Jets' Aaron Glenn, Patriots' Mike Vrabel: Two similar coaches who are much more than tough talk
Jets coach Aaron Glenn and Patriots coach Mike Vrabel. Credit: Jim McIsaac; AP/Chris O'Meara
FLORHAM PARK, N.J.
The Sept. 23, 2001, contest between the Jets and Patriots at the stadium in Foxborough was one of the most impactful games in the history of this AFC East rivalry. That was the day Mo Lewis knocked Drew Bledsoe out of the game in the fourth quarter of a Jets win but paved the way for his replacement, Tom Brady, to begin a two-decade reign of terror on the league and the Jets in particular.
There was another significant moment that day too, certainly underappreciated at the time.
It marked the first time in which Aaron Glenn and Mike Vrabel met while playing for these two teams. Both had already been in the league for a bit at that time but Glenn, in what would turn out to be his last year in New York, and Vrabel, a linebacker just acquired from Pittsburgh that offseason, hadn’t both been part of the on-field feuding until that fateful game. It would happen just once more, later in the season, before Glenn left as an expansion draft pick of the Texans and Vrabel would go on to become a bedrock of the New England Super Bowl runs.
Now they are back.
On Thursday night, in what feels like a lifetime removed from that afternoon in 2001, Glenn and Vrabel will return to Foxborough to face each other again. This time they will do it as head coaches, each in their first season with the team, each trying to bring success and pride to the organization for which they once starred as players.
The few who have played for both men told Newsday they see plenty of similarities between them. It’s not surprising since both played in the same era, both were defensive stars, and both were groomed under the same coaching styles with Glenn a Bill Parcells disciple and Vrabel having played for Bill Belichick.
Jets defensive tackle Jowon Briggs was with the Browns last season where Vrabel, a year removed from being fired as head coach of the Titans, was serving as a consultant . . . and a linebacker.
“For the first few months there I was on scout team and Coach Vrabes actually headed that up,” Briggs said. “He took control of it. Sometimes he’d even be the extra guy giving the look. He’d be out there with us.”
Briggs said he got to know Vrabel a little before that, too. When he was playing at the University of Cincinnati he said Vrabel would stop by to hang with then Bearcats head coach Luke Fickell; Vrabel had been teammates with Fickell at Ohio State.
Briggs was traded to the Jets during training camp and sensed right away that his new coach had a lot in common with his old one.
“They’re very personable,” he said. “They are guys who care about their players and guys who want to do things the right way. That’s something I as a younger player can respect in a coach.”
Older players do too. Nick Folk was Vrabel’s kicker in Tennessee 2023. Now the 41-year-old is Glenn’s kicker here with the Jets this year.
“Everyone has their own unique way they want their football team to look, run, play,” Folk said. “There are a million ways to do it. But [Vrabel and Glenn] are both defensive coaches, both hard-nosed. Both want accountability from everyone. It was fun to play for Mike, it’s been a good time here. I’ve enjoyed it. I’ve learned a lot. I think AG is doing it the right way, but only time will tell for pretty much everyone.”
As for the coaches themselves, there is a respect between them that, well, let’s say hasn’t always existed between head coaches for these two organizations.
“You can really tell Vrabel has his fingerprints on how this team operates,” Glenn said. “I know Vrabel . . . He was always tough, physical, hard-nosed. We are basically from the same tree when you look at the coaches he’s been with and the coaches I’ve been with. So it’s not surprising.”
Vrabel had nice things to say about the Jets, too, especially in light of their win over the Browns on Sunday following a fire sale at the trade deadline.
“A lot of teams or people could have been complaining — ‘Hey, we got rid of one of the best defensive linemen in the league and a corner and everything else’ — and that didn’t show up at all,” Vrabel said. “I saw an energy. I saw an excitement that jumped off the screen.”
In other words, he saw Glenn.
When these two first met in the context of this rivalry in 2001 it turned out to be a paradigm-shifting event that absolutely no one saw coming and few recognized in the moment. The Patriots have pretty much had the upper hand since and with their MVP-caliber second-year quarterback Drake Maye, a seven-game winning streak and in first place in the division, it feels a lot like they still currently do.
“We have our own blueprint of what we are trying to build here and everybody is different,” Glenn said, “but obviously they are doing a good job at what they are doing.”
If history tells us anything about whenever Glenn and Vrabel are on the field against each other in Foxborough, though, it is that something significant tends to happen.
Who knows? Maybe one day we will look back on this game like their first clash and say it was when things flipped. Maybe this time it will even be in the Jets’ favor.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
