Home Sports In Mike Vrabel and Drake Maye, Patriots have one of the NFL’s better coach-QB combinations

In Mike Vrabel and Drake Maye, Patriots have one of the NFL’s better coach-QB combinations

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In Mike Vrabel and Drake Maye, Patriots have one of the NFL's better coach-QB combinations

FOXBORO, Mass. – Mike Vrabel has a plan for Drake Maye. For the young quarterback, who is coming off a promising rookie season, it’s less about specific footwork and not really — at least not yet — about reading, processing or mechanics.

Vrabel, now officially the head coach of the New England Patriots, has been around enough quarterbacks to know what success at the position should look and sound like. And that’s where he thinks he can help 22-year-old Maye the most.

“Drake is going to be his own person, but I’m going to give him some things that I think are necessary to help us win football games,” Vrabel said Monday during his introductory press conference.

What remains unsaid during the splendor of Vrabel’s big day is what his presence next to Maye amplifies. Even though the Patriots have plenty of other issues to solve, they believe they have a coach and quarterback, the most important combination in professional sports, for years to come. They certainly haven’t had that since Mac Jones’ rookie season (with Bill Belichick) in 2021, maybe since Tom Brady had a locker at Gillette Stadium.

In a league where it’s all about the head coach and the quarterback, it’s okay for the Patriots’ to-do list to be long and difficult. Nothing really matters until you get the right coach and quarterback. Now the Patriots feel like they have both.

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There’s still a long way to go for both Vrabel and Maye to make this work the way the Patriots envision it, but it’s also fair to note that there probably aren’t many other coach-quarterback pairs that you undoubtedly Vrabel and Maye would take over for the future. next five years. That’s not to anoint them the second coming of Belichick and Brady. But it is the only reason that, amid so many other issues, there is a lot of optimism in New England right now.

“Get great people around him,” Vrabel said of his plan for Maye. “I would say my involvement will be when it comes to game management and situational awareness and where we are on the football field and trying to develop him as a leader of the attack. When a quarterback calls the shots, you want to say it as if everyone is going to believe that a touchdown is going to score – like with that kind of emphasis on how everything is going to work.

It sounds wild considering how bad the Patriots have been in recent years and the state of the roster, but there probably aren’t many combinations more promising than Vrabel and Maye over the next five years. The Chiefs, Bengals, Bills, Ravens, Chargers and 49ers have solid arguments for a better matchup. But the Patriots could find themselves at the next level, along with the Texans, Eagles and Lions.

Perhaps one of the slights for the duo could be that Vrabel’s passing offenses with the Titans never put up gaudy numbers. During their 11-win season in 2020, they ranked 23rd in passing yards. When they won 12 games the following year, they were ranked 25th. But that would ignore their efficiency. In those two years, they ranked third and sixth in graduation rate.

For his part, Vrabel tried to allay concerns that he always had run-first offenses, which doesn’t seem ideal for a promising young quarterback.

“We have to be a very efficient passing football team,” Vrabel said. “If you look statistically at what wins in the National Football League, our ability to influence the opposing team’s quarterback and our ability to provide an efficient quarterback and passing game is a major contributor to success.”

Of course, Maye’s development will largely depend on who Vrabel chooses as his offensive coordinator.

Vrabel said the decision is not close to being made and that the Patriots will conduct a full search to fill their coaching staff.

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New Patriots coach Mike Vrabel will have his choice of offensive and defensive coordinators

“That’s far from confirmed,” he said. “We want to put the best, (most) talented coaches in front of our players. … I want the players to embrace what every coach teaches. I’ll tell you this: As long as I’m the head coach here, our coaches will have three simple jobs – and they sound simple, but they’re probably not as simple as we want them to be. They want to teach, they want to develop and they want to inspire our players by connecting.”

On this festive day, in front of an array of microphones and cameras, Vrabel seemed to have all the right details and answers for the three tasks of his assistant coaches.

On Day 1, he brought stability and respectability to a franchise that desperately needed it. And now he’s teaming up with Maye to give the Patriots guarantees at the two most important moments in building an NFL team.

(Photos: Eric Canha and Mark J. Rebilas / Imagn Images)

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