As soon as he could get away from his introductory press conference, Mike Vrabel made his way to the scouts’ offices in Gillette Stadium — Eliot Wolf’s part of the building. Vrabel had told the media that he was excited to sit down with Wolf and the scouts. And he meant it. So he changed out of his suit and tie and almost immediately jumped into a discussion with the scouting staff, which was on-site to prepare for the offseason. It was this time last year, and the Patriots had more than $120 million in cap space and a top-five draft pick. What they didn’t have were wins. They’d gone 4-13 in two straight seasons, and Vrabel was the team’s third head coach in 25 months, following Bill Belichick and Jerod Mayo. “[Vrabel] just kind of came in and started talking ball,” Wolf, the Patriots’ de-facto general manager, told me in a phone conversation. “I forget what position we were watching. Let’s say it was linebacker. We launched into linebackers. He started talking about what he looks for in a linebacker. Some of the guys that had been successful for him in the past and the reasons why.” Wolf added: “He took an interest from day one. … And really just coming off the difficult year that we had the year before, just some of the positive enthusiasm that he had was important for those guys [in the scouting department] to hear.” You know where this story ends: at Super Bowl LX, with the Patriots preparing to face the Seattle Seahawks. And with Vrabel winning the NFL Coach of the Year Award. New England is the first team ever to rise from 4-13 one season to a Super Bowl berth in the next. There have been some teams that ascended into the big game after a four-win season, including the 2020 and 2021 Bengals and the 1998 and 1999 Rams. But the Patriots are in rare company. It started in that meeting on Vrabel’s first day of work, when he began to communicate what he wanted his team to look like with the people who were in charge of getting the players that fit the coach’s preferences. A good scouting staff gets transcendent talents. A great scouting staff gets transcendent talents who bring a coach’s vision to life. That sort of communication is much more difficult than you’d expect — all the more reason for Vrabel to start right away. “I just think that me being around is important, having conversations with those guys,” Vrabel said at a press conference when asked about that initial meeting. “When I was a position coach, to be able to link up with the scouts, talking about post-draft or communicating with them. This is an open line of communication with our coaches and our personnel department.” That kicked off what Wolf called an “arranged marriage” with Vrabel, where the coach arrived as a new hire with Wolf holding over from past iterations of the organization (going back to Belichick). There were rumblings that Wolf was losing power upon Vrabel’s arrival, given that the coach was likely to have the final say on personnel decisions, which had been Wolf’s role with Mayo. At the time, Wolf brushed off the transition. Now, it’s easy to see why. “At the end of the day, you want to win. I want to win,” Wolf told me this week. “So I felt like Mike really gave us a great opportunity to win, which obviously he has. And that’s where you can put your ego to the side. And it’s never been about having the most power. For me, it’s always been about winning.” Prior to working together, Wolf and Vrabel were friendly, having run into each other at pro days and the NFL Combine. But the two didn’t really know each other when Vrabel began interviewing for the job. Patriots owners Robert and Jonathan Kraft set aside time for the two men to speak during the interview process, and they were immediately in lockstep. “He believes in a lot of the same things that I believe in,” Wolf said. The priorities were obvious. “Put the team first, do what’s right for the team, treat people the right way, create a program that we can all be proud of and that people want to be a part of,” Wolf told me. Wolf and Vrabel then went out and overhauled the coaching staff and roster. Among the coaches, only special teams coordinator Jeremy Springer stayed. Offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels and defensive coordinator Terrell Williams (and his understudy Zak Kuhr) arrived to lead the other groups. Then the new players arrived on defense: defensive end Milton Williams, linebackers Harold Landry and Robert Spillane, defensive lineman K’Lavon Chaisson and rookie safety Craig Woodson. The Patriots also addressed their needs on offense, rebuilding the line with four new players: rookies Will Campbell and Jared Wilson and veterans Garrett Bradbury and Morgan Moses. Finally, they added veteran receivers Stefon Diggs and Mack Hollins, rookie receiver Kyle Williams and second-round running back TreVeyon Henderson. New England had a sizable draft class of 11 players, with a solid amount of draft capital: four picks in the top 100 and five in the top 106. The team also spent $209 million in guaranteed money on free agents in 2025, the most in the NFL last offseason. If Spillane (ankle) and Landry (knee) can play in