How Mike Vrabel went from trash-talking linebacker to touchdown-catching tight end (2024)

It’s been more than a decade since Christian Fauria played for the Patriots, but there’s no statute of limitations for ball-busting in the world of Boston sports radio. So the former tight end is more than fair game for his daily show on juggernaut WEEI.

A regular gag from callers: How did you let a linebacker steal all those touchdowns from you?

“It became this running joke back then,” Fauria said. “And it’s still going now, only with people who call our show.”

The calls are about Mike Vrabel. We’ll call him the Original Touchdown Vulture. He leached away scores from Fauria and other New England offensive players from 2002-08.

Vrabel caught 10 passes for 10 touchdowns in his time as a Patriot. He added two more scores with Kansas City from 2009-10, as his playing career wound down.

Now in his initial season as Tennessee’s head coach, this week marks the first time that a Vrabel-led team will meet mentor Bill Belichick and the franchise with which he’s most associated. Belichick on Monday even stumped for Vrabel to be in the Patriots Hall of Fame.

“He’s one of the best we’ve ever had,” Belichick said.

Touchdowns certainly help the legacy. Touchdowns on the biggest stage help even more. Scores in New England’s wins in Super BowlXXXVIII (vs. Panthers) andXXXIX (vs. Eagles) cemented the status of the creative formation, throwing a 250-pound linebacker in there for goal-line situations.

And then throwing to him.

“Had it not been in the Super Bowl,” Vrabel said. “I don’t know if it would have been what it became.”

That includes people in Boston still talking about it, news that clearly delights Vrabel when he hears about it. Immediately, in a single Cheshire grin, it becomes obvious who Vrabel was as a player: He was equal parts dedicated student of the game— and notorious trash-talker.

He loved to needle anyone and everyone who came into his atmosphere, even that hooded curmudgeon in charge of the whole operation. No one was safe.

“He used to drive us crazy in practice,” said former New England offensive coordinator Charlie Weis, adding that Vrabel and safety Rodney Harrison often practiced with the scout team. Weis said it allowed them to get full-speed reps against the first-team offense, keeping them sharper.

It also made the banter more lively, especially when it came to quarterback Tom Brady.

“They would talk trash to Brady the entire practice,” Weis said. “They were always fired up.”

Switching sides: Vrabel the ‘traitor’

Ah, but that back and forth then made Fridays interesting. That’s when Vrabel, at some point during practice, would migrate from the defensive side to the offensive huddle for the team’s goal-line work. That made him something of a traitor to outspoken defenders such as Harrison, Willie McGinest and Tedy Bruschi.

He very suddenly became the target of the chatter. Instead of being in pursuit, he was being pursued.

“The worst part was when I’d have to go on the other side,” Vrabel told The Athletic last week. “The defense would be like, ‘We’re going to freaking kill you.’ It’s Rodney and it’s McGinest. It’s Bruschi. They’re just talking. They were trying to knock the sh*t out of me.”

In those Friday practices, Vrabel essentially wound up on an island. Defenders were trying to hammer him; offensive players were rolling their eyesas this defector appeared in their midst.

“What’s up, fellas?” he’d say as he arrived in the huddle, ear-to-ear smile on his face.

“He came to take away our touchdowns,” Fauria said. “Look, it’s not like they’re handing those things out.

“He already had this big ego and he was already established. It was like, ‘Great, now we have to hear about him scoring touchdowns? Now we’ve got to deal with this, too?'”

Belichick was establishing his wizardry. He’d later do the same thing on the goal line with a 6-6, 305-pound offensive lineman (Tom Ashworth) and a 6-6, 317-pound defensive lineman (Richard Seymour).

“I just thought, ‘Bill’s just f*cking with us. This is part of his master plan to show he’s a genius and we’re getting screwed because of it,'” Fauria said. “He said, ‘I can put a linebacker at tight end, or a receiver (Troy Brown) at defensive back.'”

Fauria then imitated a Belichick-ian evil-genius laugh.

Genesis of the formation

The beginnings of the move came not with Belichick or Brady, but the quarterback who preceded Brady. In his first season with New England in 2002, Vrabel and his family received invites to hang out at Drew Bledsoe’s home. Bledsoe, like Vrabel, had young children. After the two became friends, Bledsoe then invited Vrabel to come out with him for pregame warmups.

Vrabel would run tight end routes in those pregames, just messing around.

But it caught Bledsoe’s eye. Vrabel was actually quite good at it. Bledsoe passed along the recommendation to Weis.

Weis didn’t recall Bledsoe’s rec, but he did remember being shorthanded for a 2002 game in San Diego. He said there was a mini-tryout among defensive players for the role as the team’s third tight end. Vrabel easily stood out, perhaps in part because of that pregame route-running.

Against the Chargers that day, Vrabel caught the first of his 12 career touchdowns.

“It was as if he’d been playing tight end all along,” Weis said. “He was physical. He was athletic. He could really catch the ball. He wasn’t a stiff out there. He wasn’t some glorified lineman playing tight end. He was just the way he is with everything else, too: He was conscientious. Knowing what to do was important to him.

“We had confidence in him from when we first put him in there.”

Still, there was some adjustment required, particularly when it came to the sanctity of Brady’s offensive huddle.

