Mike Vrabel has a chance to do right by star defender held back by bad coaching

The New England Patriots are transitioning with Head Coach Mike Vrabel running the on-field show and hopefully taking control of the whole kit-and-caboodle, including personnel. Vrabel is now on the hotseat. He’s the new sheriff in town, and he’s responsible. Sure, he’d want it no other way.

The current roster and how to use his players are included in inheriting that mantle, a component of the evaluation and analytical process. Vrabel is limited in that he only has a handful of top or close-to-top-level players on hand. Fortunately, he has a quarterback, and that’s a good part of the battle.

Vrabel’s decisions on what to do with certain players, e.g., in or out, and how to utilize those he has are also key components. The latter is the subject, as it relates to one of Vrabel’s most talented players, Keion White. How he decides to use him will signal if he “gets it” or not. Let’s explore White’s unique situation.

Patriots have misused Keion White for two seasons

Defensive lineman Keion White was drafted in the second round in 2023. He, along with the emerging superstar Christian Gonzalez and Christian Barmore, White’s linemate, are three of the best draft picks by Bill Belichick during his last decade in New England. There weren’t a whole lot of others.

Unfortunately, both for Belichick, Jerod Mayo, and especially for White, he was misused to a fare-thee-well by both those Head Coaches. White is a superb, penetrating defensive tackle in a gap inside. Like Barmore, he’s a handful, even for two interior offensive linemen. One can see the problems it creates for any offense.

Due presumably to the injury to Matt Judon in 2023 in Belichick’s case and certainly by Mayo since Judon and then Joshua Uche were both traded, leaving him with no edges, White was used as a stand-up edge on lots of plays. While he was the team’s best edge, he’s a far better and more effective player inside.

The key question relating to White in 2025 is, will Mike Vrabel be cognizant of this gaffe by his two predecessors and decisively rectify it from the get-go? Or, will he continue the gaffes of Belichick and Mayo, both of whom saw the broom in the past 14 months? Let’s explore this and put Vrabel right on the spot about it.

Vrabel’s decision on Keion White will signal if he “gets it” or not

One of the worst looks for Mayo in 2024 was seeing the 6’4″, 285-pound White, a dominating perpetrating tackle, drop into coverage a la Buddy Ryan’s “46” defense of the 1980s. It may have worked then, but it didn’t for the Patriots and White in 2024. It was a disaster.

White was disenchanted with the whole defensive goings-on last season and made that perfectly clear. Here’s what he said in an interview with Karen Gureghian of Masslive.com,

“I’m going to try to get through these next two games, and then figure it out after that, and see where the cards may lie for my future,” White said. When asked further by Gureghian in the same interview, he responded,

“Just in general. In terms of everything,” White answered. “I mean, anything is possible. It’s the NFL. Anything can happen year to year. It’s a production-based business. It is what it is. You just figure out where you go … something’s gotta change. That’s the way I feel at this point.”

For one of the team’s emerging young stars, it was not what you wanted to hear. Regardless, that whole system and coaching structure are now history. The supposition here, and it’s pure speculation, is that he felt the coaching wasn’t up-to-par and was also disenchanted with how he was used by Mayo, i.e., as an edge, including foolishly being dropped into coverage.

Vrabel’s challenge, to put it simply, is this. First, he has to talk with the young emerging star and find out what the gist of the issue is. Then, he should let him know that he will be used as a penetrating defensive tackle in a gap, utilizing his terrific talent to the utmost.

The feeling is that it’s just the message White wants to hear from his new Head Coach. Hopefully, he’ll be back onboard with the new regime right then and there. Vrabel can’t afford to miss-deploy one of his best defensive players in a position that doesn’t suit him.

The bet is here that Vrabel gets it. He just has to look at the tapes. Hopefully, we see White, along with a healthy Christian Barmore and another young defensive tackle from the draft, wreaking havoc in opposing offensive backfields in 2025. We’ll see. It’s there for the taking.