The New England Patriots entered 2025 with a new Head Coach, Mike Vrabel, and a lot of question marks. After remodeling a dreadful 2024 roster, Vrabel capitalized on a soft schedule and took his squad to the Super Bowl.
He won his second NFL Coach of the Year award as a result. Now, Patrick Daugherty of NBC Sports has rated NFL head coaches and has given Vrabel a rather surprising lower ranking after such a great season.
Regardless, Vrabel didn't get to the summit of the NFL's Mount Everest and win the Lombardi Trophy. There's still work to be done if he's to raise his coaching profile even higher. Unless and until you win the Lombardi Trophy, you may win individual awards, but you won't be at the top of the heap.
NFL winning teams are built in the offseason. Nowhere was Vrabel's influence felt more than in the brilliant overhauling of the 2025 roster. Now, he has to interact with personnel to ensure his 2026 talent is even better and that it's better coached.
This is especially crucial in light of the dramatic increase in difficulty of his 2026 schedule.
What can Mike Vrabel do to become a better coach for the Patriots in 2026?
Mike Vrabel's coaching shortcomings were overshadowed by his 2025 success. Yet there are avenues he can explore to be an even better field general and better utilize the talents of the players he has after the all-important offseason.
Daugherty rated Vrabel No. 7 among NFL head coaches, Coach of the Year or not.
"Mike Vrabel overachieved until he didn’t in Tennessee. The dysfunctional Titans cut bait the second Vrabel stopped working miracles with an overtaxed, quarterback-free roster...it was clear from the opening moments of Super Bowl LX his Pats were outclassed by the Seahawks. That they had maybe arrived a little too early.
But it was final confirmation that, whatever your baseline might be, Vrabel is going to raise it...Vrabel now has a featured player in Drake Maye. It might not be in 2026, but at some point, Vrabel is likely to finish the Super Bowl journey he started in 2025."
There seems to be little doubt that Vrabel has what it takes to win a Lombardi Trophy. When is another question altogether. Up to this point, the team's 2026 offseason has been a shadow of his and his personnel team's efforts in 2025. Then, the Patriots upgraded numerous positions on both sides of the ball and on special teams.
In 2026, that hasn't happened yet. There have been few upgrades, and even the presumed better ones, absent the addition of All-Pro safety Kevin Byard III, are questionable. That will impact his coaching more than anything else. In addition, Vrabel failed to get the most out of a couple of 2025 players he did have.
First, he misemployed Keion White, a former second-round pick, playing him primarily at defensive end. White is a terrific penetrating defensive tackle. He didn't play there much and was ultimately jettisoned for a paltry sixth-round pick. It was a major personnel gaffe and hurt the team when Khyiris Tonga was subsequently injured.
Another mistake was not using probably his most explosive potential wide receiver, Marcus Jones, at all on offense. Jones is a solid slot cornerback, and that's his ongoing position. Yet whenever he was deployed as a receiver in the past, he was electric. He's an offensive weapon of immense explosiveness. Yet Vrabel didn't use him as a receiver once in 2025.
Those are two examples of coaching mistakes by Vrabel, each of which centered on failing to maximize a player's full talents. The offensive play-calling also left a lot to be desired. Vrabel has to insist that the vanilla 2025 offense be diversified to better utilize Drake Mayes' dual-threat capabilities. They didn't in 2025.
After his team is assembled, Mike Vrabel can still fine-tune his coaching. Unfortunately, thus far, the 2026 offseason's acquisitions have been lackluster. That bodes ill for the season. If that continues, don't expect even Vrabel to work miracles with substandard talent. Even the very best coaches can't do that.