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Former
New England Patriots linebacker, and current Tennessee Titans head coach, Mike
Vrabel has been inducted as the 34th member of the team's Hall of Fame.
OCT 22, 2023 9:00 AM
EDT
FOXBORO — Tennessee Titans head coach Mike Vrabel may
currently be controlling the sidelines in Nashville. However, there is still a
great deal of New England Patriots ‘Blue’ in his bloodline.
Vrabel, who was inducted on Saturday as
the 34th inductee into the Patriots Hall of Fame, remains forever grateful
for the eight seasons he spent in New England. Accordingly, he insisted on
savoring the moment of being one of the select few to earn the organization's
highest honor.
"I promise I'm not going to take this for granted,"
Vrabel said after donning his Hall of Fame red jacket for the first time.
"Because I think that spending eight years here, and the success that we
had, I think you could all say that we took it a little bit for granted ... You
go to work, you coach football, you go to your next stop, and you lose sight of
what this actually was and what it meant, and I don't want anyone to do
that."
Just in case, Patriots team owner and CEO
Robert Kraft reminded both Vrabel and all of Patriots Nation about where he is
likely to be most fondly remembered.
"You might be a Titan in the industry
now, but to us you'll always be a Patriot," Kraft said.
Vrabel
joined the Patriots as a free agent in 2001. His signing remains one of the
greatest in team history. Although he finished his playing career
as a member of the Kansas City Chiefs, Vrabel will forever be remembered as a
Patriot. He was a
three-time Super Bowl champion (XXXVI, XXXVIII, XXXIX), as well as a Pro Bowler
and first-team All-Pro in 2007. He was selected as a member of the New England
Patriots 50th Anniversary Team, as well as the Sports Illustrated All-Decade
Team (2000–2009).
Throughout his
time in New England, Vrabel defined the word ‘versatility.’ He primarily started at both inside and outside
linebacker. Unsurprisingly, he mentioned fellow positional teammates — and
Patriots Hall of Farmers — Tedy Bruschi and Willie McGinest with helping him to
quickly learn and enact New England’s playbook.
"Coming here, as a guy that never
started before, I wanted to prove that I could do it," Vrabel said.
"I wanted to show guys like Bruschi, and McGinest that I belonged here.
I'm so proud of what we accomplished together."
New England
Patriots Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony for Mike Vrabel (far left) and Dante
Scarnecchia (bottom right)
Photo Cred: CBS Sports
Though Vrabel
earned his induction through his prowess at linebacker, he often aligned on
offense in short-yardage and goal-line situations. As a Patriot, Vrabel
caught eight regular-season passes and two more in the playoffs. All 10 of his
receptions were for touchdowns, including scoring receptions in back-to-back
Super Bowl wins over the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl XXVIII and
Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl XXXIX.
In fact, even Patriots coach Bill Belichick
was caught by surprise with regard to the success the team had in using Vrabel
as a pass catcher. "I kept saying 'They know we're not going to run behind
Mike' [as a tight end,] Belichick said at the dais with a quizzical grin.
"This can't keep working. But it did," the Pats coach added as he knowingly
glanced at Vrabel sitting near him.
"He
[Vrabel] was one of the most efficient receivers of all time," said, Kraft
while offering his take on Vrabel's pass-catching prowess. "He was also a
pretty good linebacker too.”
Still, Vrabel remains cognizant that his success, along
with that of the Patriots' dynasty, is due largely in part to the true and
total concept of "team" embodied by both coaches and players.
"Nothing was more important than the
team," Vrabel said of his time in New England. "Not your feelings,
not your stats, not your paycheck, not what you’ve done in the past.”
In
turn, Belichick echoed those sentiments when speaking about Vrabel, as well as
coach Dante Scarnecchia, who was also honored as a Patriots Hall of Fame
enshrinee earlier in the ceremony.
"The way that
both Dante and Mike felt about the team and their unselfishness and their
commitment to the team — T-E-A-M team — in every sense of the
word, puts them on a level with very few others," Belichick said.
Accordingly, the lessons Belichick imparted
to his players are the same which Vrabel is now teaching to his Titans roster.
Like his mentor before him, the sixth-year head coach is putting his
"team" first.
“Whether you agreed or disagreed with him, you ended up
respecting him ... because you know that every decision he made was with the
best interest of the team in mind," Vrabel said. "That's what I try
to do as a coach now in Tennessee every day"
While Vrabel will return to his duties as
Titans head coach almost immediately following Saturday's ceremony, the
47-year-old was honored to be welcomed back into the Patriots fold -- even if
only for a brief few hours. With the Patriots taking a unique approach to
the induction process, fans are allowed to make the final selection for
enshrinement via online fan voting. Despite getting the call on his seventh
season as a Hall finalist, Vrabel knows the value of the well-deserved red
jacket he will proudly wear from this day forth.
"Maybe the seventh time was the charm, Vrabel said
with a laugh. "I'm really appreciative of this ... This is an unbelievable
honor."
