Mike Vrabel wasn't thrilled.
He was at the league meetings in 2022, at The Breakers hotel in Palm Beach, Florida. And there was a reporter from New England there hounding him with questions about a team he no longer was associated with.
What did he think of the job Bill Belichick was doing? What did he make of the Patriots choosing to remake their offensive staff in an unusual manner after the departure of Josh McDaniels?
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Vrabel handled them politely. But abruptly. And he made it clear after his media session that he'd prefer that particular reporter ask him about his current team, not his old team. He hadn't worked for Belichick in a long time. The message was, essentially: Find someone else for that stuff.
So I did.
But it feels as though Patriots reporters will now be at liberty to ask Vrabel questions about the team in the very near future.
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Vrabel has been considered the favorite to be the next Patriots head coach by league and team sources since Jerod Mayo was fired on Sunday. Additionally, those watching the situation from afar pegged Vrabel's availability and his aggressive pursuit of a Jets interview as potential factors in Mayo's firing days before it occurred.
The thinking was, essentially, if the Krafts were teetering in their belief that Mayo would eventually excel, having a shot at hiring Vrabel might help them ultimately move off of their hand-picked successor to Bill Belichick.
Vrabel is interviewing in Boston on Thursday with a group expected to include Robert Kraft, Jonathan Kraft, Eliot Wolf and Alonzo Highsmith. If the Patriots had their druthers, he could be their head coach as soon as the end of this week.
While that would represent a fast-and-furious process -- including interviews on Tuesday with Byron Leftwich and Pep Hamilton, which satisfied the Rooney Rule -- the Patriots seem to be moving quickly to secure their top choice before anyone else can woo him.
On the one hand, if they wrap this up quickly, that would prevent the Patriots from learning about their team (and others) by bringing in a variety of qualified candidates to share their ideas on how to fix things in Foxboro. On the other hand, for them, Vrabel looks like the right candidate at the right time.
Vrabel's hard-ass coaching style will remind some, perhaps, of Belichick. The two have very different personalities. But some of their approaches are similar. "Lowlight" video clips after games. Airing players in front of teammates in practice. Then onto the next thing.
"There are no [expletive] grudges," Vrabel told Kevin Clark of the Ringer back in 2023. "There’s a mistake, an argument, a disagreement, whatever happens. In relationships that I have, I’m moving on. We don’t have time to sit there and dwell on what happened. I gotta do my job."
There's an empathy that exists with Vrabel, though, that should help him in an era where healthy player relationships matter more than ever.
“One thing I’m proud of and grateful for is when I stand up in front of the team," Vrabel told the Athletic in 2021. "There will be many players sitting very closely to one another who all have shared something with me, or I know they are dealing with something.
"It’s a parent who’s sick, a child they haven’t seen. They may not know that a person sitting five feet away from them is dealing with the same thing. But I do because I’ve had conversations with them.”
Vrabel showed during his run as Titans head coach that he can get his arms around the myriad responsibilities associated with the job. Coach 'em hard. Relate to 'em. Manage the game. All the while, create a culture.
It'll be hard for any coach to have his standards take root without seeing on-field results. But Vrabel brings with him a track record that none of the rookie head coaches available in this cycle can bring with them, having won Coach of the Year in 2021 and leading the Titans to the playoffs in three of his six seasons at the helm.
He made one piece of his preferred culture very clear in an interview with Scott Pioli two summers ago during Titans training camp.
"I've always thought (a team's best players have to be its hardest workers)," Vrabel said. "I've always thought that I have to hold them the most accountable because of the message that it sends. It's easy to get our message across when our best players are our hardest workers and the ones who are engaged the most in meetings."
Vrabel represents a known commodity for the Krafts. Yes, they know him as a person because of the years he spent in New England, eventually earning a red jacket as a Patriots Hall of Famer. Which should matter. But his resume sets him apart for a team that is looking for stability, and his showing real urgency to get things fixed in short order.
He's their top choice right now for a reason. And there's a real chance he'll be fielding all the Patriots questions he can handle in a few days time.