Mike Vrabel and Jim Harbaugh are both experienced coaches in the NFL, and yet they have never squared off against one another. When the former became a head coach in 2018, the latter had already left the league to coach at his alma mater, Michigan.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, they will cross paths for a first time when Vrabel\u2019s New England Patriots play hosts to Harbaugh\u2019s Los Angeles Chargers in the wild card round of the playoffs. Though they lack familiarity with one another, they did not shy away from exchange pleasantries heading into the meeting \u2014 pleasantries that give an interesting insight into how Vrabel and his team are viewed outside of New England.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing that sticks out to me, it\u2019s like his teams play like he played,\u201d said Harbaugh about his Patriots counterpart. \u201cI do notice that. Tough, gritty, physical, smart, fast. They kind of like to hit like he liked to hit. That\u2019s what I\u2019ve noticed.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Harbaugh is unfamiliar with going up against Vrabel the coach, he squared off against Vrabel the player on three occasions between 1997 and 1998. Harbaugh was quarterback in Indianapolis and Baltimore, Vrabel a linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers.<\/p>\n
Almost three decades later, they will meet again albeit in vastly different capacities. The play on the field, meanwhile, will be determined by a new generation of players \u2014 one including MVP candidate Drake Maye as the Patriots\u2019 quarterback.<\/p>\n
Harbaugh, himself a veteran of 145 NFL starts at the position, naturally knows a thing or two about QB performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust really effective in every part of the quarterback play,\u201d he said about Maye. \u201cThrowing with accuracy, throwing outside the numbers, deep, in the middle, athleticism, poise, toughness, durability \u2014 everything. It\u2019s been a great year for him by any quarterback standard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harbaugh singing the Patriots\u2019 praises has not been a one-way street this week. Vrabel himself also spoke highly of the Chargers and their coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey play great defense,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re very sound. They\u2019re good tacklers. They\u2019re physical. They get off the field on third down. They\u2019re good in the red zone. They run the football. It\u2019s a physical football team. They possess the football. They lead the NFL in time of possession. They have very good quarterback play. They\u2019re well coached. They play with technique and fundamentals. The game, it doesn\u2019t \u2013 they don\u2019t panic one way or the other. They kind of stick to their game plan, wear you down and execute in critical situations. So, a lot of respect for them and certainly what they\u2019ve done in a short amount of time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mike Vrabel and Jim Harbaugh are both experienced coaches in the NFL, and yet they have never squared…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2064],"tags":[241,7,1014,262,2444,2443,52113,91604,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-661229","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-chargers","8":"tag-chargers","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-los-angeles","11":"tag-los-angeles-chargers","12":"tag-losangeles","13":"tag-losangeleschargers","14":"tag-new-england-patriots-first-read","15":"tag-new-england-patriots-playoffs","16":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115854115133974782","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}