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Nine days after he was officially introduced at Gillette Stadium as the 16th Patriots head coach, Mike Vrabel has his coordinators locked up.

After announcing Jeremy Springer would be retained as the special teams coordinator last week, Josh McDaniels was chosen as offensive coordinator on Tuesday evening. On Wednesday morning, several reports had Detroit Lions defensive line coach Terrell Williams as Vrabel’s choice for defensive coordinator.

While Williams has never been a coordinator before and will be calling plays for the first time, to say he’s ‘paid his dues’ and has earned this opportunity would be a massive understatement.

After playing nose guard for East Carolina, he began his long coaching journey in 1998 at Fort Scott as their D-line coach. From 1999-2001 he was the North Carolina A&T D-line coach. Williams took over the same position at Youngstown State (2002-2003), Akron (2004-2005), Purdue (2006-2009) and Texas A&M (2010-2011).

In 2012, he got his first shot to coach on an NFL staff when he took over in Oakland as the Raiders’ D-line coach. After serving there from 2012-2014 he took the same role in Miami for the 2015, 2016 and 2017 seasons. When Vrabel took over in Tennessee, Williams joined him in the same role from 2018-2022 before Vrabel named his an assistant head coach for the 2023 seasons while also serving in the same D-line coaching role.

In that first season, the Titans’ defense ranked eighth overall (333.4 YPG), third in points allowed (18.9 PPG), 10th on third down (36.6%) and second in red zone defense (44.7 TD %). In 2019, Tennessee of course made the AFC title game before losing to the Chiefs.

This past season, Williams was with a Lions team that earned the No. 1 seed before getting beaten by Jayden Daniels and the Commanders in the NFC Divisional playoffs.

The lack of pass rush and glaring issues stopping the run at times in 2024 are the two main areas Williams will be tasked with improving once arriving in Foxborough.