To the flip-side of every celebration in the joy of victory is a moment of coping with the agony of defeat. New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel put on a master class in how to handle the latter.
After the Patriots’ Super Bowl 60 loss to the Seattle Seahawks, Vrabel waited outside of New England’s locker room to greet every player as they came off of the field. A video clip that the NFL shared on social media showed the Patriots’ head coach giving a handshake to every player, embracing a few others and reminding them to stick together as a team through the disappointment.
‘We got to be pissed together,’ Vrabel said. ‘Hey, 307 days. That’s all we got. We just played 307 days. We got a lot more football left in our program.
‘This (expletive) sucks. But we gotta be pissed together.’
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Vrabel’s tradition of greeting players after a game dates back to his days as the head coach of the Tennessee Titans. He does it after every game – win or loss – as a way of expressing his gratitude and appreciation for the players.
The 2025 Coach of the Year winner previously won the award in 2021 with Tennessee. This year, Vrabel’s first with the team he used to play for, he led the Patriots to a 14-3 record and an AFC title after back-to-back seasons in which New England won just four games.
Prior to his coaching career, Vrabel had a 14-year career as an NFL linebacker. He played eight of those 14 seasons with the Patriots and won three Super Bowls with New England. Had the Patriots won Super Bowl 60, Vrabel would have been the second person to ever play and coach the same team to a championship (Gary Kubiak, Broncos).
Vrabel has also had the experience losing a Super Bowl as a player, when New England lost Super Bowl 42 to the New York Giants. As he dealt with the agony of defeat in the wake of Super Bowl 60, a bitterness especially potent after losing a championship game, he showed his players how to handle it – with unity instead of division.
As Vrabel told safety Jaylin Hawkins after the game, ‘We got to make sure that whatever happens in there (the locker room), that we’re pissed together, okay? One team, pissed.’
