The 2025 New England Patriots shocked the NFL world, as Ted Bruschi would say. While they didn't win the biggest game, they got there, and that alone was a prodigious achievement.
Even the most optimistic Patriots' observers, while they may have seen a playoff berth on the horizon, didn't see that coming. There was no doubt whatsoever that the driving force for change, both on the field and in personnel, was Head Coach and more, Mike Vrabel.
Yet now, Pro Football Focus's Bradley Locker has ranked NFL coaches, and Patriots Nation won't like his consigning Mike Vrabel to No. 9 very much. Keeping Vrabel out of the top five (at a minimum)
and maybe even higher, is baffling.
Vrabel took an arguably worst-in-the-NFL roster and, in six months, transformed it not only into a Division winner over the mighty Bills but also into a Super Bowl team. And incidentally, he won the 2025 NFL Coach of the Year award, as well.
Mike Vrabel should be recognizes as a top 5 NFL head coach and more
The Patriots' Super Bowl loss may have subconsciously contributed to this mystifying ranking. If the team had won that game, his standing atop the list would have been indisputable. But even though his quarterback had a significant shoulder injury and his left tackle had a balky knee, those two critical factors didn't seem to move the needle much on Vrabel's ranking.
Author Locker's conspicuously low rating for Vrabel, even in light of his own comments, makes little sense.
"Vrabel has put together an up-and-down career, but the highs have been very fruitful. Across seven career seasons with the Titans and Patriots, Vrabel has secured a winning record five times — and three of those years featured 11 or more victories. While Vrabel isn’t an innate play-caller, which does hinder his ceiling on this list, he’s a steady culture-builder across organizations. Vrabel has had a knack for harnessing talent, allowing players like Drake Maye, Derrick Henry, A.J. Brown and Jaylinn Hawkins to flourish.
Likewise, Vrabel has benefitted from savvy free-agent additions like Milton Williams, Morgan Moses and Carlton Davis. It’s fair to question the sustainability of last year’s Patriots, who finished as league runners-up but earned the fourth-best overall PFF grade and face questions going into 2026. Vrabel will need to prove that the 2025 season wasn’t a fluke, but even turning around New England so drastically in his first year embodies his overall steadiness."
Locker fails to even mention that Vrabel earned his second NFL Coach of the Year Award. Maybe it was an oversight, yet he did acknowledge Vrabel's mastery of personnel. He gave the coach and master NFL personnel mind credit for taking the arguably worst NFL roster and transforming it into a Super Bowl team in just one offseason.
There's not much more to say about this ranking other than that it can't be based on Vrabel's 2025 coaching or very much on his superb career record as an NFL coach. While PFF is a reputable NFL analytical firm and generally accurate in its assessments, it missed the mark on this occasion.
PFF's assertion that Mike Vrabel, the NFL's Coach of the Year, who transformed a bottom-of-the-NFL roster and coached it into not only a Division winner but a Super Bowl team, is not a top-five NFL coach is frankly preposterous.
The good news, it will further fuel the Patriots' determination to get back to the Super Bowl in 2026 and win it for their coach. And that's a very fine motivator, indeed.
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