“He’s going to have an opportunity to have an incredibly significant and cool role with the Patriots.”
Mike Vrabel has already secured his three top coordinators in New England in Josh McDaniels (offensive coordinator), Terrell Williams (defensive coordinator), and Jeremy Springer (special teams coordinator).
But the Patriots’ new head coach has also reportedly brought in his own “Ernie Adams” — with ESPN’s Mike Reiss reporting Sunday that Vrabel was expected to add Rams game management assistant John Streicher to his staff moving forward.
Adams was Bill Belichick’s longtime confidant and research director in New England, serving as a key resource for the Patriots’ head coach when it comes to clock management, scouting, in-game decisions, and much more.
Streicher will seemingly serve a similar role with Vrabel, who worked with him in a variety of roles while on the Titans. Streicher was Tennessee’s assistant to the head coach (2018-19), football development coordinator (2020-22) and director of football administration (2023) before joining the Rams for the 2024 season.
While New England has yet to announce Streicher’s hiring, Rams head coach Sean McVay confirmed that Streicher was leaving Los Angeles to join New England while speaking to reporters on Thursday.
John Streicher broke my heart and went back with Vrabel,” McVay noted. “We kind of knew that, but what a great job he did with us. He’s going to have an opportunity to have an incredibly significant and cool role with the Patriots. Grateful for the year that we had with him.”
Streicher was a reliable resource for Vrabel during his time in Tennessee, helping the Titans head coach exploit several loopholes and control the clock in critical situations.
During Tennessee’s victory over the Patriots in the 2019 AFC Wild Card round, Vrabel — who had Streicher in his ear — took nearly two minutes off the clock without running a single play in order to limit the amount of time Tom Brady and New England had to try to orchestrate a late-game comeback
They managed to do so by calling for an intentional delay of game and an intentional false start during a punt situation in the fourth quarter — drawing the ire of Belichick in the process for exploiting a loophole that
