Mike Vrabel Has the Perfect Template for Turning Milton Williams Into the Pro Bowler the Patriots Need Him to Be

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As expected, Free Agency has been Mr. Vrabel's Wild Ride in Foxboro so far. Unlike last year, they outspent everyone. Which historically has had a direct, positive effect on the Won/Loss record:

And they've been at or near the top of the grade charts of the football intelligentsia:

Granted, there's a long way to go. While Morgan Moses seems like he's going to bring stability, leadership and competence to the right side of the offensive line:

… right now there's just him and Michael Onwenu. The other 60% of Drake Maye's protection is, at the moment, AI-generated. 

And as encouraged as we can be about the best season of Mack Hollins' career (57 catches, 690-yards, 4 TDs) coming on Josh McDaniels' watch in Las Vegas, that was a while ago. And unlike that Raiders team, this wide receiver room suffers from a deplorable lack of Davante Adams. So there's tons of heavy lifting still to do on what has been a Bottom 3 offense the past two seasons. 

Of course, the easy thing to do is just rattle off a list of everything that's wrong here. But that's not me. I'm not wired to be the guy in every SciFi movie who's only purpose is to put the level of peril they're in into words. "Our shields are down! They're closing in! We're doomed!" is not the content I'm here for. I'm all about finding a way out of the danger and conquering worlds. Like we did during Patriots Dynasty: The Original Series.

And for that, I turn to this item, about the highest paid Patriots player of all time. (Yes, I'm still wrapping my brain around that.) And the best head coaching hire of the 2025 offseason. Because it turns out Mike Vrabel and his staff have the perfect plan for making Milton Williams a Pro Bowl defensive tackle. Because they've done this before:

Source - The Patriots' vision for how they plan to employ defensive tackle Milton Williams will likely have shades of what Vrabel did with Jeffery Simmons in Tennessee -- moving him all over the line to isolate advantageous matchups.

Vrabel hinted at that when he said: "I think we've been able to put players like Milton, in our history of coaching, in good spots to be productive and make plays that can help the team win."

Williams, who played just 48% of the snaps last season in Philadelphia, seems energized by the challenge.

"I want to be known as doing it all, versatile, Swiss Army knife -- line up anywhere and be productive from any spot," he said.

This explains why the Pats opened Free Agency going so hard in the paint after this one guy. They know he can be a game changer for the worst pass rush in the league because Vrabel and Terrell Williams coached the likes of him before in Jeffery Simmons, who was a Pro Bowler in his third and fourth seasons. By that fourth year, he was the age Milton Williams is now, and was Top 10 in the league in Pro Football Focus overall grade and pass rush grade and seventh in total pressures at his position. Make that positions, as Vrabel and Terrell Williams moved him around like a Stratego piece to find the most advantageous matchups:

Bear in mind as we use Simmons as the model, Milton Willams was 10th in the league in total pressures despite the fact he was used less than half the time by Philly. With the fourth highest win rate of 17.6% and PFF's highest pass rush grade. Now you line him up next to and between Christian Barmore and Keion White, both of whom are still emerging talents, and the days of seeing guys like Justin Herbert not even have to throw their uniforms in the laundry hamper after a three-hour game are over. As are the days of going 4-13. 

So thanks to Mike Reiss for the apples-to-apples comp at play here. And to Vrabel for doing what he set out to do, which is rebuild this roster from the trenches, out. Now give us an O-line and someone who can get open for Maye and we'll be in for the kind of summer we miss around here.