Mike Vrabel is focused on creating a specific culture in his first season as coach of the New England Patriots.
The tone was set when he first spoke with the team before the offseason program began in April.
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“My goal, and I tell everybody in the building … is to build a program that you, the coaches and the staff want to be a part of, that they want to protect,” Vrabel told the team. “When you care about something, you protect it. You take pride in it…You eventually believe in it and start to trust it.”
Ten months later, those words helped Vrabel’s first team come close to winning the franchise’s seventh Super Bowl title.
Vrabel is the eighth person to play in a Super Bowl and then go on to do so as a head coach. With Sunday’s victory over the Seattle Seahawks, he will become the first man in NFL history to win a Super Bowl as a player and head coach with the same team.
When asked how he maintains the enthusiasm he had when he first addressed the team before the season, Vrabel said his energy comes from what he gets from everyone around him.
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“The more I get to spend time with the players, I would say the easier it gets,” Vrabel said. “They’ve responded to us. They’ve done everything we’ve asked them to do. So, I think being around the players is going to help.”
In more than two decades as Patriots coach, Bill Belichick established a no-nonsense approach to creating a program that became synonymous with his “do your job” culture.
It brought Lombardi trophies — six of them — and an atmosphere that sometimes annoyed even some of his best players.
While Vrabel himself won three Super Bowl rings under Belichick in the 2001, 2003 and 2004 seasons, his North Star has always been prioritizing connections with his players.
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He instituted little things to put his team in the spotlight, like captains for specific games, who were chosen based on factors like a player’s past connections with opponents or even just the state or city they were playing in that week.
He brought back individual player introductions, something the Patriots haven’t done in more than a decade.
After every game this season, he shakes hands with opposing coaches, then runs to the locker room and hugs or shakes hands with every player as he enters the locker room.
Then, once the team is together, he gives personalized shout-outs to other players in addition to the typical game ball given to players who have performed well. After each one, the group “claps” in unison, making it a collective experience.
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As the Patriots established themselves as the NFL’s best road team (they had yet to lose on the road in nine games this season), he began calling them “the road warriors” and made the team watch the 1979 movie “The Warriors.”
After they defeated the Denver Broncos on the road to win the AFC Championship, Vrabel returned to the film screaming, “Guys! Come out and play!”
In short, his first season in New England was all about helping the team enjoy winning.
“The handshake and the hug after the game – win or lose. It means a lot because he cares,” rookie left guard Jared Wilson said. “He cares a lot about us and he cares a lot about helping this team.”
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His approach stems from what Vrabel calls the 4Hs: History, Heroes, Heartbreak, and Hope.
In team meetings this season, Vrabel has players tell their teammates stories about their upbringing (history), people they looked up to as children (heroes), personal challenges they faced (heartbreak) and their aspirations for the future (hope).
It creates a team that enjoys spending time together off the court and grows their bond organically.
“He’s always the same, consistent,” wide receiver Stefon Diggs said. “I feel like our coach believes in us. He helps us build this identity that he calls it. He holds everyone to the same standards.”
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Diggs said Vrabel is the best coach he has had in 11 seasons. Diggs doesn’t think it’s a coincidence that he’s coming off his seventh 1,000-yard receiving season after offseason knee surgery.
“I realize it starts from the beginning. When you hold everyone to the same standard and you hold everyone to the same requirements every day, you hold your teammates accountable,” Diggs said. “You start looking at your teammates, self-policing, self-responsibility. You don’t want to let your teammates down.”
Vrabel said he was just a product of the people he trained under. From playing and coaching at Ohio State to being drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers and playing for NFL coaches including Belichick.
“I just try to be myself, and sometimes that’s good enough and sometimes it’s not,” Vrabel said. “But I just try to learn from everyone around me, every great coach, and try to make it my own style.”
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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL
