SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 Mike Vrabel said he intends to bring home some silverware from Santa Clara, and on Thursday at the NFL Honors he added Coach of the Year to his r\u00e9sum\u00e9 for the 2025 season. Vrabel engineered a dramatic turnaround in New England after the organization moved on from Bill Belichick following 2023 and dismissed Jerod Mayo after 2024.<\/p>\n
He inherited a club that had lost 13 games the previous year and became the first coach to win at least 13 games in his debut season. The Patriots finished with 17 wins this season, including the playoffs, tying George Seifert\u2019s mark for the most wins by a first-year coach; a Super Bowl victory in Super Bowl LX would lift that total to 18. For context, Seifert\u2019s 1989 49ers also had 17 wins in his first year, while Jim Caldwell\u2019s 2009 Colts had 16.<\/p>\n
New England also reclaimed the AFC East for the first time since 2019 and now stands one game away from a Super Bowl berth. If the Patriots beat the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl LX, Vrabel would become just the fifth coach to win a Super Bowl in his first season, the third former franchise player-coach to win the title, and \u2014 notably \u2014 the first to do so with the same franchise he once played for.<\/p>\n
This is Vrabel\u2019s second Coach of the Year honor; he previously won the award in 2021 as Tennessee\u2019s head coach. He topped a finalist list that included Liam Cohen (Jaguars), Ben Johnson (Bears), Mike McDonald (Seahawks) and Kyle Shanahan (49ers).<\/p>\n
Fan Take: Vrabel\u2019s rapid revival of the Patriots matters because it shows how quickly a franchise can flip from rebuilding to contender with the right leadership, energizing a historic franchise and its fan base. If New England caps this run with a Super Bowl, it could reshape hiring and roster-building philosophies across the league, emphasizing experienced, culture-driven coaches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 Mike Vrabel said he intends to bring home some silverware from Santa Clara, and on Thursday at the NFL Honors he added Coach of the Year to his r\u00e9sum\u00e9 for the 2025 season. Vrabel engineered a dramatic turnaround in New England after the organization moved on from Bill Belichick following 2023 and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41606,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[859],"tags":[860],"class_list":{"0":"post-41605","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-nfl"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}