Mike Vrabel is only 11 regular-season games into Year 1 as head coach of the New England Patriots, and the culture shift in Foxboro has already been seismic.
We might’ve found out the real reason why following the Patriots’ 27-14 rout of the New York Jets on Thursday Night Football.
Vrabel has spoken a lot about building a program this year, and he’s accomplished that feat in short order. His Patriots improved to 9-2, pushed their winning streak to eight games, and now sit alone atop the AFC standings ahead of Sunday’s Week 11 slate.
Fans who stayed up late for the TNF postgame show learned why Vrabel — who also interviewed with the Jets in early January — wanted to return to New England to coach the Patriots. Contrary to popular belief, it goes beyond his personal relationship with owner Robert Kraft, or even the three Super Bowl banners he helped raise in Gillette Stadium as a player.
New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel: 'I came here because of Drake'
Patriots quarterback Drake Maye joined the TNF crew after yet another surgical performance through he air. He was joined on the set by his head coach — and even Maye couldn’t have expected what came next.
Vrabel wasn’t directly asked about his quarterback, but his response to a question by analyst Richard Sherman had the entire panel on the edge of their seats.
“We wanted to put a program around these players,” Vrabel said. “I came here because of the familiarity, and I came here because of Drake. I knew what he would be, and it was important to come here and that’s who I wanted to coach. So building a program is about that, it’s about putting great people around your really good players, and that’s what Drake is for us, and we’ve got a lot of those guys.”
Vrabel has always been known as a player’s coach, but this is the first time he’s revealed publicly that Maye was the main reason he wanted to coach the Patriots. That he chose to reveal that truth bomb to a national audience — with Maye sitting right beside to him — speaks volumes.
Maye reciprocated Vrabel’s message, and the young QB obviously deserves the love for leading the team to the peak of the AFC. But in a league where the quarterback tends to be the center of attention, it’s rare for an extremely calculated coach like Vrabel to heap this level of praise on a singular player.
It just shows that Vrabel and Maye are in complete lockstep, and only proves further that the Patriots are building something special.