FOXBORO -- One of the key questions looming over the Patriots following Mike Vrabel's hiring has been this: What exactly will his offense look like?
That will, of course, depend on his choice at offensive coordinator.
His colleague with the Browns last season, Tommy Rees, would make sense. He's been the play-caller at both Alabama and Notre Dame, and he served as tight ends coach in Cleveland, where he was immersed in a language that would be familiar to Drake Maye after the year he spent with former Browns offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt.
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Josh McDaniels is another option. The former Patriots offensive coordinator has been out of the NFL since being fired by the Raiders, and in some league circles he's considered the favorite to land back in his old role in Foxboro. He's a proven developer of young quarterbacks and could tailor his offense to the skill set of New England's talented second-year passer.
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But Vrabel will impact that side of the ball, too. And the quarterback. He shed some light on exactly how he hoped to help Maye take his game to another level in Year 2 during his introductory press conference at Gillette Stadium on Monday.
"Put great people around him," Vrabel said when asked about his plan for Maye. "I would say that my involvement will be as it relates to game management and situational awareness and where we are on the football field and trying to develop him as a leader of the offense…
"Drake is going to be his own person, but I'm going to give him some things that I feel like are necessary to help us win football games. We have to be a very efficient passing football team. When you look at statistically what wins in the National Football League, our ability to affect the other team's quarterback and our ability to provide for an efficient quarterback and passing game is a high contributor to success.
"There's a lot of ways to do that -- by protecting the middle of the pocket and all those things that we're going to talk about as we move forward. But how we protect the football, how we're aggressive but not reckless, understanding where we are in the game and the situational awareness that I feel like I've developed over six years and then my past year in Cleveland."
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Vrabel's answer may sound familiar to Patriots followers, since that appeared to be Bill Belichick's biggest contribution to Tom Brady's development over their years together. Brady blossomed from sixth-round pick to the greatest to ever play the position thanks in part to his ability to play the game the way it needed to be played to give his team the best chance to win.
Belichick might not have been teaching Brady certain mechanical aspects of the position the way Charlie Weis or McDaniels were. But he was teaching situational awareness, as it sounds like Vrabel will be.
When it comes to the specifics of what he believes in offensively, Vrabel made it clear he'd like to be able to execute a multitude of plays -- so long as his players show the wherewithal to handle them.
"We mentioned things like aggressive but not reckless," Vrabel said. "We have to be able to take chances. How do we create [explosive] plays without having to just throw the ball down the field 50 yards and just sit there taking shots, right?
"The creativity. We want to be, I would say, versatile enough if the players can handle it. You look at zone scheme in the run game, being able to run gap scheme to things that the defense may do. Be under center. Be in the gun…
"How much can you reasonably do? You don't want to dabble in things and say we're going to dabble in RPOs [if] the quarterback, that's not a strength of his. Being able to read and pull the ball -- there's so much nickel pressure. How do you want to handle nickel pressure? All these answers and different things the defenses are doing -- more split safety defenses, more simulated pressures, more disguised Cover 2 -- and then being able to go on the ball and then use an offense that goes on the ball at times and dictates tempo, cadence."
Versatility for versatility's sake does no one any good if they can't handle it, Vrabel acknowledged. And given the way the Patriots offense performed last season -- even with a talented young quarterback behind center -- Vrabel would be right to question just how much this offense can handle at the moment.
"[The offense] will be based on what the players can understand and what they can handle," he said. "We're not going to put things that make them slow. Somebody told me a long time ago you can't tell the difference between a player that's afraid to do it or doesn't know how to do it. They kind of just stand there with that look, and we're not going to stand. We're going to be moving."
The Patriots will be moving forward soon with a new coordinator. They'll be moving forward with a gaggle of new players. They'll also be moving forward with a quarterback Vrabel believes is "dynamic," he said on Monday.
How they get the most out of Maye -- and the moves they make to give him the best chance at success in Year 2 and beyond -- will be what makes or breaks Vrabel's tenure as head coach in New England.