Giardi: NFL Notebook – Where will the Patriots turn at defensive coordinator? Plus, could Crosby find his way to Foxboro?
There were two quotes from Mike Vrabel’s season-ending press conference that stood out to me. One was his admission that the team exceeded expectations. I appreciate Vrabel not talking about that during the year – why would you let your players know this is better than we thought it would be? – but as I kept saying here and on my podcast (All 32, subscribe, will ya), this roster isn’t what they want it to be, and this all happened sooner than forecasted. It’s a tribute to the staff and players that they won an AFC title. Truly.
The second, and this one made me raise an eyebrow, was when Vrabel was asked about Terrell Williams and Zak Kuhr and the role of defensive coordinator going forward:
“We’ll have to work through – T [Terrell Williams]’s healthy and been given a release to be back and be back at work. So again, I’ll work through all those things here in the next couple days, weeks, however long those decisions may take.”
We now know why Vrabel opened that door. The team is moving Williams into a different role, one described as a high-ranking position.
Kuhr is certainly a top candidate to fill the post full-time; however, there are two more experienced coaches Vrabel is familiar with who are, or could be, available, in Shane Bowen (most recently the Giants DC but was Vrabel’s coordinator in Tennessee from 2021-2023) and Jim Schwartz, who resigned in Cleveland but remains under team control (meaning a deal would need to be worked out). The coordinator positions also fall under the ‘Rooney Rule’, so the Pats must interview at least two external minority candidates.
That said, Kuhr earned the promotion. Down the stretch, the Pats’ defense became the most consistent and dependable of the three phases. The players responded to him. And with the braintrust in place, why can’t the 37-year-old Kuhr continue to grow, learn, and thrive?
– There’s been a lot of focus/commentary on the Seahawks blitz package featuring Devon Witherspoon. What hasn’t gotten nearly as much attention is the coverage behind them.
Mike Macdonald’s defense is so terrific with its communication and disguise that it not only confused the Pats’ protection schemes with who they sent and where they sent ‘em but also left Drake Maye unsure of what he was looking at on the back end. Sometimes it was man, sometimes it looked like man but was really cover 2, another time it was cover 4. So not only did Maye have to set the protection – and on at least 3 occasions – had the line sliding to the wrong side – but then he had to find holes in a secondary that wasn’t doing what he expected pre-snap. You want to put a young quarterback in a blender, and that’s exactly what Macdonald did.
– When you hear one ex-NFL lineman after another (Andrew Whitworth and Joe Thomas, among others) talk about Will Campbell’s performance and keep pointing out his issues with technique, it left me wondering what the heck Doug Marrone and his two assistants were doing this season. I blame myself for not being on this sooner. But I became content with the performance the group delivered during the regular season, especially given how bad it had been the previous two seasons. Now, I wasn’t buying some of the
