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Former teammate ‘not surprised’ by Mike Vrabel’s immediate success with Patriots
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- Former teammate ‘not surprised’ by Mike Vrabel’s immediate success with Patriots
In one season, Mike Vrabel has transformed a four-win team, turning it into an AFC East champion and postseason contender.
He’s gotten bloody with his players — both in preseason and as recently as the wild-card game . He’s had videos go viral of his postgame handshakes and speeches. And his players have talked about the impact he’s had on the team.
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For Luke Fickell, the head coach of Wisconsin’s football team, none of this is a surprise. Fickell played, lived and coached with Vrabel.
In a story for The Athletic , Fickell said the thing that’s made Vrabel successful so quickly in New England is the same thing that made him successful 30 years ago in college.
“Mike Vrabel is what you want as a leader because he’s never afraid to say what needs to be said,” Fickell said.
Throughout his story, Fickell detailed what he saw from Vrabel throughout college — an intensity during conditioning, a propensity to speak his mind, even if it was to the offensive coordinator, and an unmatched competitiveness.
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“You love to have those guys who are willing to say the things people don’t want to hear,” Fickell said. “That’s what you need to do as a coach. Maybe that’s why he was never voted captain at Ohio State. Those can tend to be popularity votes, and being that honest doesn’st always make you popular. But he was going to tell you how he really felt in every situation.”
The start of Vrabel’s coaching career is intertwined with Fickell. When Fickell became the interim head coach at Ohio State, he hired Vrabel as his defensive coordinator. Fickell then went to watch Vrabel at minicamp when he became an assistant with the Houston Texans in 2014.
Now, 11 years later, Vrabel is responsible for helping the Patriots tie the NFL record for the best turnaround in league history.
“His ability to connect with NFL players — because he played at that level, won Super Bowls — it’s different than most of the coaches I’ve been around. He can get after guys and be critical and be hard on them in a way that I think is difficult for other coaches to do.
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“You often hear that better players are worse coaches. He had the ability to separate what he could do and what someone else could do. He never assumed something was easy, or that someone could learn it the same way he did. It can be hard for great players to understand that, but I never saw that with him.”
Vrabel and the Patriots will take on the Texans in the AFC divisional round Sunday in a 3 p.m. game at Gillette Stadium.
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