They may not have won anything just yet, but there are already talks of titles and trophies in the city of New England. Thanks to an 8-2 start from the Patriots, their sophomore sensation of a quarterback, Drake Maye, is firmly in the mix for the regular season MVP award, and now, according to Greg Olson, their head coach, Mike Vrabel, should be similarly favored to receive his own trophy.
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According to the former tight end turned broadcaster and analyst, the Patriots’ play caller is his deserved favorite to win the 2025 Coach of the Year award. Although he is asking folks to pump the brakes a bit when it comes to the Super Bowl chatter.
“There’s a lot of people saying that they are going to win the Super Bowl, I’m not there yet. I think they are a great story and I think Drake Maye finds himself as one of the top three guys of the MVP race. I think Vrabel is the front runner by a large margin… It’s not so much that they are good, it’s how fast that they’ve gotten good… That’s what gives the lead, in my mind, to Vrabel, just how good he’s gotten a team that’s been bad. I mean, they’ve been bad bad for multiple seasons prior to him getting there.”
After winning a total of eight games throughout the 2023 and 2024 regular seasons, the Patriots have already managed to compile that same amount of wins throughout the first two and a half months of Vrabel’s tenure. Seeing as they are currently being listed as -11.5 point favorites against the New York Jets in Week 11, this figures to officially be their most successful season since the departures of Tom Brady and Bill Belichick.
Should they manage to overcome the Jets and tack on one more victory somewhere else later in the season, this would be their first 10+ win season since 2021 and just their second since 2019. Suffice to say, the numbers reflect the dramatic turnaround that Olsen is speaking of, and should the trend continue, then he’d almost certainly be right in his prediction of Vrabel being the one to take home this year’s award.
Of course, there’s still plenty of football that needs to be played, and with teams like the Baltimore Ravens and the Buffalo Bills still lying ahead of them on the schedule, there’s more than enough time for the press to sour on the Patriots’ results. Then again, should Vrabel somehow manage to guide his team past both of the AFC’s juggernauts, then he’d simply be undeniable at that point.
Just like every other season, the most meaningful games will be played in December, so there’s plenty of reasons for fans to keep tuning in, even if their favorite teams have already been booted from the title picture.
