Earlier this month, the New England Patriots made it official that Mike Vrabel would be their 16th head coach in the history of the organization. But just how long was this plan in the works?
While the Patriots organization did bring in other candidates for their head coaching vacancy, Patriots podcast hosts Dan O’Brien and Rob Ninkovich shared their belief that Vrabel may have known he was the next man for the job before Jerod Mayo had even been fired.
On Saturday’s edition of The Dan and Ninko Show, O’Brien shared his belief that Vrabel knew about being the next head coach of the Patriots since early December.
“They have the money to revamp this whole roster. I’m assuming Vrabel has a plan. I mean, this was all in the works. When do you think Vrabel was actually hired? The last four weeks of the season? (Josh) McDaniels did an interview saying he picked Vrabel up from the airport to bring him to Foxborough for his interview. Obviously, McDaniels was hired whenever Vrabel knew he was hired. I think Vrabel knew he got the job in December. Like the beginning of December.”
Ninkovich largely agreed with O’Brien’s assessment, adding that the Patriots had to go along with the hiring process as long as they did solely to act in accordance to the Rooney Rule.
“Hey, they had to do the shuffling, interviewing people, wink wink DEI,” added Ninkovich.
O’Brien and Ninkovich are far from the only personalities in sports media who have shared this assessment.
Numerous NFL insiders spoke out in a similar fashion about the Patriots organization largely interviewing Byron Leftwich and Pep Hamilton solely to satisfy the Rooney Rule, which makes all teams interview at least two minority coaching candidates for a head coaching vacancy.
Considering Ninkovich played for the Patriots organization for eight seasons, there is a pretty good chance that he still has some kind of inside information within the locker room on how the team’s coaching search actually played out.
It sure seems like the worst-kept secret of the NFL offseason was that Vrabel, who was officially hired on January 13th, was always the guy for the Patriots’ head coaching vacancy and that their “interview process” was largely for show.
About Reice Shipley
Reice Shipley is a staff writer for Comeback Media that graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in Sports Media. He previously worked at Barrett Sports Media and is a fan of all things Syracuse sports.