FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — The more you speak to people who have known Mike Vrabel for a long time, the more you’ll hear a particular word to describe him. It’s … not exactly a nice word, at least not when you take it at face value. But you have to understand that, for football players, they’re using it as a term of endearment.
He’s my guy. He’s so honest that it hurts. He’s great, you’ll love him. It’s just that …
“Mike’s kind of an asshole if you get to know him,” Tom Brady said with a sarcastic smile back in 2021.
“The first thing that comes to mind is an asshole,” Julian Edelman said this year.
And Larry Izzo, the former Patriots special teams ace and current Commanders assistant coach? Well, yes, the a-word came up during our conversation about New England’s head coach.
“He can strike a nerve better than anybody,” Izzo told me. “It’s a gift that he has in terms of pushing buttons. At any level of s–t-talking that I’ve been around in my entire career — almost 30 years in the NFL going back to college — he is at an elite level in terms of being able to bust balls.”
Added former Patriots quarterback Matt Cassel: “The verbal assault came with the physical assault.”
Patriots coach Mike Vrabel may have a blunt approach, but his methods have helped the team change its losing culture in a matter of months. (Photo by Danielle Parhizkaran/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
Let’s be crystal clear: Every one of these former teammates loves Mike Vrabel. Izzo even lived at Vrabel’s house for two months when they coached together for the Houston Texans in 2017. So that’s the other word you’ll hear a lot when talking to people about Vrabel: “Love.”
It takes a special kind of person to bring people close while constantly challenging them.
“He’s a uniter,” Izzo said.
More specifically, Vrabel is a hands-on uniter. The 50-year-old, who played linebacker for 14 NFL seasons, is famous for putting on pads and getting into the fray during practices and even pre-draft workouts. He went all-out with left tackle Will Campbell before the Patriots drafted the LSU product with the fourth overall pick this year. Vrabel worked through backside blocks and countless other drills against a 21-year-old stud prospect — for 60 minutes.
More recently, Vrabel was cracking up as one of his 300-pound defensive linemen hit him repeatedly before a preseason game. His laugh sounded like pure joy, a tickled toddler.
It shows another side to Vrabel. The dude loves ball. It’s part of who he is, and maybe that’s why he cares so much about getting things right. And about winning.
“That’s his style,” Patriots defensive tackle Milton Williams told me. “He always tells us that he was an asshole [as a player]. He says he’s still an asshole now. That’s just how he coaches. He’s gonna get the best out of us. He’s really getting on you. He really just harps on the details.”
Cassel, now an analyst for NBC, is one of Vrabel’s friends who pushed back on the label, in part because it’s reductive and incomplete.
“That’s the easy way out — describing him, at times, as an asshole,” Cassel said. “It’s more of a joking way to say that he coaches the same way that he played. … He’s going to try to push you to get the best out of yourself. He’s also going to try to push you to the limit, to where you didn’t think that you could go, and actually make you understand, ‘Look, I pushed you because I believed in you and got you here, and then we’ll show you that love when you get there.’”
Most of Vrabel’s players aren’t interested in parsing the nuances of his bristly disposition, and they’re certainly not interested in calling him names. But there’s a cultish obsession breaking out in the Patriots’ locker room around their coach. It’s not just that the Patriots have rocketed to the top of the AFC standings. It’s also that they appear to be at the dawn of a new era under their elite young quarterback, Drake Maye.
Every person in the building follows Vrabel. You can call him a button-pusher. A chop-buster. A ball-buster. You can call him the a-word.
But it’s all about another a-word: accountability. That’s at the core of who Vrabel is as a man and as a coach.
Vrabel and Drake Maye have built a quick rapport, but that doesn’t mean the coach will hold back in his criticism of the emerging star quarterback. (Photo by Getty Images)
“You try to treat [the players] the same way they treat the team,” Vrabel told me. “If you treat the team like s—, hopefully you’re not around very long. But if you are, I don’t have much to say to you. But if you’re somebody that treats the team well, knows what to do, shows up on time, plays hard, practices and does everything that you’re supposed to do, then I’m willing to listen to what you have to say.”
