Mike Vrabel made a triumphant return to New England as head coach of the Patriots on Monday.
A former linebacker and Super Bowl champion under Bill Belichick, Vrabel said he felt the move back to Foxborough, Mass., was right “in his soul.” Vrabel previously coached the Tennessee Titans and spent last season as a consultant for the Cleveland Browns.
“I’m humbled, I’m grateful,” Vrabel said Monday, recalling being inducted into the team’s Hall of Fame in 2023. “Excited to get to work. Excited to meet the people in this building who have made this place special.”
The Patriots last reached the playoffs at the end of the 2021 National Football League season, losing 47-17 to the Buffalo Bills in the wild-card round. Since that loss, New England is 16-35 and moving to a third head coach in three seasons.
Vrabel credited previous coaches and mentors from Belichick to Bill O’Brien, who made him a linebackers coach with the Houston Texans, for getting him back “to the place where I wanted to be.”
“When I started my coaching career, I think it was important to go somewhere else to start another coaching journey,” Vrabel said Monday. “I felt like it was important to forge my own path somewhere else and if all those experiences led me back here and the right opportunity, then that was the place to be.”
Vrabel, 49, takes over for former teammate Jerod Mayo, who was fired after one season as Belichick’s replacement as hand-selected by team owner Robert Kraft. The Patriots’ owner said Mayo was placed in an untenable situation and took fault for New England finishing 4-13 for the second consecutive season.
Vrabel spent four seasons in the NFL with the Steelers before signing with the Patriots in 2001 and winning three Super Bowls in eight seasons. Kraft took a stroll down memory lane Monday, reflecting on Vrabel’s growth and what brought them to the reunion.
“Those personal characteristics also made him a very high-performing coach,” Kraft said of Vrabel’s six years running the Titans. “In 2019, he beat us right here in the playoffs in Tommy’s [Tom Brady] last game as a Patriot. In 2021, he finished as the best record in the AFC at 12-5.
“In the interview process, Mike showed us that he had a very deep understanding of our current team. Most importantly, he had a clear and focused strategy of how to get us back to a championship way that is so important to all of us, but also something I think our fan base deserves and expects.”
Vrabel said he wants to focus on as many points of contact, personnel, coaches and himself, as possible to make all employees feel the same amount of care that they invest in the team.
“This connection piece,” Vrabel said. “I’m going to have a relationship with every single one of them. … That’s what I want to build.”
McCarthy deal expired after 7-10 season
Mike McCarthy will not return as coach of the Dallas Cowboys, who are going on three decades since their last Super Bowl title, owner Jerry Jones said Monday.
Jones said the organization and McCarthy mutually agreed to part ways. A search for the team’s next coach begins immediately, he said.
“I have great respect for Mike, and he has led the team through some very unique and challenging times during his tenure,” Jones said in a statement.
The coach’s contract expired on Jan. 8 following a 7-10 season. Dallas was 12-5 each of the three years before that, but still hasn’t been past the divisional round of the NFC playoffs since its last Super Bowl at the end of the 1995 season.
University of Colorado coach Deion Sanders, who played on the last Super Bowl-winning Cowboys team, has a good relationship with Jones and could emerge as a coaching candidate. The two have discussed the job, according to a person with knowledge of the conversation. The person, speaking on condition of anonymity because a formal interview hasn’t been arranged, said the team was still in the process of gathering candidates.
The Cowboys had an exclusive negotiating window with McCarthy through Tuesday, but the parties decided to split ahead of the deadline.
At least one NFL team asked during that time about talking to the 61-year-old coach, who won a Super Bowl with Green Bay.
Next season will be the 30th for the Cowboys since winning the last of their five Super Bowl titles.
Before taking the Dallas job after a full season out of coaching, McCarthy was with the Packers for 13 seasons and had a 125-77-2 record from 2006-18. He was 10-8 in the playoffs and led Green Bay to a Super Bowl title at AT&T Stadium, the home of the Cowboys, 14 years ago.
There were also three other NFC championship games for McCarthy in Green Bay, and that is what Jones envisioned, and more, when he hired the coach in 2020 after Jason Garrett never got that far in his 10 years.
McCarthy finished with a 50-38 record in Dallas, including a 1-3 mark in the playoffs. That included last season, when the Cowboys were NFC East champions and had won 16 consecutive home games before trailing by 32 points in the fourth quarter of a 48-32 wild-card loss to the seventh-seeded Packers.
Dallas played the final nine games this season without franchise quarterback Dak Prescott because of a torn hamstring. Top receiver CeeDee Lamb, seven-time Pro Bowl guard Zack Martin, cornerback Trevon Diggs and rushing defending DeMarcus Lawrence also finished the season on injured reserve.
Garrett had the franchise’s second-longest coaching tenure. Hall of Fame coach Tom Landry was the coach for the Cowboys’ first 29 seasons, the same number of seasons they have now gone since winning a Super Bowl. Jones fired two-time Super Bowl winner Landry when he bought the Cowboys before the 1989 season.
Only 12 NFL coaches have more career regular-season wins than McCarthy’s 174, which is still far behind Don Shula’s record 328. The only active coaches with more wins than McCarthy are Andy Reid (302 wins over 29 seasons) and Mike Tomlin (183 wins in 18 seasons).
Jones’s next coach will be his ninth. He hired Jimmy Johnson from the University of Miami, and the Cowboys won back-to-back Super Bowls in the 1992-93 seasons before the college teammates at Arkansas had an acrimonious split.
Barry Switzer replaced Johnson, a Pro Football Hall of Fame coach, and won a Super Bowl in his second season but was fired two years later following a 6-10 season. Bill Parcells, another Hall of Famer, led the Cowboys to the playoffs twice in four seasons from 2003-06 but lost in the wild-card round both times.
Vance Joseph to fill Raiders’ coaching vacancy?
The Las Vegas Raiders have requested to interview Denver Broncos defensive co-ordinator Vance Joseph for their head coaching position.
He is the seventh known candidate for the position after Antonio Pierce was fired last week.
The Raiders have scheduled or conducted interviews with former Seattle Seahawks and Southern California coach Pete Carroll, Detroit Lions co-ordinators Aaron Glenn on defense and Ben Johnson on offence, former New York Jets head coach Robert Saleh and Kansas City Chiefs defensive co-ordinator Steve Spagnuolo.
Las Vegas also has requested an interview with Baltimore offensive co-ordinator Todd Monken. The Ravens beat the Pittsburgh Steelers in the wild-card playoffs Saturday, so that interview would be on hold if it’s granted.
The Raiders also have an opening at general manager after Tom Telesco was let go last week, but the club has not apparently requested any interviews. It’s possible the Raiders are waiting to see if coaching candidates have anyone in mind that could work as a package deal.
Joseph was the Broncos head coach in 2017-18, going 11-21. Joseph then became the Arizona Cardinals defensive co-ordinator for four seasons before returning to Denver for the same role. The Broncos were third in points allowed (18.3) and seventh in yardage given up (317.1) this season.
