New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft had been on an ugly roll in his decision-making since 2019, when he allowed Tom Brady an out after the season. But in 2024, Kraft regained his swagger. He first made sure that Drake Maye was the Patriots' third overall pick in the 2024 draft.
Then, after a disastrous 2024 experiment and a year of dallying, he was fortunate that Mike Vrabel was available and finally hired him as his coach.
The trio has never looked back. In 2024, Maye had a terrific rookie season despite a poor accompanying cast and being mishandled by those in charge of the football operation. Now, after an offseason for the ages, Vrabel has transformed a bottom-dwelling, lackluster squad into the AFC East Champions, with Maye running the show in an MVP fashion.
Vrabel's availability came down to a couple of factors. First, the confused Titans discharged the former NFL Coach of the Year after one poor season. Then no one, including Kraft at the time, sought to hire the terrific coach and top NFL personnel evaluator for the 2024 season. That was sheer luck, or maybe just the NFL teams' ignorance about the Head Coach they needed.
Mike Vrabel is the NFL's best coach and the Patriots are lucky to have him in the building
The good fortune Robert Kraft had when Mike Vrabel wasn't scooped up by either him (he should have been) or any other NFL team in 2024 is the stuff of fairy tales - or just sheer luck.
Vrabel himself indicates that (fortunately for the Patriots) no one came calling in the 2024 offseason.
Was not being a head coach last year was beneficial?
— Mark Daniels (@ByMarkDaniels) January 7, 2026
Mike Vrabel: "It was the only option I had, so I guess I didn't have any other choice."
Sometimes you can be intelligent, sometimes you get lucky. That all the NFL teams that needed a new Head Coach declined to hire the former 2021 NFL Coach of the Year is, in itself, an amazing anomaly. Count eight teams among the losers.
They were the self-same clueless Titans, the Washington Commanders, the Seattle Seahawks, the LA Chargers, the Atlanta Falcons, the Carolina Panthers, the Las Vegas Raiders, and, of course, the Patriots. Some did fine, others not so much. None has a coach in Mike Vrabel's class.
The NFL's loss has been the Patriots' gain
The rest, as they say, is history. Vrabel knew he had the keystone of any winning NFL team, the quarterback. Unlike most, however, he realized just how good the young Drake Maye, then 22, was going to be.
Vrabel then dramatically revamped his entire roster in one off-season and won 14 games and the AFC East title in the process, with Maye as the driving force.
So stand up and take a bow, Patriots' owner Robert Kraft. You made two decisions that have resulted in completely reversing the fortunes of a lost, bottom-of-the-barrel NFL team into the AFC East Champions once again, and maybe more. And all of this was accomplished in less than two years.
Now there's just one more thing you have to do: make what's already a fait accompli official. Appoint Mike Vrabel as the Patriots' President of Football Operations. Then your trio of stellar decisions over two years will be complete, and you can expand the Trophy cabinet: additional Lombardi Trophies will soon join the family.