*** *** ***
Everyone has a friend who’s never wrong, good at everything and exasperatingly effective … at life. For Izzo, that was Vrabel.
“When you get into an argument with Mike — or it’s like some s–t-talking back and forth — you’re never gonna win,” Izzo said. “You just get into an argument with him and you’re like, ‘This f—ing asshole.’ But at the end of the day, you end up having more love for the guy.”
Back in the early 2000s, whenever the Patriots’ special teams unit couldn’t get its act together and coach Bill Belichick wasn’t happy about it, there was one solution that worked better than any other. The solution wasn’t a “what.” It was a “who,” and you already know “who.”
Vrabel arrived in New England under the cover of anonymity, once a Steelers special-teams player who thought the Patriots would give him a shot to step into a starting linebacker role. He ended up converting that starting opportunity into a Pro Bowl nod and three Super Bowl wins. His former teammates attribute his sustained success to his grind-it-out mentality — no matter the role.
As a starting linebacker, Vrabel wasn’t a full-time contributor on special teams, but when called upon, he took it seriously. In fact, he was as good as any player on the roster at covering kicks and punts.
That included Izzo, an all-time special teams great. So, when the unit was struggling, the coaches would tap Vrabel.
“OK, you’re up,” they’d say.
Vrabel would take the field for a kick return. He’d run 70-something yards and be the first man to meet the returner for a tackle. Every freaking time.
“It would drive me crazy,” Izzo said. “He would get up and celebrate, and he would walk off the field talking s— to the rest of us, me specifically.”
Vrabel would say: “OK, I got mine. It’s your turn.”
Whether Vrabel knew it at the time, he was holding his teammates accountable in the same way he now holds his players accountable. Yes, he did it by talking a little trash, but also by targeting underperformance to help motivate and inspire those around him to achieve their full potential.
We’re all human. We all let our performance slip. At times, we all need reminding of who we can be.
That’s when the best leaders step in.
“For coaches, it’s about finding the balance around the psychological warfare of not becoming complacent after wins and after success,” Cassel said of Vrabel’s tactics.
I asked Vrabel how he’d coach himself, if he could speak to himself as a younger player. What piece of advice would Vrabel give?
“The timing of your comments is important,” he said. “Timing is everything.”
Vrabel admitted that he has to be careful with his prickly, brutally honest side. When he was a player, he could get away with a snarky comment here or a bit of smack talk there. As a coach? It’s a whole different animal because his words carry more weight.
“As far as an asshole, I can be a good asshole, I can be a bad asshole,” Vrabel said. “There’s a wide range. Sometimes that’s a good thing, and sometimes I could probably take it to the other side.”
Now in his seventh year as a head coach, Vrabel has learned to take more care of when and how he relays the difficult messages that are intended to help players. He can’t snap off a quippy comment “just because it’s on the tip of my tongue,” he said.
“I have to be cautious of that. That’s what happens when you’re the head coach. You say things. People — it means something to them, positively and negatively. So a lot of that has to be intentional and understanding who the audience is,” Vrabel said.
*** *** ***
It was the first day of training camp on a hot July Sunday in Foxborough. Vrabel, in what he called “the honeymoon phase,” was in the process of reintroducing himself to New England. After stints with Ohio State, his alma mater, and with Houston, Tennessee and Cleveland in the NFL, he was conveying his coaching philosophies. The media asked what he thought would qualify as a successful camp, and he responded with a question.
“Well, if we can remember what the objectives of training camp were, which were — do you remember?” he asked.
He’d gone over them the day before in a media session, and yet no one could remember. These goals were clearly important to him. So, he decided to bust some chops.
“No?” Vrabel smiled. “Build a team. Earn a role. Remember the last one?”
Still: silence. “Prepare to win. You guys are on fire today. We’re off to a great start.”
Everyone cracked up. We’d been called out.
Vrabel couldn’t help himself from educating the media on what he was building. He gave us a snapshot of how he challenges people around him. It wasn’t mean-spirited. It was with an intention.
This was how meetings had been going with players and staff, too.
