After a record-setting career at Ohio State, Mike Vrabel struggled to find his place with the Steelers. The instincts were there. So was the IQ. But, Pittsburgh never quite figured out what to do with him. Bill Belichick, though, had a different read. He saw a linebacker who could handle multiple roles and think like a coordinator. Inside the Pats building, Vrabel’s value was clear. “Mike certainly was not the fastest of linebackers,” Troy Brown, his Patriots teammate for seven years, had said, “but because he had such a great knowledge of the game and he knew what was asked of him mentally, he was on the same page with Tom and Bill.”
There was this thing about him: he couldn’t sit still. Drew Bledsoe called him a “Labrador puppy” because Vrabel had so much energy, he’d go nuts if he didn’t burn it off. So, before games, he’d run routes for Bledsoe just to settle down, and Bledsoe would happily toss him passes. Vrabel wasn’t shy about pushing boundaries. At one practice, he showed up wearing Giants gear—an unmistakable jab at Belichick’s past. On the field, he’d call out Brady after defensive stops and didn’t hesitate to spike the ball right beside him following interceptions, making his presence felt loud and clear.
The trust in Vrabel was such that the former Patriots head coach started sliding him into tight end reps at practice, where Tom Brady threw passes to him. Vrabel’s routes weren’t sloppy. His hands? Surprisingly reliable. But Brady was not impressed.
Initially, the Patriots’ approach to use Vrabel as a tight end didn’t go well. During a practice session, Vrabel broke free into the end zone and screamed, “Tom! Tom! Tom!” all while waving his hands toward Brady. Everyone could hear Vrabel. But Brady decided to throw the ball elsewhere.
The Patriots had recently acquired Vrabel from the Steelers, and he was excited for his new role. But when Brady chose to ignore him, he sat wondering why the ball didn’t come to him. Brady barked at Vrabel, saying he was going to throw, “whoever the f— I want.” Brutal. That wasn’t a great start for Vrabel’s new role. But he received the message very well.
“He’s like, ‘Mikey, don’t ever wave your arms when you’re open ever again. I’ll never throw you the ball,” Vrabel recalled. “And I’m like, Randy (Moss) does it all the time. And he’s like, ‘I know who’s open. That’s my job.’ So I never waved and said I was open ever again.” Noted! Mike Vrabel was excited for his new role, no doubt. But Brady surely didn’t know that he was trying to copy Randy Moss.
If there was anything that Moss was known for, it was his confident and assertive on-field demeanor. And yes, that included signaling for the ball by raising his hand, even though he wasn’t even past the defensive backs, literally. Take the 2004 season, for instance. The Vikings were taking down the Falcons.
Daunte Culpepper drops back, eyes Moss downfield. Before Moss even cleared his guy, he waved, “Hey, throw it here.” Culpepper didn’t hesitate and fired a laser right at Moss’s spot. And the result was a touchdown. A 67-yard pass. Classic Randy. And it’s just one such instance. Former Falcons corner DeAngelo Hall has a history of having been on the wrong end of a memorable Moss-hand raise.
He simply put it this way: “I got Moss right where I want him. He threw the hand up—I heard rumors about the hand — he threw the hand up. So I’m like you know, we about to jump ball, we about to jump for it. Man, I promise you, that dude … is the real deal. All y’all T.O. fans — Moss is the real deal. … I finally got a hand on him in the end zone about 70 yards later.”
It did make sense that Mike Vrabel was trying to achieve something legendary. And in many ways, he did achieve it.
When Mike Vrabel switched his role to a tight end
“I think every pass we threw to him was a touchdown.” That’s what the Patriots’ former offensive coordinator, Charlie Weis, said about Mike Vrabel, the tight end. Over the course of his tenure with the Patriots, Vrabel caught 10 passes and, yes, he returned all of them for touchdowns.
The guy was part of the Super Bowl XXXVIII campaign against the Panthers when he caught a 1-yard touchdown pass from Tom Brady. The current Patriots head coach became the first defensive player to ever score a touchdown in the Super Bowl. But that wasn’t all. Fast forward to Super Bowl XXXIX, and Vrabel caught yet another touchdown from Brady.
It was a two-yard touchdown pass against the Eagles. This reception made him one of the 17 players to catch two or more touchdown passes in the history of the Super Bowl at that time. And he did it as a defensive player. “We didn’t know he was going to become the guy who had all these touchdowns … in the playoffs and Super Bowls, but it worked out,” former Patriots linebacker Willie McGinest recalled.
“He was definitely reliable, and he made the big plays in the big games. So, we couldn’t mess with him after that. He proved his point.” Vrabel wrapped up his career (on the offensive side of the ball, of course) with 12 receptions, which he returned for 12 touchdowns. It’s safe to say that a temporary role, which started with Tom Brady avoiding him during practice, established Mike Vrabel as one of the most reliable receivers for the Patriots.
The post “I’ll Never Throw You the Ball”: When Tom Brady Sent Final Warning to Mike Vrabel After Copying Randy Moss appeared first on EssentiallySports.