over Mayo, who was a rookie himself, or he won’t maximize how much the team improves. We’ll just never know how much of an upgrade he is, because the Pats were always likely to take a step forward in 2025. How could they not?