The Mike Vrabel era has officially begun in New England.
After a few messy years since the departure of quarterback Tom Brady, and then finally Bill Belichick, it is now up to Vrabel to turn the page, starting a new chapter for the franchise that hopes to once again reach the heights of its previous iteration.
Vrabel knows plenty about what it takes to get the Patriots to the Super Bowl because he’s done it before as a player, and he’s not the only one in the current NFL coaching ranks to have done so. Former Cardinals coach Kliff Kingsbury, now the offensive coordinator for the Commanders, crossed over with Vrabel for a year in New England that ended with a ring. On Wednesday, their current teams faced off against each other in a joint practice tune-up ahead of their preseason game this weekend.
When Vrabel was asked what he remembered about his time lining up against Kingsbury in practice, he got straight to the point.
“He wasn’t better than Tom Brady,” Vrabel told reporters on Wednesday.
He then when on to praise the job Kingsbury has done since becoming a coach.
“Kliff’s a good friend. I mean there’s a handful of coaches over there that I’ve played with in the league whether that’s a year, or in Larry [Izzo]’s case, eight years. So, they’ve got a good staff, they’ve got a good mix of guys that played in this league and other guys that didn’t, but that’s a good coaching staff that they have.”
Joint practices didn’t go entirely smoothly, as Vrabel got in the middle of a scuffle between players and left with his face slightly bloodied, but that is the nature of prepping for the NFL season.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Mike Vrabel Bluntly Summed Up Thoughts of Former Teammate Kliff Kingsbury.
