In the midst of their head coach, Mike Vrabel, being embroiled in a cheating scandal with now-former NFL reporter Dianna Russini that has no doubt taken a toll on him, the New England Patriots are preparing for everything.
And part of preparing for everything includes Vrabel either resigning or being let go.
Now, to be clear, there is nothing to suggest that is on the table at this point, nor are the Pats even thinking about firing him.
But just in case things continue to go south for Vrabel and he decides to step away or the team decides it needs to go in a different direction because of all the drama becoming a distraction, the Patriots are at least thinking about contingency plans.
According to Russ Weakland and Ben Nagle of the Daily Mail, the Patriots’ top choice to replace Vrabel in that scenario would be former Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin.
“The Krafts are extremely loyal and have no intention of firing Mike, nor do they want to see him quit over all this drama,” an insider said to the Daily Mail. “But if these upcoming few months go haywire, and if they are put in a situation of no return, either with the team not doing well or the drama of Mike’s family issues taking over and forcing a decision on Mike’s coaching future, the one person that they would seek to replace him would be Mike Tomlin.”
The Patriots even have a second choice if Tomlin were to say no, and that’s offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels.
“However, if Tomlin did not want to return to coaching after his TV stint, the source continued, the team might consider coach Josh McDaniels to be Vrabel’s replacement,” Weakland and Nagle said.
Mike Vrabel resigning would be an interesting scenario, to say the least.
Mike Tomlin would be as good a replacement as the Patriots could hope for in such a wild situation.
Before resigning from the Steelers earlier this offseason, Tomlin was one of the most well-respected and well-liked coaches in the NFL.
He never had a losing season in Pittsburgh and won a Super Bowl with the franchise.
The only blemish was his lack of playoff success later in his tenure, but that didn’t change the high opinion of him throughout the league.
That said, it remains to be seen if Tomlin would even be open to such a situation.
After all, he chose to take the year off in 2026. If not, Tomlin would have gotten another job immediately.
Now, Tomlin has been hired by NBC to work as a studio analyst for “Football Night in America” as part of the network’s NFL coverage.
We would assume there’s an out in his contract just in case he were to get an opportunity to coach again. But, if so, would he actually take it this soon?
We can’t say for sure, but the Patriots are a very attractive job, with a good team led by a franchise quarterback in Drake Maye who just got his team to the Super Bowl last season.
If there’s any gig he would drop NBC for this quickly, it might be New England’s.
As far as McDaniels is concerned, you couldn’t have a more polar opposite of a second option.