“Hey, that’s how it is when we’re in a team meeting room,” receiver DeMario Douglas said. “So, you’ve got to know your stuff.”
It hasn’t stopped.
At some point each week, Vrabel stands in front of his players and tells them how — if they’re not careful — the opposing team’s star will absolutely run them over. One example: Bijan Robinson. Ahead of the Falcons game in Week 9, Vrabel let his guys know the havoc the runner could wreak.
“I hope you’re ready for such-and-such this week. He’s going to run through y’all,” Williams imitated Vrabel saying. “He’s trying to get us pissed. Every week, it’s been somebody new. He gets us ready to play.”
But it’s not like Vrabel’s speeches are inauthentic.
“He’s laying the facts out there,” backup quarterback Joshua Dobbs said. “That is true. If you give Bijan Robinson too much space, you saw what he did against the Buffalo Bills. He had 200 yards of offense. He’s truthful in that.”
Following this philosophy, you’d think that the best time to coach a team is after a loss, but that’s not how Vrabel sees it.
“I think that when you win, you can coach them harder, because you won,” he said.
Good thing the Patriots are 10-2.
*** *** ***
In the film room, Vrabel’s criticism doesn’t bring the vibe down. It somehow brings his players closer to him.
Not every player would walk away from that kind of meeting nodding in agreement. Not every coach can get his players to walk away from that kind of meeting nodding in agreement. But Vrabel can, maybe because, as a player, he sat through meetings just like the ones he now conducts.
Belichick was famous — or infamous — for laying into his players ahead of and after games. Vrabel played for Belichick from 2001 to 2008, which includes the perfect regular season in 2007 when Belichick was, as the legend goes, more critical than ever. Maybe knowing that he needed to bring balance on the tough days, Vrabel would try to mix things up. He was famous (and infamous) for joining the scout team (which starters don’t normally do) just to piss off Brady. It was intense, sure. But it was also good for a laugh for the whole team.
“It didn’t feel like a fun atmosphere at times because it was so regimented, it was so meticulous,” Cassel told me. “Even when we won, sometimes it felt like you lost because of how we were held accountable. But [Vrabel’s antics] brought a little bit of levity to the situation.”
If there’s another thing Vrabel seems to have borrowed from Belichick, it’s the top-to-bottom criticism of players on the roster. Brady was never safe from Belichick’s jabs, including the time-honored slight that “the starting quarterback at Foxborough High could make that pass.” Vrabel distances himself from the idea that he comes from Belichick’s coaching tree, in part because he never worked as a coach for Belichick, but there are similarities.
When Vrabel has a problem with his biggest star’s play, he goes directly to that player.
“My job is to try to protect the team, stay consistent and try to hold the best players the most accountable,” Vrabel said. “It sends a clear message to everybody throughout. If the quarterback makes a mistake, Drake makes a mistake, it doesn’t really do me any good to sit there and coach Tommy DeVito. I go right to the source. I think players appreciate the consistency.”
They do.
“It’s definitely good coaching,” veteran tight end Austin Hooper said. “I’ve been places where some coaches are afraid to talk to the superstars on the team and want to go hard in the paint on guys that are trying hard and are doing things the right way, but they’re not a superstar.
“Here, everyone’s treated the same.”
Vrabel seems to treat everyone the same because he cares about them all the same, from the QB1 to the 16th man on the practice squad to the folks who run the cafeteria.
There’s a trickle-down effect. Vrabel telling players what they don’t want to hear creates an environment where players can speak to each other freely and provide constructive criticism. So Stefon Diggs, the team’s veteran receiver, has often challenged and preached accountability with Maye, the team’s star QB.
“That’s huge. I think that’s kind of what we’re trying to build around here,” Maye said. “I think it starts with the head coach telling you what you need to hear, instead of what you want to hear.”
So, how does Vrabel get away with it?
“Because [the conversations] come from a place of support, and that’s why you’re trying to build relationships, so that when people do tell you the truth, you don’t bristle at it,” he said. “If a stranger tells you the truth, you tell them to f— off. If somebody that you care about tells you the truth, you take a good hard look at it and say, ‘Hey, am I doing this the right way?’”
