On Thursday, Pat McAfee co-host Connor Campbell piggybacked on comments made by ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky and said he believes Mike Vrabel is zeroing in on the New England Patriots as his next coaching destination.
“Word on the street is that Vrabel wants to coach at one place,” Connor Campbell said on Thursday’s show.
“That is very real. Allegedly, Vrabel is very interested in being the head coach of the New England Patriots… I believe that is who Orlovsky was talking about when he said Vrabel might have a place already.”
Vrabel played eight seasons with the Patriots, and it wouldn’t be hard to imagine a scenario where New England would be his preferred destination.
But according to Brian Costello of the New York Post, rumblings around the league are that the Raiders are the team most likely to land Vrabel as their next head coach.
“I think Vrabel is heading for the Raiders,” Costello said on the Gang’s All Here podcast. “That would be my prediction right now is that he’s going to the Raiders because I think the Tom Brady connection there will be strong. That’s where the murmurings in the league have him going. Las Vegas.”
If you are keeping track, Vrabel has now been linked to the Raiders, Patriots and Chicago Bears.
The Bears and Patriots seems to have the better quarterback situations as the moment, but as Costello pointed out, the involvement of Tom Brady could be a factor in where Vrabel chooses to coach next year.
In his first head-coaching stint, Vrabel went 54–45 with the Titans and his tenure in Tennessee came to a surprise end in January of this year. There were rumors that Vrabel didn’t work well with first-year GM Ran Carthon and team owner Amy Adams Strunk.
Whatever led to Vrabel’s firing in Tennessee, it’s a safe assumption that he is going to want to work with a GM and owner he feels comfortable with. It’s unclear what Vrabel’s relationship looks like with Raiders’ owner Mark Davis and GM Tom Telesco, but Brady is expected to be heavily involved with the organization as a minority owner.
It was reported by Pro Football Post in November that Vrabel was the top candidate on the Raiders’ radar if Antonio Pierce is fired and based on Costello’s comments, that seems to still be the case.
The question now is… can Pierce do enough in the final two games of the regular season to hold on to his job and return for a second season with the Raiders?
x: @raidersbeat
f
Pierce can’t do enough. This whole season has been a debacle the the blame is all on him. He’s fires the OC because the offense is terrible brings in turner and they’re still terrible. Cosby and some of the other players strong armed Mark Davis into hiring Pierce. Ok, they got what they wanted. So now let’s fire Pierce at the end of the year. Another lousy HC hire.
AP should be gone. He has three good retired HS’s advising him and he still makes bad decisions. Common sense is mandatory and he doesn’t have it. And the fact that he still hasn’t accepted any culpability for his bad decisions makes it easy to say ba bye.