Patriots Legend Tedy Bruschi Has Strong Opinion of Team’s Mike Vrabel Hire

The New England Patriots are getting a mulligan.

After parting ways with longtime head coach Bill Belichick last offseason, many believed the Patriots were angling to hire the then recently fired Tennessee Titans head coach Mike Vrabel to replace him.

Instead, New England took a flier on another of its former linebackers Jerod Mayo, but owner Robert Kraft pulled the plug on Mayo after just one season (the Pats went 4-13 this year) and pounced on Vrabel, who was the hottest coaching free agent on the market and who fans wanted the team to hire last year.

Some believe Kraft even expeditiously interviewed both Pep Hamilton and Byron Leftwich to skirt the Rooney rule, which requires teams to interview minority candidates for open head coach and senior football operations jobs, to ensure New England got Vrabel before anyone else did (he was linked to openings with the New York Jets and Las Vegas Raiders.)

And while the consensus among sports media pundits was that Mayo wasn’t given a fair shake, many of those same analysts believe the Pats got it right in bringing in Vrabel, who had a 54-45 record with three playoff appearances, one AFC championship game appearance and two division championships, as his replacement.

Former Patriots linebacker-turned-ESPN analyst Tedy Bruschi is among them, and he shared some strong feelings about Vrabel’s hire during “NFL Countdown” not long after the news was announced.

“I love the hire,” Bruschi said. “Of course, this guy is a friend of mine. But there is going to be a change. I'm a little bit surprised that this happened because there are some people upstairs in the organization that want to be heard. And sometimes they're going to have to take a bite of humble pie and understand your opinion doesn't matter on this one' because there are people in the building that know more.

“I hope that is what happens this time around because the collaboration project did not work. I'm glad it's going to change a little bit to a coach that has more experience and they know what they're getting exactly with Mike Vrabel.”