The New England Patriots will be searching for their next head coach after firing Jerod Mayo on Sunday.
Former Tennessee Titans coach Mike Vrabel and current Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson are the top candidates for any and all head coaching vacancies across the NFL.
Vrabel has a history with the Patriots franchise, winning three Super Bowls as a player, and he has experience calling the shots as a head coach. However, Johnson has a ceiling that hasn’t even come close to closing as one of the most creative offensive minds in the game.
The Patriots would be lucky to land either Vrabel or Johnson, but does New England fit the criteria for the latter to leave Detroit?
According to Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer, Johnson has two specific criteria he is looking for teams to fill in order for him to leave the Lions and accept a head coaching position elsewhere.
“Number one, he’ll want a team that’ll create alignment between the head coach and general manager,” Breer wrote on Dec. 19. “Number two, he’ll want to work for an owner who is willing to honestly identify his/her team’s weaknesses and address them aggressively.”
Do the Patriots check those boxes?
As it stands, Eliot Wolf looks likely to retain his role as executive vice president of player personnel. Does Wolf have the chops to bring in the right players via trade, free agency, or the draft? Time will tell. New England used to be a premier destination for free agents, but the Patriots have had a hard time landing big-name targets in the last couple of years. Maybe knowing Drake Maye is the quarterback of the future could help snag a few players this offseason.
The second is whether Johnson believes Robert Kraft truly has the franchise’s best interest at heart and will spend the necessary money to give whoever takes over as head coach a roster capable of lifting the team out of the AFC East cellar and winning more than four games.
In Kraft’s statement about his decision to fire Mayo, the Patriots owner addressed expediting the team’s return to “championship contention” as a priority for the franchise. That’s a huge first step, not Kraft has to allow Wolf to spend the money to get the right pieces.
Of course, this could all be moot, and Johnson could once again decide to stand pat and stay with Detroit, like he did last offseason, instead of taking a chance on a franchise that has not made the playoffs in four of its last five seasons.