Though criticism is hard to hear, most people do appreciate hearing the truth. And that’s what Vrabel gives his players.
“I don’t trust many people,” Diggs said. “I appreciate straight shooters, and you can tell me the truth, no matter what it is. I rock with you if it’s the truth.”
Veteran receiver Stefon Diggs appreciates Mike Vrabel’s straightforward approach. (Photo by Matthew J. Lee/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
*** *** ***
Vrabel bled from a gash on his face. His staffers and players stared at him as he applied an ice pack, which quickly turned red. A week before his 50th birthday, Vrabel had jumped into a pile of Patriots and Commanders players during a joint practice on Aug. 6.
“I was like, ‘That is sick. That is sick! I love that,’” Patriots guard Jared Wilson told me. “Ever since then, I’m like, ‘That’s the guy right there.’ It just gets me going. It makes me want to run through a wall. Your coach is willing to do things for you. … I don’t think a lot of coaches would do that.”
The first reaction was that the coach was setting the tone. Bringing intensity. “Taking no crap,” as Maye said after practice. But it wasn’t about escalating. It was about de-escalating.
That’s another side of Vrabel.
You may have seen the videos of him waiting outside the locker room to hug every single one of his players after a game. Maybe you’ve seen the photo of Vrabel holding Christian Barmore’s hand after he suffered a back injury, this after Vrabel had benched the defensive end earlier this season. Maybe you caught that moment where Vrabel seemed to be building up Maye on the sideline in the Week 9 game against the Falcons, which the Patriots won 24-23 despite the second-year QB throwing an interception and taking six sacks.
Even when Vrabel was a bad-boy enforcer as a player — kicking rookies out of the training room because he wanted a table — he also took care of his teammates. In 2008, practice-squad defensive lineman Vince Redd needed a place to stay, so he lived in Vrabel’s basement for the whole year. Former Patriots linebacker Pierre Woods also had a long stay at Château Vrabel.
“I’d say, ‘Hey, you guys need a place to stay — but just until you find a place?’ Next thing we know, they were having Thanksgiving dinner with us,” Vrabel said, referring to his wife, Jennifer, and their two sons. “They just lived in the basement. Yeah, they get their laundry done. I’d come home from practice, and Vince would be sitting there at the kitchen table with the boys, and Jen would be making dinner. … These guys were young players. It saved them some money on a place to stay. It didn’t matter to me. Certainly didn’t matter to Jen. Whatever we can do to help.”
The Vrabels would host as many as 25 players for Thanksgiving and Christmas — even when they had two young kids running around. And remember: Most of those 25 people were NFL players whose portions could sustain the average person for days.
Think of how many pounds of potatoes! Of how many turkeys!
Vrabel’s generosity didn’t stop when he became a coach. When he was working for the Texans, he let new-hire coaches — Izzo, Wes Welker and John Perry — live with his family for whatever time period they needed.
“That’s the kind of family that he had,” Izzo said. “That was a big part of why we were successful in New England. It was just because of that, that closeness that we had as a team.”
*** *** ***
Despite his brutal honesty, Vrabel can be wrong. He’s human. What makes him a good coach is that he can admit when he’s wrong.
Patriots linebacker Jack Gibbens remembers one moment in 2022, back in Vrabel’s days as the Titans‘ coach. Gibbens was an undrafted rookie who came off the practice squad to help replace an injured starter. It was a third down against the Chargers. And before the snap, there was chaos.
“Everybody was running all over the place. We couldn’t get lined up,” Gibbens said.
Right before the snap, Gibbens and his safety made a pre-snap decision to switch marks in coverage. Gibbens handed off the running back to the safety and took up coverage of the tight end. To Gibbens’ delight, the defensive line made quick work of the quarterback.
But when Gibbens saw Vrabel on the sideline, it did not look like the coach was going to congratulate him.
“He’s chewing me out. He’s like, ‘You’re supposed to have the back here.’ I was like, ‘I know, but the safety said he had the back so I covered his guy.’ And he was like, ‘All right’ and walked away,” Gibbens said.