the Super Bowl, the Patriots will have six starters on offense and seven starters on defense who are new to the team in 2025. And don’t forget two of the three specialists: kicker Andy Borregales and long snapper Julian Ashby. The free-agent headliner was Williams, whom New England convinced to defect from the Philadelphia Eagles with a four-year, $104 million deal, the largest in Patriots history by average annual value — yes, even bigger than any contract Tom Brady inked. Williams was and is a guy Wolf and Vrabel both loved. He’s the guy Vrabel approached at the beginning of the postseason and posed this challenge: “Big guys eat in January. And if the Patriots are lucky — in February, too. “Philadelphia, to their credit, had really too many good players at a position, and he was available where probably nine times out of 10, that player wouldn’t be available. We felt like he was a priority,” Wolf told me. The interesting thing isn’t just how much the Patriots changed by changing players. It’s also fascinating how much they changed by elevating the players who were a part of the 2024 team. “I don’t think those guys get talked about enough,” center Garrett Bradbury told me at practice last week. “I think they went through some dark times with some tough seasons, some tough losses. And for those guys to buy in, and the free agents and the rookies like this, speaks to Vrabel’s leadership and what he wanted this team to look like.” The most obvious player is quarterback Drake Maye, who went from a raw passing prospect in 2024 to an MVP finalist in 2025. That’s due in large part to his hard work and his traits. It’s also a credit to the coaching staff, from McDaniels to quarterbacks coach Ashton Grant. What’s interesting is seeing Maye grow into his head coach’s image. You’d hear Maye talking trash around the locker room a whole lot more this year, not unlike Vrabel. Maye offered to let new guys, including Bradbury, crash at his house — just like Vrabel once did with teammates when he was a player. Maye holds his players accountable and details his preferences on routes and pre-snap communication. You can see Vrabel shaping Maye, the player Wolf drafted with the No. 3 overall pick in 2024. The same is true of cornerback Christian Gonzalez, arguably the team’s best defensive player. He is so soft-spoken that he can be difficult to even hear in the locker room, and yet he’s found his voice with his teammates. “In the DB room, in the defensive meeting room, [I’m] hearing that when I say something, people listen,” Gonzalez told me. “Guys have told me that, and told me I can use my voice to speak up. And I mean, not even just football stuff. But being a guy. People come to talk about off-the-field stuff.” Reshaping the Patriots’ culture also meant moving on from players who didn’t fit. New England traded key contributors from years past in safety Kyle Dugger and edge Keion White. It’s not exactly fair to say it was a case of addition by subtraction, but the Patriots were somehow sellers at the trade deadline. They moved Dugger to the Steelers and White to the 49ers. “Both players had experienced heavier roles in the past than they were getting at the time,” Wolf told me. “[Kyle] wanted a larger role, and we were able to make that happen for him, while not hurting ourselves. “Keon had really kind of wanted more of an opportunity to maybe do some of the inside rush stuff that he had had some success on in the past. We had Milton and Christian [Barmore] who were playing really well.” When you add up all the movement from Vrabel and Wolf, you can see how the team went from 13 losses in 2024 to 17 (and maybe 18) wins in 2025. “We treat [players] the same way they treat the team,” Vrabel told me earlier this season. “And so that means we’re going to probably treat them differently, but we’re going to treat them the same way they treat the team.” It started with compassion and honesty, with players standing in front of each other at team meetings to share their “four H’s” — hopes, history, heroes and heartbreaks. Vrabel blended those team-building exercises with brutal honesty, which the coach uses to hold players accountable. And there have been so many different Vrabel tactics along the way, including regular showings of WWF clips from the “Road Warriors” and the 1970s movie “The Warriors.” These were intended to inspire the players to maintain their undefeated streak on the road, which stands at 9-0. (And technically, it could reach 10-0 this week, with the Patriots set to wear their white “away” uniforms in Santa Clara.) When training camp starts every summer, all 32 NFL teams want to win a Super Bowl. But, realistically, only a few are seen as having a true shot at the title. There weren’t many people who thought the Patriots had a chance this season. But they got to this point because Wolf and Vrabel found creative and collaborative solutions to the team’s many problems. Their arranged marriage helped them arrange a roster that’s worthy of a Lombardi Trophy. In Game Changers, we offer the playbook on the characters you need to know, on the field and off.Latest Sports News from FOX Sports
