When a player who was coached by Bill Belichick or a coach who worked alongside him gets a job with a new team, there are instant comparisons to the greatest of all time that remain there throughout their tenures. That's going to be the case for Mike Vrabel with the Patriots and was, of course, part of the questions he received from the media on Monday morning.
It's inevitable that the next head coaches to take over the Patriots will have high expectations, given who they are following in the footsteps of, and we saw how poorly that went for Jerod Mayo.
Because Vrabel already has head coaching experience, those expectations don't seem to intimidate him at all, which is exactly the kind of attitude New England needs from him moving forward.
When asked how significant it is to be the next guy in line, he made his stance clear and likely to receive even more pressure to produce positive results than Mayo before him. While he acknowledges he learned a lot from Belichick during his playing days, he doesn't want there to be too much put into what to expect from him as a head coach and essentially assured everyone that he is not a Belichick clone.
Vrabel asked about the significance of following in Belichick’s footsteps as coach of the Patriots. Said it’s meaningful to him but won’t help the team win games.
— Michael Hurley (@michaelFhurley) January 13, 2025
“There’s things that are interesting and there are things that are important.” pic.twitter.com/Dr7Ppd9cLS
Mike Vrabel wants to be his own man as the next Patriots head coach - not a Bill Belichick wannabe
"There are things that are interesting and there things that are important. Me having played for Bill [Belichick] is interesting, but I don't know that's it's important to helping our players."
What a quote.
Vrabel is coming into an undesirable situation as far as having to rebuild a team almost from the ground up. He has the luxury of having the franchise quarterback and a few solid pieces scattered throughout the roster, but otherwise, there's a lot of work to be done to get the Patriots back to a competitive team.
Although he wasn't able to win it all during his time with the Titans, he proved he can put together a high-performing team capable of going on a deep playoff run, as he did during Tom Brady's final season in New England. The Titans beat the Patriots on Wild Card Weekend and went on to the AFC Championship.
He accomplished that by being his own man and not trying to be exactly like Belichick, something we have seen not work for many other coaches over the years, most notably Josh McDaniels. Plenty of players have come out and spoken highly of being coached by Vrabel and what to expect from him, and it all chalks up to be exactly what the team needs at this state of their rebuild.