That was it. Gibbens had an explanation. Vrabel backed off.
“If you know what to do, he’ll definitely put that trust in you and let you kind of make things happen on the field,” Gibbens said.
The next week, Gibbens played 72% of the defensive snaps and, the week after, he played 100% of the team’s defensive snaps. Clearly, he’d made a good first impression.
More recently, during his early days as New England’s coach, Vrabel realized that players grew hushed when he entered the cafeteria. Sure, the 6-foot-4, 260-pound coach has a big presence, but that’s not the work environment he wants.
“My job is to have a relationship or connection with everybody here, players and staff included,” Vrabel said.
So, during a team meeting, he spoke to the team about the cafeteria dynamics — and the quiet that followed him around the building.
“He just wanted everyone to be comfortable,” said cornerback Carlton Davis, who joined the Patriots as a free agent before the season. “You can get the best out of everybody when they’re comfortable, not when they’re all tensed up and scared to make a mistake.”
As tough as Vrabel can be, multiple Patriots players agreed that “accommodating” was the right word to describe him. They respect him because he was — and sometimes still thinks he is — a player. He understands how hard it is to make an NFL roster, earn a special teams role, earn a starting role, snag a Pro Bowl nod and win a Super Bowl (or three).
“He’s the most in-tune coach that I’ve probably played for,” Davis told me. “You could tell he puts himself in our shoes, whether it’s the game, practice, scheduling, meetings, he’s always there. He’s super involved.”
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There was a time when Vrabel wasn’t certain he’d come back to the NFL.
In 2014, he’d just finished his third season as a position coach for Ohio State. The Buckeyes had won 24 of their last 26 games under Urban Meyer, and Texans coach Bill O’Brien wanted to poach Vrabel as a linebackers coach.
Even though it meant a step up, he wasn’t certain it was the right move. So he called Izzo, who at the time was the assistant special teams coordinator for Tom Coughlin’s Giants. Izzo’s message to his close friend was simple.
“You’re gonna crush it. You’re going to be a D-coordinator in like two, three years. This is going to lead to where you want to go,” Izzo told Vrabel. “Bro, take it. You’re going to rise quickly.”
Vrabel started his coaching career in 2011 as a linebackers coach at Ohio State, his alma mater. Three years later, the NFL came calling. (Photo by David Dermer/Diamond Images/Getty Images)
By 2017, Vrabel was the Texans’ defensive coordinator. By 2018, he was the Titans’ head coach. It was a quick rise indeed. He spent six seasons in Tennessee, making the playoffs three times. After he was fired in 2023, he worked as a consultant for the Browns, appearing on practice fields and in drills with players, just like always. And then Patriots owner Robert Kraft scooped him up to replace Jerod Mayo after a 4-13 season, New England’s second in a row.
Vrabel took a teardown approach to the roster, with some help from Kraft, who invested in this roster and this coaching staff to fuel the turnaround.
The Patriots added big names like Williams and Diggs, as well as under-the-radar culture guys and unsung playmakers like receiver Mack Hollins, linebacker K’Lavon Chaisson, safety Jaylinn Hawkins, Hooper and center Garrett Bradbury. The rookie class has also thrived. The Patriots also boldly dealt former starters and high draft picks such as safety Kyle Dugger, defensive lineman Keion White and second-round receiver Ja’Lynn Polk around the trade deadline. They sold but continued ascending.
To quote the movie “Miracle,” it’s about having the right players — not the best players. It’s about finding guys who want to be crucial pieces of Vrabel’s vision and can handle Vrabel’s blended kindness and criticism.
“He’s going to strike a nerve, but the message is getting delivered,” Izzo said. “I think all of that helps him connect in his role as a coach now.”
There’s a fine line between insulting someone and ribbing them. In every conversation, Vrabel seems to find that line. And then he crosses it — by millimeters — just to see what you’ll do.
Just to see if what he said will make you better.
Before joining FOX Sports as an NFL reporter and columnist, Henry McKenna spent seven years covering the Patriots for USA TODAY Sports Media Group and Boston Globe Media. Follow him on Twitter at @henrycmckenna.
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