Mike Vrabel’s coaching career probably should have failed to launch in 2011.
An All-American at Ohio State who won three Super Bowls as a ferocious edge rusher and part-time tight end with New England, Vrabel was coming off a forgettable stint in Kansas City when he got his first coaching interview at his alma mater.
‘I tell this to every person I interview,’ New England’s head coach told reporters in Santa Clara, where his Patriots are preparing for Super Bowl LX. ‘Nobody’s gonna have a worse first interview than I did.’
Vrabel’s audience was first-year Buckeyes head coach, Urban Meyer, and his assistants.
‘I sat down with Urban Meyer in front of staff, interviewed for a position and completely bombed it and had no idea, wasn’t prepared, didn’t have a teaching progression,’ the 50-year-old Vrabel continued.
Rather than banishing Vrabel from Columbus, Meyer instead asked him to return early the following morning. This time, though, Vrabel would be expected to have some real answers.
Patriots coach Mike Vrabel admitted he was unprepared for his first coaching interview in 2011
Urban Meyer (left) is seen coaching on the Buckeyes sideline alongside Mike Vrabel in 2012
Most importantly, Vrabel needed to develop a lesson plan and explain to Meyer and his staff how he’d implement it over the course of a season.
‘He gave me about eight hours to go back in my office and [I] didn’t sleep, didn’t go home,’ said Vrabel, who was back in the interview room at 6am.
‘That’s probably the first adversity that I faced [as a coach] was like: “Am I really going to do this?”‘ Vrabel continued. ‘And I better go back and formulate my thoughts and have a teaching progression to what I was going to do.’
Meyer decided to give Vrabel the job and has since described his second effort as ‘an improvement.’
Vrabel remained a defensive assistant with the Buckeyes until 2013 before becoming the Houston Texans linebackers coach and defensive coordinator. Later he’d be named head coach in Tennessee, where he enjoyed three playoff berths, won Coach of the Year, and helped to end Tom Brady’s Patriots dynasty with a wild-card win over New England in January of 2020.
Obviously there have been setbacks for Vrabel, who was fired in Tennessee after the Titans finished 6-11 in 2023. And for all of Vrabel’s success, he claimed Meyer still struggled to recognize him in 2021 when the former OSU coach was in his doomed season in Jacksonville.
‘Do I know you?’ Meyer asked Vrabel, as the latter has since recalled to ESPN.
‘Yeah, I’m head coach of the Titans,’ Vrabel remembered telling Meyer. ‘And I worked for you for two years.’
However, Meyer rejected this version of events during a recent interview with the Daily Mail.
‘No, no… somebody told me that,’ Meyer said. ‘I don’t remember Mike Vrabel? I talk to Mike Vrabel all the time. So I don’t know if he was screwing around! I know who he is.’
Mike Vrabel is seen coaching the Titans in a 2020 playoff win over the Patriots
Regardless, If Vrabel is bitter about being fired or anything else, he’s not showing it. As he told reporters Tuesday, he’s still ‘grateful for the opportunity’ in Tennessee, regardless of how it ended.
But, as was the case when the Patriots traded him to the Chiefs, Vrabel is not forgetting anything.
‘I think there’s plenty of emotion, whether that’s being traded to Kansas City as a player or that’s being fired as a coach,’ he said. ‘There’s a lot of emotions that you go through and sometimes that takes a little longer to get over than others.’
And just like his mulligan interview with Meyer, Vrabel has taken full advantage of his second chance at being a head coach in the NFL.