The third day Vrabel practiced at tight end, he got open in the middle of the field. He turned into a Pop Warner player, waving his arms emphatically to get the quarterback’s attention.

“Tommy! Tommy! Tommy!” Vrabel yelled.

The ball didn’t go his way. Vrabel trekked back to the huddle, where Brady was there to meet him.

“Don’t ever do that again if you want me to throw you the freaking ball,” Brady told Vrabel.

“I thought I was open and that’s what you did. I didn’t know,” Vrabel said sheepishly. “I saw Randy Moss do it. … I learned the Brady etiquette, I guess.”

Brady Lesson No. 2: Celebrate with the offense when you score.

As Vrabel began to score with regularity, beginning in 2004, he would sprint from the end zone to the sideline to celebrate with his defensive teammates.

“Tom would be like, ‘If you ever run off the damn field again …’” Vrabel said. “I was excited, you know? Iwould just start sprinting and go to the defense.

“Tom would say, ‘Don’t you ever run off.’ I said, ‘OK, I got you.’”

A natural receiver

Looking back, Vrabel thinks the best catch he had came in a 2006 game in Green Bay.

Officially, though, it didn’t count; it was one of just four times in his career that he was targeted but he didn’t make the catch. Brady was trying to throw the ball away in the back of the end zone, but Vrabel read his quarterback’s eyes and broke toward the base of the goal post. He got one foot in, and then the other— but his elbow hit before he could get the second foot down.

It was an objectively outstanding play, regardless whether it counted.

“He really had to show some athletic ability,” Fauria said. “I remember walking off the field and thinking, ‘Damn, that was a good catch.’ That was a pro catch. That wasn’t a gimmick of some tackle being eligible.”

The best official catch for Vrabel was a 2004 score in a win in St. Louis.

Current Titans tight end Luke Stocker watched a YouTube clip of that touchdown, nodding as Vrabel made a nimble grab in the back left corner of the end zone with a defender trailing him.

“The thing that impresses me is that he lines up his eyes and his hands; that’s next-level for what you’re taught as a receiver,” Stocker said.

Stocker added that he hadn’t seen much of Vrabel’s pass-catching highlights, but the Titans roster has a certain awareness of who Vrabel was — a three-time Super Bowl champ— both defensively and offensively.

Vrabel was a first-team All-Pro selection in 2007. He finished his career as a linebacker with 740 tackles, 57 sacks, 19 forced fumbles and 11 interceptions.

“Guys know his pedigree and what he’s been through, who he was in the league and where he’s been,” Stocker said. “He definitely has clout.”

But he’s remained playful as a coach, teasing players the same way he did his former teammates and coaches. He almost had a little-brother persona as a player.

Vrabel took particular delight in jabbing at Moss when the Hall of Fame receiver arrived in 2007. As Vrabel would trot in for goal-line situations, it often meant Moss was out of the game.

Vrabel would find Moss, mockingly pointing to the sideline.

“‘See ya, Moss,'” Vrabel would say, waving at Moss. “‘You’ve got to go.'”

The cantankerous Moss responded about how you’d imagine.

The Patriots had first-round tight ends in Ben Watson (No. 32 overall pick in 2004) and Daniel Graham (No. 21 pick in 2002), and yet Vrabel would find a way to squeeze them.

“He was just snatching away our freaking reps,” Fauria said. “It was such a Bill thing. One of those tight ends was coming off the field because Vrabel was going on the field.”

The other linebackers were left somewhat jealous that Vrabel was the one who made the move. In the end, they’d live vicariously through him.

“All of us thought we could play tight end,” said Matt Chatham, a Pats linebacker from 2000-05 and a current contributor forThe Athletic. “Vrabel was really good at it, really good at framing it up.

“We were all going crazy on the sideline. We loved it. It’s just funny that our guy was making plays from the linebacker group.”

Transition from huddle to sideline

Weis and Vrabel’s former teammates are not at all surprised to see him now as an NFL head coach. They’re betting on the 43-year-old fast riser, too.

“He’ll stick to a plan. He’ll produce. He’s smart, tough,” Weis said. “He won’t deviate from the plan. That’s exactly what you’re going to get. That’s why you know he’ll be successful.”

Intelligence was a recurring theme from those discussing Vrabel’s makeup. Vrabel often makes fun of himself about over-preparing.

“You knew Mike Vrabel was going to be a head coach somewhere in some form or fashion,” said Kevin Faulk, a New England running back from 1999-2011. “He just had that coach’s mentality as a player, and he used that to help himself out. He was just so smart and so intelligent. It’s awesome to see.”

Fauria compared Vrabel’s ascent to that of Red Sox manager Alex Cora, the 43-year-old whose team just won the World Series.

“Mike has a really good personality that young guys tend to follow,” Fauria said. “He’s honest. He’s direct. He has a lot of credibility. I think people respond to that. It was no surprise to me that he, one, became a coach and, two, rose as fast as he has.”

Fauria can probably expect a few calls this week about Vrabel. He’ll be ready.

“He was this snarky, condescending smartass, but he could back it up,” Fauria said. “He was always backing it up.”

(Top photo of Mike Vrabel: Brian Bahr / Getty Images)