Images courtesy of The New England Patriots
SANTA CLARA, CA – In what could be a great omen for this Sunday, Mike Vrabel won NFL Coach of the Year, Josh McDaniels won Assistant Coach of the Year and Drake Maye earned the FedEx Air Player of the Year at NFL Honors on Thursday night.
Maye missed out on the NFL MVP Award to Matt Stafford by just one vote.
Vrabel is now a two-time NFL Coach of the Year and continues to add to this remarkable chapter of team history. Vrabel has led the Patriots from 8-26 the last two seasons to 17-3, one win away from an improbable seventh ring in such a short amount of time.
In his usual fashion, Vrabel commended those around him first and foremost. The Pats head coach wasn’t at the event, but pre-recorded a message holding the award.
“Ultimately, my name will go on this award, but this award belongs to a building, it belongs to a staff,” he said. “Ultimately, it belongs to the men in the locker room who believed when they couldn’t always see it, and also bought in when it wasn’t easy. I appreciate that and everything they do. We did this together and I’ll always be thankful and grateful to be your coach.
“I’d like to thank Robert and Jonathan Kraft and everybody in our building that helped us win, on and off the field.”
Vrabel also had a shoutout for John ‘Stretch’ Streicher as well, who feels like (possibly) the next New England Ernie Adams.
“To Stretch, the world may know who you are, but they’ll never know the impact that you made on our team, my family and obviously, me,” said Vrabel. “For that I’m grateful.”
The team also put out a video of players speaking to Coach Vrabel individually, creatively put together by the content team.
“Just want to appreciate you for changing this this year, changing this organization, said Maye. “Nobody we’d rather play for. I know a lot of people in that locker room feel the same way.”
“The things you taught this team and individually, it’s been everything and more,” added K’Lavon Chaisson.
“Haven’t met a more influential coach in my life than him,” Harold Landry III said.
Meanwhile, the tandem of McDaniels and Maye has been phenomenal this season. It is a at least a little shocking that it’s all clicked this quickly, but McDaniels is more than deserving of his award.
Pats fans should hope that Maye takes the ‘other’ award as disrespectfully as Brady would on the game’s biggest stage. While Stafford only won by a vote, if you’re going by the literal definition of ‘Most Valuable Player,’ this one was pretty clearly Maye.
“Well, Josh has done a fantastic job,” Vrabel said during his final pre-Super Bowl media availability on Thursday. “And usually any coach’s success or recognition is going to come from the fact that the players executed, they played well and they did what was coached. And sometimes that happens and sometimes it doesn’t, but I would be extremely excited and happy for Josh if he were to win, just like I would be for Stef [Stefon Diggs], TreVeyon [Henderson], Drake [Maye] and everybody else.”
Maye also spoke in the morning and talked about his favorite part of this week so far.
“Yeah, favorite part of this week is just being with teammates, just being in the hotel for a week, getting to experience a lot of time,” he said. “We had the O-line dinner last night, and it’s an experience. You feel like you’re kind of living with your best friends again in college, in training camp, back in high school.
“You feel like you’re just around your teammates 24-7. It’s something that makes the experience just more special.”
The team put out a picture of Maye after the MVP snub saying ‘Bigger trophy on the mind.’
If Maye does indeed use this like Brady did, the Pats will leave Santa Clara with a seventh Lombardi.
At the very least, guys can now go into the biggest game of their lives knowing they have the best head coach and assistant coach in the NFL in their corner.
America’s worst nightmare is officially 60 minutes from being all the way back.