From vastly different backgrounds, Super Bowl coaches Mike Vrabel, Mike Macdonald strike perfect tone

SAN JOSE, Calif. — As the Patriots and Seahawks stalled in their rebuilds, both organizations needed a jolt. The Patriots craved an authoritative voice after coach Jerod Mayo appeared to be in over his head, and the Seahawks sought someone who could reinvigorate what had been a well-run operation under Pete Carroll.

They found answers — very different ones, personality-wise — in Mike Vrabel and Mike Macdonald.

The hardnosed ferocity Vrabel showed as a Patriots linebacker was instrumental in leading them to a division title in his first season as coach after they went 4-13 each of the last two. Macdonald’s more understated, businesslike tone landed well with the Seahawks, too, as they steered out of their rut by jumping from 10-7 in his first season to 14-3.

Both approaches worked wonderfully, and Vrabel and Macdonald will square off Sunday in Super Bowl LX.

“It’s all very matter of fact,” Seahawks safety Julian Love said of Macdonald’s style. “He doesn’t like to make grandeur out of everything. He’ll say, ‘Who do we play next and what time do we play?’ And then we all, in team meetings, constantly, say, ‘We do not care.’ That mindset is how we are as a team.”

And Vrabel?

“He’s a tough dude,” Love said. “He expresses that in a certain way, and it shows up in their team.”

The evidence of effective messaging comes when players adopt it as their own.

The Seahawks boarded their flight to California wearing shirts that said, “We do not care,” and the Patriots have echoed Vrabel’s line, “Don’t change the mac ‘n’ cheese,” which refers to the mistake of someone switching up their recipe to make a splash at the holidays rather than sticking with what works.

The Bears know how valuable a tone-setting coach can be after their first year with Ben Johnson, whose “Good, better, best,” chant became their mission statement.

Halas Hall became flat under predecessors Matt Nagy and Matt Eberflus, but Johnson enlivened the organization. While he was regarded as an offensive mastermind, his tenacious personality mattered just as much. The Bears knew they needed someone like that after firing Eberflus, and unsurprisingly, Vrabel was the first candidate they interviewed.

Johnson, Vrabel, Macdonald, the 49ers’ Kyle Shanahan and the Jaguars’ Liam Coen are finalists for Coach of the Year, which will be announced Thursday at the NFL Honors.

While the Bears’ turnaround from 5-12 to 11-6 and a playoff win under Johnson was impressive, Vrabel is the favorite.

With the Super Bowl always sure to prompt unusual questions and the game being played in the tech-forward Bay Area, Patriots defensive tackle Khyiris Tonga was asked if artificial intelligence could eventually replace coaching. He couldn’t imagine it.

“Coaching? No,” he said in disbelief. “You’ve got to be hands-on and go through the emotions of the game, and that’s why Vrabes is so good. I don’t know if A.I. can do that.”

Vrabel’s hard drive was built over a 14-year career that included multiple selections as team captain, an All-Pro honor and three Super Bowl wins. He played eight seasons for the Patriots under coach Bill Belichick, arguably the greatest coach of all time.

Vrabel, 50, laughed at himself this week when recalling how he bombed an interview for linebackers coach at Ohio State, his alma mater, when he began coaching in 2011. Urban Meyer dismissed him and told him to come back in the morning with a better effort. He stayed up all night and was back in Meyer’s office at 6 a.m.

“Nobody’s going to have a worse first interview than I did,” Vrabel said.

From there, he caught on quickly. He rose to the defensive coordinator level by 2017 with the Texans, and the Titans hired him as head coach the next season.

He went 54-45 in six seasons with three playoff appearances before they regrettably fired him. He spent the 2024 season as a consultant for the Browns and was a hot candidate last offseason.

Macdonald, 38, won over his players in a far different way. He didn’t play past high school, instead studying finance at Georgia and latching on as a graduate assistant in 2010. He got an internship with the Ravens in 2014 and just kept climbing.

He’s not brawny or brash. He simply knows what he’s talking about, and the proof is in a defense that allowed the fewest points in the NFL this season. It’s believed that Macdonald would be the first head coach to win a Super Bowl as his team’s primary defensive play caller.

Cornerback Riq Woolen called him “a chill dude, but “a football savant,” and players respect that he tells it like it is. His catchphrases aren’t corny. They’re straightforward and they resonate.

“We use the term, ‘This is how we roll,’ and we say we want to be loose and focused, so everything falls down from that feeling we want in our building,” Macdonald said Wednesday. “A lot of that has come from the spirit of our organization, throughout the whole history of the Seahawks, especially when Pete was there, and that’s something [management] felt strongly about that they wanted to carry over into our team.

“Our spirit is unique to us. It’s evolved and changed since we took over, but it’s still rooted in the foundation of the Seahawks that everybody’s familiar with.”

These franchises are among the most serious in the league, and they hold legitimate championship-or-bust standards. As both looked to reignite their teams, they found the right coaches. The Bears have a ways to go to get to this level, but the fact Johnson stands next to them as a Coach of the Year candidate indicates they’re on the right track.