Before Mike Vrabel was an AFC Champion head coach, he was a lowly 39-year-old linebackers coach working his way up the ladder for the Houston Texans coaching staff.
The Texans were the first NFL team to hire Vrabel after he cut his teeth for three years coaching for his alma mater, the Ohio State Buckeyes.
During his time with the Texans, Vrabel worked closely with the best linebacker in franchise history, Brian Cushing.
Cushing joined the “Fitz and Whit” podcast to share a story from their time together with two other former players, hosts Ryan Fitzpatrick and Andrew Whitworth.
“Mike would play middle linebacker on the scout team. He would rush the passer — and he would put the red helmet cap on for the scout team look,” Cushing said. “Pre practice, we’d have our walk-through and he would be the scout team running back.
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“He’d be running full speed, lowering his shoulder, just trying to run people over with no pads.”
As Patriots fans now know, Vrabel is a very hands-on coach when it comes to developing his defense.
Turns out that approach started to wear on the Pro Bowl linebacker.
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“It’s like Week 4 of 5, he’s talking s—, acting like he’s scoring, doing high knees, spiking the ball,” Cushing said. “He came through one time in the B gap, and I just put my shoulder into his chest as hard as I could.
“He hit the ground, beanie flew off! He wasn’t going to act like it hurt, but I knew it hurt him. I went back to the huddle, and Romeo Crennel was just crying laughing, and he said, ‘I’ve been waiting for 18 years for someone to do that to him.'”
Crennel was Vrabel’s defensive coordinator during the Patriots’ three Super Bowl-winning seasons in the early 2000s.
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Featured image via Robert Deutsch-Imagn Images
